Dear friends,

Thank you for following our progress. We are so happy to be a part of this effort to care for the people of Haiti. At this point the most difficult task is to actually get into Haiti. We have procured a "camión" (large truck) for transporting our goods to Haiti in about 3 hours. I have been trying to get into Haiti for a couple of days, but none of my contacts are willing to take me any farther than the border. I have called in a favor and asked to use this truck. We were in a position that we needed to purchase a battery for the vehicle to make it more trustworthy on the long road to Haiti.

It is almost midnight here and I should be getting a few hours rest, but here I am talking to you… for a few moments. We are in need of more donations because we would like to bring in supplies and a few volunteers on a weekly basis. We have the use of a small guest house here in Santiago, and transportation to Port-au-Prince (PAP) for the next couple/three weeks. I am sure that I will find another way to get supplies in when that dries up.

At this point a real need is for a driver who can speak Spanish. We need someone who will shuttle volunteers and supplies to on a regular schedule. It is about 3 days per round trip from PAP to Santiago, but it is the only/best way to get in at this point.

We were planning to transport diesel in 55 gal drums, but private citizens were doing this and selling the fuel at huge profits. As a result there are no private transports of Fuel allowed.

We have a full tank and 4 containers of diesel plus food and medicine to share with our people on the ground in PAP. We will most likely be staying in the tents we brought with us and working wherever we can find useful things to do.

We have sent a message out to friends in Haiti that we are looking for the birth mothers of our adopted girls (Noelle and Naomi) the girls have asked to know how they are, especially Naomi. I am also interested in looking for friends in my ole neighborhood to see how they are as well. I believe in starting out from family, to friends and all people in need. Ralph (our Nurse) will be whisked away by the Nazarene people to care for the hurting right away, I am sure. I may not see him too much after the first day, except at day's end. The other thing is for us to share about the real story/conditions in PAP and help prepare room and opportunities for people to volunteer by posting on the web.

Please keep bothering people to check out the website and follow along… and contact the Register Gard and other newspapers to follow our story. KVAL is helping a lot—thanks—please ask them to post our link…. I couldn't find it.

Thanks for the prayers,

Shane for Ralph and Megan