As our Haiti Relief efforts expand, please continue to keep Paul Emery & the Team in your prayers.  Paul is currently in Haiti to set up our response effort, and to lay the groundwork for coordinated teams to respond to the needs of the victims of the recent earthquake. Brian Steele is coordinating the effort here at Grace while Paul is in Haiti and is working with a team of hard-working volunteers. 

 

The following is an excerpt of am email sent from Paul Wednesday, Jan 20th just after the 6.1 afterquake shook the area again:

"Left Orlando, got to Miami and boarded the plane.  Unknown to me, Francisco had also invited a vascular surgeon who has been to DR often to come, and he brought another surgeon and two anastheseologists (sp?) They were on the lookout for me at Miami, didn't find me, and we ended having seats on the plane next to each other, so we met on the way.

We got to DR, and left for Haiti about noon yesterday after some vehicle issues and packing and loading etc.. We got to the Haiti border about 5pm and stopped at the local check-in point to see about getting across. The World Vision team is in that office, and one of their volunteers turned out to be Grisell, who was one of the Dominican doctors we hosted for Hospice that came with the Sabados! She got us an escort and were off without delay to Port au Prince.  We got to PAP about 8:30, and were taken to a Christian school for the night which has been turned into a coordinating and staging area for medical teams throughout the area.  Another of our DR docs is on staff here, they are bending over backwards to help us. We will be in Petite Goave in a couple of hours.  The news from there is not good, we are taking in some food, some fuel, meds and docs.  So far, the roads are ok for a 40' container.  I will know before lunch about the road from PAP to there.

On another note, the surgeons we are with are from the Tampa area.  They are excited about our mobilization effort and want to help with collecting and also with shipping costs.  They have some big donors and will pay for some containers to ship.

God has been with us every step, putting together relationships, having these Dominicans that we already know in strategic places to expedite our efforts. The Christian school property here is also being used by the US Army as a major command center,, so we will have access, if needed, to have military escorts because of our relationship on this campus, which God prepared ahead of time.

Port au Prince looks pretty bad, we have only seen it at night so far, but there seems to be order, some cleanup is underway, food and water seem to be available.  People all over the place sleeping on sidewalks, parking lots etc.  No electricity.  But it seems that the progress here stops at the city limits, not much is being done anywhere else. Petite Goave is desperate.

Any help we are going to provide needs to be here yesterday.  ( we all just had to run outside as we are still feeling tremors) God is all over our efforts and those of others here, in little ways and big ways.

Keep praying, we are following a powerful God!

Paul