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February 2010 Newsletter Second Edition
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Founder, Donald Douglas DeHart 2/3/1935—4/15/2006
Legacy of serving Haiti began the winter of 1968-69.
Guest writer: Linda Gardner, Eva’s sister.
God bless the FHL supporters. You have been asking Eva for a newsletter of the happenings in the North of Haiti. The last newsletter had just gone out before the earthquake, early for the yearend tax statements. Where to start!
It was raining before Christmas in Cap Haitien, had been raining since the first of December. It stopped raining Christmas day. Eva says “Jesus didn’t want it to rain on His birthday party,” Thank you, Jesus.
It started raining again on Christmas evening after everything was finished, including the clean up and all the thousand guests were home. The rains continued and continued. Standing water, mud slides… and those mudslides bringing homes down the mountain with them (not FHL homes). With all that going on in Cap—here come the Haitians now from Port au Prince and surrounding areas. Their homes are gone and they are truly afraid of PaP now.
The North is putting the injured in a large empty building that they are calling the “gymnasium.” Doctors and medical personnel have come in to Cap as volunteers. They brought medicine and water with them but no one thought of who was going to feed them. So FHL was asked to do the cooking and deliver it to the “gymnasium” with their new truck.
The Haitians from PaP are being very orderly in getting their cooked food, none of the fighting you are seeing on TV. FHL is still doing their food program at the headquarters. Roseline and Presume are back in Haiti now. They were here in Florida for annual medical and dental appointments when the earthquake hit Carrefour (car-foo), ten miles southwest of PaP.
While here Roseline ordered EXTRA supplies for the clinic in anticipation of injured PaP people coming North. In just one day the clinic treated 33 burned PaP people who were mostly street vendors. When the quake hit it knocked the hot oils and hot food onto the folks who were simply making their living with “road-side restaurants.” These 33 were in addition to the normal burn patients coming daily. Very, very busy. The last newsletter reflected the already increasing numbers of patients before the quake. Roseline called in a panic, “the clinic is out of gloves.” God’s timing once again, Eva had just received news that the cargo with gloves was at the airport ready for pickup.
Meanwhile it has been (good) overwhelming here in Florida. I was here helping with yearend stuff on January 12. Those first few days the phone started ringing at 5:00 o’clock a.m. and it rang all day, evening and as late as 12:30 the following a.m. While Eva was on the FHL line, Rosie would be on the personal line and friends would call on Eva’s cell phone. We had newspapers, Mission Network News and other radio stations and even BayNews9 local TV and… ABC news just walked up to the door with camera in hand (probably couldn’t get through the phones).
One day I observed Eva in her office on computer and phone, Roseline in her room ordering supplies on her computer, and Presume talking with people in New York on his MagicJack. Once Digicel got phones working in Port au Prince Presume could finally get through to friends and family in Cap and even his friends in PaP. I was trying to keep friends informed in Indiana on the laptop.
We are so thankful for YOU, your prayers, donations, calls of concern, letters and cards of encouragement. God is good, Praise be to God.
FEEDING
God blessed us with delivery of our containers from PaP on Friday and Sunday before the quake.
In addition to our food program, this is the size of pots of cooked food that has already been delivered to the hospital to feed the injured there—and will be done again on Saturday for the folks in the gymnasium.
HOW?
How do I put into words the feelings of desperation I just heard in Roseline’s voice. It is hard to have a phone call where you try to comfort, because it starts ringing like a new call or the connection is broken and you hear a dial tone without saying good-bye and knowing neither of you will get a connection again until 6 the following morning.
She was given an infant. Mother died in child birth and the father and his other wife were both killed in the earthquake. The relatives all have more children than they can feed and no one wants this helpless infant. Roseline and Presume do not have the setup to handle infants… and this follows all the news reporting that because of a misstep of some people with apparent good intentions the country has closed—no more adoptions until they sort things out.
Listening to the strain in Roseline’s voice as they simply don’t know where to start… is like listening to Don when he used to sigh and say, “I feel like I am playing God, deciding on who will live and who will die.” We are so small an organization and the problems so huge!
The people arriving now from Port au Prince are reporting that the aid is only going into a small selected area and that most of the people down there are starving. They are getting sick from being surrounded by death… disease is spreading rapidly.
Any aid that is received to come north to Cap Haitien or other cities receiving the refugees is hijacked along the way of others who are desperate and take from the trucks. Even the road from Labadie where Royal Caribbean has agreed to bring things into the north — there is only one road to get out there and the people are stopping and stealing from the trucks as they try to deliver to the city.
Desperate people beginning to do desperate things. A whole country being summed up by the media into one word “PortauPrinceHaiti”… Americans are so generous and really wanting to help. We have for the first time in 40 years, a winery doing two fundraisers this month; a Christian concert where all proceeds will come to FHL. A church raising funds for us in February when we were actually on their schedule for December. We have beans on the way, a load we have arranged to buy with another so we both have some food. There are food packets that will be on their way by mid-February. Will we be able to get it to the people or will it be taken on the road before it reaches us.
Please keep us all in your prayers for wisdom on how best to get help to the suffering. Haiti has never had this kind of attention from the world before and yet inside the efforts just seem to be failing, utterly failing, to help those who really need it. It seems to be some sort of master battle between diseases and starvation as to what will win in killing off those who so bravely survived the tragic earthquake.
Listening and reading we already pick up on schedules of how people have started turning their TV’s to entertainment from the needs of Haiti… so if they aren’t watching, the TV crews go home and as Roseline said, “By March all that aid at the airport and on the wharf will be on the streets for sale.”
We struggle to get FHL in line to get our supplies in while the little airline tried to figure out priorities from their bulging hanger. The clinic ran out of gloves—the day that cargo did arrive. Now the problem is no trash bags, they are using the cardboard cargo boxes for bloody bandages but are fast running out of those. I pleaded through IM last night that they at least throw on a box of trash bags for her—that kind of waste just furthers the spread of disease. I got no reply so we will wait to see. I guess it really is a small problem in the overall scope of things. But it is easier to focus on something we can find a solution for than a whole country sick and dying before us.
You continue helping us—please—and we will continue the front line battle and together we will save as many as God makes it possible for us to save and we pray for those we cannot.
The best news to come out of all this is the connection for a great water purification system that is compact, we got a “family price on them” and are distributing to create fifty sites for good water around Cap Haitien. Roseline reports that not only is it healthy but it tastes really good and their skin doesn’t itch after they wash in it. With all the rains there is plenty of water around with the filters it can all be good filtered water.
I was going to search for pictures to give you examples of what the roadside cooking looks like, Linda wanted to put a picture of my busy desk, computer and phones and before this morning I had put in a listing of the fundraisers (which was gone when I opened the newsletter this morning)… but after talking with Roseline this morning, this seemed more important… to share the burden on our hearts and ask you for more help to get more food and medications down there…
Thank you for your prayers and for your generous support, For Haiti, with Love Eva
MEMORIALS
Betty Hutto In Memory of GENE HUTTO, husband Joan and Jim Campbell In Memory of LIBBY, best friend Jean Rodgers In Memory of BILL RODGERS Flo & Otto Schwanemann In Memory of ERIC WORFLER Cassie Herring In Memory of CHERYE & JENNIFER HERRING Bev and Pastor Tim Nehls In Memory of DON DeHART Suzelle & Dr. Pierre Conze In Memory of BERNADETTE CONZE Mr and Mrs Poul Hornsleth Mr and Mrs R W Caldwell III In Memory of BOB CALDWELL Jean Szikszay In Memory of my parents, ALEX & ELIZABETH Millie Tilki In Memory of JEAN LOOS Dave & Kim Tilki In Memory of JEAN LOOS DICK WAMPNER Ms Delores Allen In Memory of REV DENNIS & ALONA ALLEN Linda Gardner and Eva DeHart In Memory of parent’s anniversary BO & MARCELLA
HONORARIUMS Northwood Presbyterian Church Honoring: BILL & JANE SUTTON, RUTH TEAL, EVELYN & PETE TOWNS, CARMELE ANDREWS, LOIS & CARA MARSH, JEAN SWINTEK, DON & JEAN HAMILTON, LYDIA CIRCLE, NAOMI CIRCLE, JAN HEW- LETT, ALLEN & EMILY McMULLEN
Gifts to For Haiti with Love are deductible as charitable contributions. For Haiti with Love, inc. is a Florida not for profit and a 501(c)(3) corporation with IRS, allowing your gifts to qualify as charitable contributions. Year end tax statements are mailed by January 15. Our mailing list is confidential, we do not loan, sell or share!
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e-mail us:  Mission Field Worker: Roseline DeHart Newsletter Editor: Eva DeHart
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