Food/St Marc

Hello,

Another week is almost over - and what a week! Our clinic has been very slow; I guess people are either busy with cleaning up their houses, or they lost their money, or they can't travel. Which has allowed me to take some time off from the clinic and go with Sister Gladys to look at what has happened and to go buy food.

After seeing what we did on Wed. we all came home wondering what in the world can we do! Sister Gladys went straight to the containers to see what she could find as far as clothing and things and has kept the guys here busy sorting clothes, etc.

Yesterday, Sister Gladys, Bobi, and I went to St Marc. (Bobi joined us this Tuesday to help me in the Medika Mamba program and will also help out with the adult evening school, and knowing her for the 3 days I do, I have a feeling she'll do lOTS more here. We're fast becoming close friends and she's already a big blessing to me. She's had quite the dramatic Haitian welcome.) Anyway, we used a small pickup of another missionary which happened to be on this side of the bridge. We went to a hardware store where Canaan usually does that kind of shopping because the owner is an unChrisitian friend who is very supportive of Canaan and gives discount prices, etc. He was telling us more about St Marc's victims, etc. He said he had fed 800 people after it happened. He called around to some friends of his and managed to get us discounts for the rice, flour, and sugar we went to buy. It is really impressive how people stick together. In one place they were giving out tickets for water to the people who don't have their homes anymore, and they were desperately crowding the gates. It's hard to wait around, because there are so many people that are hungry.

We spent $1,000.00 and got 5 bags (110 lbs) of rice, 5 of sugar, 5 of flour, 3 of beans, 2 smaller ones of cornmeal. This we've been busy putting into family-size packages, including some toothbrushes, razors (we happened to have them here at Canaan). This will give about 100 packages, we hope. We also are going to include a little bit of money so they can buy some essentials they need themselves. So the more money we get in, the more families we can help.

We went with a vehicle that was too small for all of it so today the three of us went back, borrowing Chris' truck, and I was the allocated driver. It was quite the adventure. The roads are so bad now.... So bad, we had one board we bought sticking out the back and it split and broke off on a bump. Hmmm! That was a funny moment for Bobi, walking back to find a piece of board. Not so much for me.

I have been spending hours trying to upload pictures that I have, to share with you. For some reason I don't know, it's just not working. Since Bobi is having the same problem, maybe it would just be too powerful, if you know what I mean. Anybody have other ideas, or knows how one can do that, please let me know. I would love to share mine with you, just don't know how! I did manage to upload two or so, including of the body of the baby I saw to my facebook, for those who have my facebook.

Thank you so much for all your prayers. There's a lot to do around here. Pray especially for Sister Gladys, who has such a great, soft heart, and feels the 'responsibility' to help so strongly. Pray that she'll stay physically healthy, as Satan always seems to attack physically first. Even I woke up with the weirdest, worst headache of my life, I think, on Thursday morning. Please also continue to share this hurricane need with family and friends and if anyone wants to help, please go to the following website where you can pay online with a credit card or send in a check: http://www.canaanorphanage.org/ If you want to send a wire to us directly, look on my prior email for wiring info.
(For those that don't know us, please be assured this money all goes to help the victims. Feel free to ask about us if you're unsure.)

OK, the evening is over, I've spent most of it trying to upload pictures that wouldn't upload, lights out in about half an hour, and I need to cool. It seems a long day, since I spent the afternoon at the school, learning out to be supervisor in the evening school, as I'm going to need to start doing that one evening a week. Those nights go till 10 p.m., more or less. But tomorrow is Sat. and they often are our days of rest.

God bless you for caring and sharing. Many of you have responded wonderfully and we're so grateful. The kids love helping to make the food packages, so we're happy they're going to be able to continue with more. Once this food emergency is past we need to start looking at the housing emergency. If there's anybody that would like to come help construct buildings, there's lots of opportunities coming up!!

Thank you for reading this and caring!!!
Elsie Kornelsen