Good morning:

Thank you for your prayers. On February 5, with a Medical team from Baptist Hospital sponsored by Living Hope Haiti Mission, we went to Double Harvest Hospital in Croix-des-Bouquet, Haiti to provide surgery for those who have suffered from the earthquake and at the same time to perform surgery for those who chronically suffer with hernia, fibroids, and other problems.

Landing in Port-au-Prince was very hard for me for the city has changed for the worst.

Life in Port-au-Prince is tough to say the least. Security is not too much of a concern. People behaved for the most past in a civilized manner.  On the other hand, the city has become a city of refugee camps which are made of makeshift tents. In front of what was once the beautiful National Palace, there are more than half of a million people living in small tents. The picture is not beautiful. Trash is everywhere, no place for people to take a bath or to cook. With the hurricane season just around the corner, one can just imagine.

When I talked to people in Port-au-Prince, they did not hide their frustration with the government.  The Haitian government has faced the hard job of relocating more than one million people from Port-au-Prince.

Fear is the untold problem in Haiti. This problem is yet to be addressed. In Port-au-Prince, Carrefour, Leogane, Jacmel, and Petit Goave, people are not sleeping in their houses even those houses that were not affected.  They are afraid an aftershock will catch them inside their house. They are sleeping in the street. When they are asked how long it will take before they re-enter their house, they said that they do not know.

This earthquake has psychologically impaired people in those cities. They often report they feel the earth shaking (aftershock) and they will scream, when in fact there is no aftershock at the time.

This fear factor goes beyond those cities. In the rest of the country, school is yet to be reopened for parents are very afraid to send their children inside any building for school. To this problem, school administrators do not know what to say and what to do. There is a saying that problems open a way for new ministries. This may be true. There is no doubt, feeding programs and providing health care for the victims of the earthquake is imperative for months to come. Living Hope Christian Ministry will continue to do both as long as we have the available means. However, I call for a very important ministry:  Haitian Pastoral Care Ministry. Thanks to this earthquake, Haitian pastors cannot continue to do church the same way they did it before the earthquake. This is for the following reasons:

There are more orphans in the church and in the community of the church, more widows in the church, but most of all, the church needs to deal with members that have psychological issues due to this earthquake. As a result, pastors need to be trained in bereavement and counseling program. Once again, I call upon the professionals in those fields to join Living Hope Haiti Christian Mission to come down to Haiti to train the church leaders.

I admit that so far my report is not joyful. However, Living Hope Christian Ministry has brought some light in perhaps the darkest moment of Haiti history.

Our medical team from Baptist Health did a fantastic job in performing surgeries on life threatening illness, helping those in the recovery rooms, putting a smile on children’s faces by providing them with toys.

Living Hope Ministry went south from Port-au-Prince to the City of Leogane.  This city of close to 100 000 people has 90 percent of its buildings destroyed and more than 3000 deaths. On Saturday February 6, we went to Leogane to show the love of God. We served close to 200 people in Leogane with bags of food from Feed My Starving Children and we provided families with toothpaste, soap, deodorant, peanut butter, cookies, and other personal and food items. Living Hope has provided each of 200 families with an envelope with some cash.

My trip to Haiti was cut short due to travel difficulties. I did not have a chance to go to Saint Michel to visit our ongoing Habitat construction, visit with those refugees from Port-au-Prince, or review the progress of the opening of our new orphanage. 

Living Hope Christian Ministry has already scheduled March 25 for our next medical trip to Haiti. We plan to go back to Leogane to serve more people. We have opened our schools in Saint Michel to refugee students from Port-au-Prince who are now in Saint Michel.

I want to thank all of the medical teams from Baptist, from the surgeons, nurses, to our fantastic cooks.  Thank you to everyone who has supported Living Hope Haiti Christian Ministry financially and prayerfully. This is continued to be our goal at Living Hope Haiti Christian Mission:   Showing the Love of God.

To His service,

Rev. Dr. Gueillant Dorcinvil,

President of Living Hope Haiti Christian Mission