Dear Friends,

Gas Shortage in Haiti

I am here in Haiti... Delma 83 at a friend’s house. Our Washington DC team is up the mountain in our guest house about 45 minutes away. I am here because there is a gasoline shortage in Haiti that began a day after we arrived. The gas stations are not able to sell fuel and we are almost at a standstill here. I have been spending the late afternoons and evenings facilitating the effort to procure fuel.

The young men who work with us here in Haiti (Jeff, Roman, and David) have been searching day and night to find gasoline any place that they can. It is pitch black outside, and raining, and Jeff just called me to tell me he is waiting outside the house. I need to go and give him some money because he is heading out to look again  later tonight. They talk to friends, and visit gas stations... combing the city. He found 6 gallons of gas earlier this evening...

Our Tap Tap’s fuel gauge was on empty when we discovered that there will be no deliveries to the country until the 26th of April. This means that we have to go 12 days without gas.

What to do... We have a team of volunteers from DC here to who have come for a purpose (airline tickets, support raised by their organization, medicines and other donation items ).


The Search for a House

I arrived Monday April 12th, here in Port-Au-Prince. I have a few definite goals in mind for this trip. The first is to facilitate the Washington DC team, the second is to find a decent house to rent for my wife and family... preferably one with a couple of separate dwelling areas so that we are able to host teams without disrupting the family unit. This was going to be a tall task, because the availability of houses has decreased and the demand for houses has increased... The criteria we are working with is definitely tough too. We need a something out of the norm for a decent price. A fella I know has been looking for weeks and hasn’t found anything less than $2000 per month that his wife feels comfortable renting. Some of these houses are renting for $5000 - $8000 per month.

The first day Jeff picked me up at the airport and brought me to a house in a good area of the city to see a house. This is the house he brought me to:


I looked at the house and wondered if he really knew what I could afford. The caretaker showed me through the house and I realized that this 5 split level home has enough bedrooms for all of my children and family to live upstairs on the top two floors with the rest of the house practically including two bathrooms and a dorm and two common areas available for hosting friends from abroad etc... The house is quite large, but does need work on the walls... and security features, like walls. There have been no noticeable repairs since the earthquake, but the house looks fine. We will have an engineer look at the house as well. When all was said and done... the asking price was $9600... per year. That is about $800 per month. I couldn’t believe that price. “That is too low...” I thought, so I decided to talk the owners. They asked me to come today, so I talked with them... Here they are. They confirmed the price and would like us to rent the house as soon as possible! They rent houses here per year, so that is my next challenge.

I emailed the photo’s to Kristie and she wants the house, so we are going to try to make it work as soon as possible.

Orphanage

I visited with a friend Ricot today. He is a long time friend who was once a youth group member, then a leader, and now a pastor. He works on the south coast of Haiti with his wife. He talked to me about an orphanage near PAP that is run by an elderly Haitian woman. She has 87 children and no outside sponsorship. She needs help and is quite ill with diabetes. I really was impressed to do something and take a look, but alas, my DC team already has plans to work with an orphanage they heard about.... and it turns out that it is the same orphanage... out of how many orphanages in PAP?

More updates to follow... must sleep : )


Shane