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August 28, 2008 - Hurricane Season Bon swa from Haiti, Hope this finds its readers blessed and praying. As many folks know by now, a hurricane just ripped through Haiti. I've seen several here through the years but we had not taken any direct hits here in Ti Goave. We've had floods that were spill overs from other areas. Yesterday we got ours. To lay things a little more in our personal context, I need to go back to Sunday night. Bobby Karraffa was here from New Jersey helping us paint the house that we are leaving. He was to go back Monday afternoon. Sunday night we started hearing news that there was going to be a big strike and protests Monday. The price of staying alive here continues to spiral upward and beyond the grasp of the average person. Ever increasing food and gas prices are cutting many folks out of the loop of life. For a lot of folks in America it's a real pinch, but for many here it's a stranglehold on the neck. Knowing that the country was ripe for major chaos again, we had to consider getting Bobby to the airport before the roads were blocked with burning tires and rusted car bodies. We didn't know if the protests were going to take but we didn't feel we could take the chance. As a general rule, these type protests don't swing into full gear on their first day till 9:00 or so. Bobby didn't fly out till 5 in the afternoon. We figured if we left early, like 4:00 in the morning, we could get him to a safe place in PAP that would take him to the airport and we would be back to Ti Goave by 8:00 AM. And so, Monday morning at 4:00, we began the gauntlet. We made it all the way to the outskirts of PAP with no problem. Then we came up on the shadows of figures laying tires across the road. They were laid across in a straight line and they were pouring gasoline on them. They had not set them on fire yet and one guy seeing us pull up to the line, hesitated a moment and then pulled a couple aside so that we could pass. We said thanks and moved on. Of course we knew that this open door letting us in would be a closed blazing wall of fire by the time we came back. After passing there we were pretty much smooth sailing. We got to an area near the huge market at Croix Bo Sal and the normally congested road was open. It's very rare that we pass through here at 5:30 AM. We were chatting and BLAM!!! BLAM!!!! The window beside me exploded and the window behind me exploded within a split second after. Out of nowhere we were being attacked. Some people at some distance away hurled rocks and bottles as we passed by. Manno kept driving. I never saw anything. It all happened so fast. We were covered in a million shards of glass. Maxo, Reynold and Bobby were in the back and all got minor cuts. I had a beard full of glass. This has happened to many people in Haiti and most drivers can share such stories. Turns out that a small group calling for a strike was in that area and they were mad that most folks were ignoring their strike by being out in the road. Also it gives hoodlums an excuse to destroy property. None of us were seriously hurt and aside from the two windows the car is fine. It could have been much, much worse. If the windshield would have taken the first hit, if Manno would've lost control of the vehicle, if any of us had taken a direct hit from the objects thrown at us, to list a few things that could've turned it into a real tragedy. We got Bobby safely to the house we were going to drop him off at. We didn't have a lot of time to clean up all the glass because we needed to try to get back out of PAP before the fires started. Bobby was good to go. Reynold stayed with him. We took a different road back and were spared any more bottle or rock throwing. We prayed as we got nearer the area where the tires had been laid out. Hopefully they haven't started yet. When we arrived, the tires and would be disrupters of the peace were gone without a trace. From there it was a decent ride back. We have some missionary friends in Grand Goave, Mission of Hope, that had just taken a couple days vacation in the city of Jacmel. It is a town on the southern coast that has a few real hotels with electricity, air-conditioning, Internet and everything. We had thought about going there Monday night for a one day rest. It would be the second time I have slept in a hotel in Haiti. We've been under a lot of pressure trying to get moved. A one day break seemed like a bright spot at the end of the tunnel, but with two windows broken out of our car, that idea would have to wait. Back to Ti Goave. As it turned out, the protests in PAP were not that big and most were broken up by the police, unlike last time. The roads stayed open and traffic flowed. There were several arrests made near the area our windows were smashed. We could've gone in the afternoon and been okay and then gone on to Jacmel with all of our windows intact. We had prayed about it. We did all we knew to do. God is in control whether I have a clue what's going on or not. Truly sometimes I don't have a clue. Had things gone our way, Monday night and Tuesday morning would have found us in Jacmel in a hotel with electricity and no broken car windows. I learned later from our missionary friends that the Internet was down while they were there. As it turned out, Monday night might have been nice, but Tuesday morning we learned that there was a hurricane headed for Haiti. It came on shore in Jacmel, where we would've been. We could've lost more than just two of our windows. News is slow and hard to come by here, but we have heard that Jacmel was hit very hard. I woke up Tuesday morning wondering if there were any big protests going on in PAP. The only news floating around was that there was a hurricane that might hit Haiti. We have had very little electricity over the last few weeks and thus no radio stations broadcasting in the area. I had heard nothing about the hurricane until the morning it came. It was cool and overcast. I welcomed the cool with every sweat gland in my body. The overcast part was dreary. The day went on but the sky remained the same dull gray and rain started to fall. The rain got harder and then the wind began to blow. The spooky thing about the wind was that it wouldn't die down. It just kept intensifying. It didn't know when to stop. It was getting rough and if it didn't settle down, things were going to start breaking. The rain was now coming in huge sheets. Trees were bending. Then ... SNAP ... a huge branch right in front of our house. More branches. More wind. Several trees came up from the roots. We could only watch from our front porch as the wind began taking our street apart. A lot of water was coming into our house through windows that can't be closed. More trees across the street came down. A power pole two houses up from us snapped, but stays in place held by the power lines. Many other poles fell completely. There are power lines all over the ground. We later learned that the eye was over the town next to us at one point. This went on for several hours and into the early evening. At the end of the day, we at the Happy House are all okay, gras a Dieu. It's going to take a few days at least to dig out of all the trees and debris. I'm hoping to be able to get this e-mail out tomorrow. Needless to say there'll be no electricity for a couple of weeks at least. The wonderful service of Haiti's electric company has already prepared us for that, and getting no electricity at all for a couple of weeks won't be too much of a letdown from getting 10 hours a week, sometimes in 5 minute increments. The mess we have been buried under can be cleaned up. We live in a block house with a concrete roof and though we now have a big tree in the back leaning on the house, the house will stand. Many of our friends in the villages that we work in were not so lucky. Many of them live in huts and we are slowly getting the news of flooding and damage in those areas. We are not able to get out there at this point. Many back roads are washed out and several bridges are out. We don't even know how the Ft Royale school did yet. Tin roofs do not do well in high winds. The clinic should be okay. We do know that many huts along the shore going out to Ft Royale were flooded. Some were wiped out. Also several in Ti Ginen. I talked to a missionary friend in Grand Goave and he said the bridge there was about to give. The same bridge that collapsed killing over a hundred people a few years back. The river that passes under it was carrying all sorts of debris from the mountains, including pieces of huts, goats, cows, etc. There have been several areas where people lost everything and had to climb trees and cling to branches. We have already given some food and money to some families that came by today. This would be a great time to have a Happy House Center. I would like to invite a bunch of people to come stay with us here now, but with the owner in town waiting for us to move out, I don't feel that I can invite more people in. We haven't seen the owner since the hurricane. Islande's hut was flooded and they had to find other relatives to stay with. The hut that many of you have stopped at for coconuts got flooded. Ti Keet. Thankfully, for all the damage, so far there have been very few reports of human death. This is not America and we do not have firemen and policemen out working to restore order. We don't even have news crews here yet. They can't get here yet. For now we are cut off from PAP. As to the protests over the high cost of living, they will have to wait as people focus on just living. Many people are homeless tonight, including many of our friends. We can't even get out to where they are at this point. We are going to see how far down the road we can get tomorrow. The needs are overwhelming right now so please pray for us that we can be of good use here. I'm going to stop for now. I am truly thankful that we are still in the land of the living and that we have the friendships and bonds that we have here. I know a lot of folks in Florida with their own hurricane stories. They aren't fun for anybody, but as the old adage goes, what doesn't break us makes us stronger and though I feel tired right now, I do feel stronger and more focused on eternity and yearning for Home. So, here I will sign off for now, Until we get Home, fre Ed