Dear Friends and Partners,

We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from the Christian community. Thank you for being so generous in your giving. In our local community, we have received generous donations of medical supplies from The Deaconess Women’s Hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital, CVS Pharmacy and Walgreens.

Our staff is organizing a multi-phase relief response.

The primary objective is to continue to get food and water to our property to feed the children of the Haiti Christian Orphanage and the additional displaced people who are camping on our property. The Lord has been gracious to us as we have been able to keep these resources present by wiring funds, so the Haitian staff can purchase items including fuel for our generator! Thank you, thank you for your donations!! Now, we need transportation for large donations and transportation for relief teams including medical personnel.

Our second objective is to partner with larger organizations that can provide concrete resources, medical care, and security. These organizations include the US Military, relief organizations and other ministries.

Our third objective is to assess the needs of the Petionville community. Our joy is full knowing that all of the children in the orphanage are safe and unharmed. However, we have many friends in Haiti who have lost loved ones, homes, businesses, and are existing with minimal items. Please remember that HCO is a third generation ministry. This means that we have adults who grew up in the orphanage who have families of their own. We anxiously await reports from these members of our HCO family as we are confident that they will need our assistance with basic needs and reconstruction. We have already heard reports of serious injury and loss of homes.

Additionally, early reports from CNN, Fox News and MSNBC report that as many as 750,000 children may be orphaned due to this disaster. Prior to the earthquake, Haiti had more than 300,000 orphaned children. We anticipate that HCO will become a refuge for more children, which will require more staff in Haiti and an increase in our daily operation. We are ready to answer the call and provide much needed care to the children of Haiti. We will open our doors to as many children as physically possible.

Finally, our ministry is ready to play a pivotal role in the reconstruction process. We understand that military forces will focus on rebuilding structures that are central to restoring infrastructure including government buildings, police departments, banks, and markets. We want to fill in the gaps by helping the average man rebuild a home to care for his family.

If I can offer any words of caution, I would say...don’t become numb to the terrible visuals we are seeing on television. We are inundated with a barrage of violent media on a daily basis from regular television and movies. In essence, the saturation of violence can rob us of our passion for the Haitian people while the disturbing visual images of our Haitian brothers and sisters fly across our computer and television screens. These are real people with inexplicable grief. We need to gear ourselves for a long, sustained effort in Haiti.

Friends, we are on a faith walk. We don’t know all of the specifics, but we are knocking on every door and checking every resource. We do know that since 1968 the Haiti Christian Orphanage has been serving the needs of orphaned children. This is our commission from God, and we will work tirelessly to fulfill the calling that God has given.

May God bless you for your support.

 

He defends the cause of the fatherless...
Deuteronomy 10:18