Dear prayer partners,

After verifying damages in the north peninsula, Bishop Stenio Capre, president of the board; Pastor Tirat Ovide, vice president of the board; and Pastor Jean Robert Nelson, counselor of the board; made a trip to the south peninsula of the Island from November 7th to 9th. We left Port-au-Prince at 5:00 AM and arrived at our destination at 11:21 PM. The next morning, we woke up at 5:00 AM to pray. After prayer, we went out in the community to verify how much damage the hurricane did.

For the houses that were built with concrete, ninety percent are still standing. For those that were built with softer materials such as palm leaves and corrugated metal sheets, the roofs are destroyed one hundred percent. To avoid dying by the rain, the people hid themselves in caves. (This report is for one town called Dame-Marie and its county.) We need 150,000 metal sheets at 6 feet each and the cost is $5 for each. Though that is the total need, we most urgently $25,000 to buy 5000 metal sheets to cover the roof of a big church in the area so that children, seniors and other people in the neighborhood can have a better place to sleep that protects them from the rain.

Another concern is that the people don’t have much to eat now because of the high winds. Coconut trees, banana trees, avocado trees, orange trees, sugarcane, breadfruit trees, etc., were wiped out by the storms. Only sweet potatoes and yams were not destroyed by the winds because they are underground. Seventy percent of the livestock are dead including goats, cows, chickens, pigs, donkeys and horses. As a matter of fact, we did not see even one bird flying in the air during our investigative trip.

For the 6 next months, the people will be so hungry because of all the destruction. The Haitian Red Cross and some other organizations provide food for some people every day, but not everyone can find it because the organizations don’t get enough food for everyone. We want to help whomever we can. One 100-pound bag of rice costs $40. We need 500 bags of rice, for now, to feed the people temporarily.

A lot of children won’t be able to go to school for the rest of the schoolyear, because the majority of the schools were destroyed by the hurricane. Some of the schools were in church buildings. As of right now, we have a total of 30 churches destroyed by the hurricane, and others damaged in all over the country. We also know that of our members, there are 20,000 houses destroyed and damaged. More than $100,000 is needed to rebuild and repair those churches and houses.

We ask you for your prayers so that God can open doors for us.

If you have any questions or suggestions, you can email us directly in Haiti via: rev.scapre@yahoo.com

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