Dear Loved Ones and Friends,

Greeting from our dear Haiti. We all have seen Haiti’s earthquake devastation on TV. To see it first hand with your own eyes is totally different thing. 

A month after we returned to Haiti, I went to Port-au-Prince with four missionaries from Brazil, Mexico and Chile. We have been assigned to advise the Haitian Baptist Convention on economic and development matter.

To see how the capital city has been destroyed, streets devastated with rubble and the intercity transportation close to impossible is mind boggling. The missionaries wanted to see some of my women. So I called them in spite that they have been relocated almost all over the city and two days notice was not enough to give them enough time.

Sixty women representing eight churches showed up at Siloe Baptist Church in Delmas 19 where the pastor of the church dies on the day of the earthquake. Those women welcomed us and the missionaries encouraged them with some kind words.

The highlight was the moving testimonies we heard from two women who lost everything. Sister Marie France lost her house, her husband and 3 children (2 boys: 25 & 17 and a girl 22). She is still alive but her spirit will never be the same. She lives in the world of her own that most of us will never imagine. 

Those testimonies brought tears from all of us in the church. The whole service turned into a mourning session. It took me a special courage to stop crying and jump in with a pastoral word to calm the audience. In spite our tears, I led the congregation in a pastoral prayer which was a big comfort to those women who asked that I return to pray more with them and do some individual counseling.    

I privately asked some women how they are surviving this huge crisis. They told me that in spite what has happened to their families and their country, God has not abandoned them. The march in the desert is long and will be long but they still believe that they will see a better day in Haiti. 

As women to whom children, men and the whole family turns to in a time of need, they are forced to forget the crisis and move on with life.  If they focus on the crisis, everybody in their families will end up dying. The idea of knowing that we have people to care for gives them more courage to hang on to life. You see more women on streets selling anything they can to survive. 

Please let us keep our Haitian brothers and sisters in our daily prayers as they struggle to live a day to day life. Pray also for us that God gives us more strength and wisdom to know how to be of help to them.

 Yours serving Him with ABC in Haiti

 Kihomi Ngwemi Nzunga

 

Dear Friends in Christ,

I don’t think I need to add much to this journal.  Kihomi has really captured what those who lost so much in this tragedy face.  I just returned from Haiti and the TV cameras are gone along with most of the aid.  Much was promised but little has been delivered.  It will be up to those who have labored in Haiti for a long time and love these people as the Lord loved us to help them recover.  Never stop praying.  Never stop caring.

Peace,

Dennis Shewell MPT Convener and Communications Advocate