Helpful articles and opinions

I arrived back from Haiti yesterday after a long 26-hours of travel.  David, Gordy and I were down at the Port-au-Prince airport early on Thursday, a day earlier than planned because we had intel that flights out of Haiti would be hard to come by.  This turned out to be true so we turned to Plan B – drive out of Haiti to the Dominican Republic and fly to Florida out of Santo Domingo.  It turned out to be a 9 1/2 hour adventure.  We arrived safely in Orlando on Friday morning.  A fuller recounting of our trip will follow this week.

Our initial assessment is complete and we hope to have some details out to the church in the next week or so.  There is more work to be done on the ground as well.  We were thankful to be in Haiti, to help in big and little ways, and to see that God is at work.  We were all amazed at the resilience of the people and how many are getting back to their normal, difficult lives.

The picture above with the little kids is a microcosm of how people are coping.  These little kids were living in the makeshift tents that now populate every square inch of grass across from the destroyed National Palace.  They were bringing water back to their families for washing and drinking.  They smiled, we spoke with them and they seemed like little kids.

Below are some recent articles and opinions from the last week.  It is apparent that there is much work to be done and hopefully much change to be affected in the coming years.  We know the church will grow, but what about the nation of Haiti?  It waits to be seen.

Haiti needs a new Marshall Plan

Chaotic Aid

Why the buildings fell

Rebuilding Efforts

Challenges of food distribution

(picture from David Nahkla)