Dear Friends of Canaan,
The Lord has been so gracious to us here at Canaan. The hurricane rained down over a foot of water, but as we are up on a hill, we have had no major catastrophe. We found out how old all our roofs are and had a lot of leakage, and there are branches down everywhere, but praise God, no lives lost or injured. For us, it was a steady rain, with wind gusts every so often. We will have a major expense repairing the roofs – both the boys dorm and the girls dorm will need to be changed, as well as most of the others.
Sadly, our surrounding areas have not survived so well. The water from the mountains brought down an unusual amount of water, flooding the river and taking with it houses that were in it’s way, on several occasions with the people in it. Even in areas not close to the river, the water coming down from the hills was too much for the houses. People have been coming to us steadily for help – they need money to bury their dead, food, shelter, clothes, anything because everything they have is gone. We’re trying to get together anything that we can. We’ve started getting specific lists of houses, church buildings, schools that are gone or broken or at risk. And this is just in Montrouis area.
Within one mile of us we have 36 houses gone. People are crowding their neighbour and friends’ houses. Beyond that, within a 5 mile radius, including Montrouis, we have tons of houses gone. These are of course just the ones that have come to us with their help requests or lists – I’m sure there’s many more. The list of one suburb alone, Rousseau, says 21 houses (1-9 room buildings) destroyed, 19 damaged (un-livable), at risk over 96 in total. The school there is also damaged. Another suburb, Perrier, 17 destroyed, 19 damaged, at risk 45. We have the names of at least two churches that are at risk. 50 hectars of cultivated fields are gone. A lot of animals like cows, goats, etc, gone. Almost a 1000 fruit trees were washed away. It made a big crevice so that the mountain people can’t come into town. Part of Montrouis, people living on the sections going up the mountains, had to go further up the mountains because of the crevice dividing the two and of course that’s not home.
Then the bridge just on our side of Montrouis: it’s on Highway one, the main road going to all 5 northern Departments of Haiti, all of which have 40 or more provinces. It now cuts all those off from Port au Prince. The force of the waters eroded the ground under the pillar in the water and sunk one side of it, resulting in the whole bridge now tilting downwards in the middle. After the police left the first night, a big truck dared cross further and sunk it even more. They of course have barricaded the road now – the biggest thing on wheels to pass is a wheelbarrow, and they’re being used a lot to haul all the produce into Montrouis, the market being just on the other side. The buses and taptaps drive till the bridge, and the people can walk over. Yesterday, when we went to see, they had a Cat in the river, piling rocks and gravel towards the middles to try to divert the water from the pillar.
Thankfully we happened to have two of our vehicles on the Montrouis side, so we are able to go into Port to get supplies. The problem with that though, is that we don’t have our truck to haul stuff to people in need. We are at a lost what to do with all the requests. Though we have more than a lot of people, you can imagine with so many people here cash flow is always limited. Maybe you have some suggestions on how to help the needy??? Any help you can offer would be appreciated. International relief seems to focus on Gonaives, where the disaster is awful. I’m sure you know that as well as anyone, since that’s been on the news so much. But there are also a lot of people in other areas, with nothing!!!
May God protect us from the coming hurricanes and storms! With the grounds so soaked, even a minor rain can cause further disaster. Please continue to pray for us and Haiti. May the Lord bless you.
Pastor Henri, Sis. Gladys and the Cananaites
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