One Year ago Today: Remembering Haiti

This time last year, the Haitian people were enduring a 7.0 earthquake that devastated their entire country. OM is still partnering with local churches and orphanages to help children and to provide a future for adults. Please consider an anniversary gift to continue OM's work in Haiti. You may give to this long-term outreach here. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Haiti Earthquake from OM USA Video on Vimeo.

survivors thank you for your help and encouragement

Thanks to all of you who are continuing to support OM's ongoing work in Haiti. In this video you can meet some of the people directly affected by your prayers and gifts. You may give to this long-term outreach here. For prayer updates, subscribe to this blog (using the links in the sidebar). Thanks again for your love and compassion for the people in Haiti. You are transforming lives and communities.


Haiti Earthquake from OM USA Video on Vimeo.

Last Day for OM Film Crew in Haiti

by David Doughty

Today was extremely busy because we had to make up time from yesterday. It started at another orphanage where we interviewed a young man who survived a building collapsing on him, breaking his arm; a girl whose feet got burned; and also the woman who runs that orphanage.

We ended the day getting shots of the Parliament building destroyed as well as the Palace. At 5 pm every day, the guard marches out to the flag in front of the palace and takes it down. It was really emotional to see them take down their country's flag in front of a destroyed building with perfect precision and stance, even playing a bugle. No one moved during those 5 minutes. Cars stopped on the street, people stood at attention all around. Words couldn't find my throat, let alone my mouth.

Today's picture is from our driver's house.  He lost both his houses and his car that he used as a taxi service. He lost everything. We interviewed him in the rubble where his houses use to be. This area also had an overwhelming smell that I didn't connect with for a few minutes. I will spare the descriptive words I would use to describe it, because I don't want you to visualize like I did after finally connecting the dots, realizing that there were still people buried under the rubble we were standing on.

We leave tomorrow for the airport and a 12-hour travel day.  Thanks for your continued prayers.  

OM Film Crew in Haiti

Carsten Best and David Doughty, videographers for OM, are in Haiti this week interviewing survivors and shooting footage of the overwhelming aftermath. Doughty was able to get online and send this report of their first day on the ground:

Carsten Best interviews a young girl who
became orphaned in the January 12 quake.

Thank you for your prayers. As soon as Carsten and I landed in Haiti, we got picked up and immediately started shooting video while we were driving through the heart of Port au Prince. The devastation is.....hard to put into words. We quickly (after sitting in traffic for 2 hours) checked into our hotel room then went to an orphanage to start our interviews. The picture here is of a little girl that had a semi-wealthy life style, so after the earthquake her world turned upside down. She found the orphanage during a prayer meeting, and that is where she met Jesus. She then realized there was more to life than living for yourself. What mattered then, doesn't matter now.

After that, we went to a church that is mostly standing, though all the buildings around it have collapsed. A little girl who lived next door lost both her parents and we interviewed the aunt who is now taking care of her. This place was a lot harder to be at because you are standing on the roof of a three story building when you get out of the car. Some people have lost their minds, and then you turn around and you have people bathing in the streets out of a bucket. Then you walk into the church and 6 girls gather around a mic and are singing praises to the Lord as the worship band practices with various instruments. There is such a stark contrast of beauty and death. It's the ultimate extreme that I will never forget.

There is no telling what we will find next. I don't think exciting is the right word for it....sobering.....surreal....that might touch more of the emotions that surround everything. Sometimes I find myself thinking...this can't be real. Seeing the National Palace in ruins reminded me of an end of the world-type movie. Again, thank you for your prayers. Please keep them coming.

greetings from Haiti

OM USA staff member Ray Cooper is in Haiti awaiting the 40-ft container of supplies shipped from OM and scheduled for delivery Monday. He writes:

Greetings from Haiti. These past three days have been filled with kids, kids, more kids and truck rides.  Our team has grown in size. Adding to the three of us are 4 locals who join us each day. All four of them work with youth at their church or orphanages and are eager to gain new ideas and stratagies about childcare.  It's been a blessing to have them join our team. 

The team is praising God for taking care of every need, including transportation and even extra time at the end of each day to debrief and plan for the next.   Please pray for this team as they plan on visiting five more orphanages.  Pray for safe travel and good connections with the kids and the staff.  Pray strength for those serving as translators as they stay very busy in this role.

DIY: turning crates into beds for Haitian orphans

When OM announced plans to ship a container full of supplies to Haiti, OM staff member Randy Jury thought the most efficient way would be to build crates to hold the items. When staffer Ray Cooper heard about the crates, he wondered if they could be designed to reassemble into sturdy bunk beds upon arrival. Ray had been to Haiti since the earthquakes and knew kids in the orphanage were sleeping on cardboard mats or on the concrete floor. So Randy went back to work to create the crates.

Randy Jury and Tom Paver begin to reassemble a crate.

Randy, Ray, and the rest of their crew built 25 crate bunks -- that’s 50 new beds for orphaned kids in Haiti. The measurements fit mattresses being made in Haiti, and the bunks will be painted using supplies bought in country. Nearly one ton of sheets and blankets were included in the container shipment.  Each crate took 2-3 hours to construct but will only take 20-30 minutes to reassemble as a bunk bed.  

Thanks to everyone who helped build or load these crates. The final shipment contained 22,394 pounds of much-needed items for Haiti.  Many of you from Atlanta-area churches were part of this project and it could not have been completed without your help.  The container is on its way and due to arrive Monday morning, much quicker than expected!  Please pray for the container's safe delivery and for an easy distribution.  

OM staffers with a completed bunk.
(clockwise from top left:) Randy Jury, Tom Paver, Carl Hoffman, and Nigel Harman.

LAST WEEK: Atlanta-area Haiti drop-off

OM USA is filling a container with very specific items bound for Haiti. If you are in the Atlanta area ONLY  and can bring any of the following items, please do so by March 22. If you are not local but would like to give, give online to Haiti relief. For more information and directions see the OM USA website.




Please choose from only this list:
tarps and tents
mosquito nets
rice in larger bags
black or pinto beans, dry, in larger bags
spaghetti, dry pasta
toothbrushes and toothpaste
bar soap
crutches, walkers, and wheelchairs

continued prayers for Haiti

Let us not become weary in doing good,

for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9 

Though heartbreaking news from Haiti may seem endless, let us stay diligent and remember those for whom daily survival remains a challenge.  OM has been partnering with local churches in the Port au Prince area to provide food and water to a growing number of orphanages and communities. We have worked short-term with a medical team, a logistics team, and a structural engineer. These skilled workers have been invaluable, as have been the team of nationals working right alongside.

We are grateful for the gifts we have received. Your partnership has allowed us to do so much already. Thanks for standing with us as we continue to show the love of Jesus to a hurting people. Please continue to keep the people of Haiti in your prayers.

Pray for Haiti shipment & team

OM is partnering with Delta airlines to get supplies into Haiti. A small team left today with a shipment of cargo. Please pray that all goes well with the flight and that the supplies will get to the people who need them most.

Delta notified OM over the weekend that space on this flight would be available, so a call went out to local churches for bedding: foam pads, sheets, blankets, and mosquito nets. The response was so great, there was concern yesterday that not all the bedding would be accepted for this flight. But it was and everything collected will go to Haiti today.

Praise the Lord for His provision. Pray that these materials might bring comfort to a nation that has been sleeping outside for over a month. Pray this team could discern any other immediate needs. Thank the Lord for this new partnership with Delta.

A week of God moments in Haiti

Written by Lane Powell, OM USA Communications

“I knew there were going to be ‘God moments’ through the week when the tap-tap [taxi truck] ran out of gas right in front of the orphanage.” That was the beginning of the visit to Haiti by Henry Couser, a member of OM’s staff in the USA. He had traveled nearly two hours from the airport in the tap-tap, and the fuel lasted until they got to the orphanage gate.

Henry arrived in Carrefour, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, in the first days after the January 12 earthquake. His goal was to visit the three orphanages OM had helped in the past, in partnership with a US church, and assess their needs. He based himself at the first one, where the tap-tap ran out of gas, and found that instead of 200 children, the orphanage was housing 350 and was also giving shelter and food to approximately 1,000 people from the community. And they were coming to the end of their food supply. No outside help had arrived yet. Their buildings were still standing, but, like everyone else in the region, they were sleeping outside due to concerns about aftershocks and damage to the structures. By finding some shops that had not been destroyed, Henry was able to purchase food for the immediate need.

Two days later, Henry was joined by a six-member, trained emergency response team sent by OM’s USA office and led by former OM missionary Rusty Garrison. One of their tasks was to check the rubble of a nearby school that had collapsed on 2,000 students. They could find no signs of life. Faced with this and other sites where children had died in piles of rubble, the team wanted to work at removing bodies. “But we knew that our mission was to help the living, and that had to be our priority,” Rusty said.

Each of the three orphanages was visited, and at each the team found a similar situation: buildings standing but showing cracks, children and staff living outside, food and water nearly gone. Through contacts in the communities, the team was able to find food and water to stock each orphanage. They located a relief aid warehouse which had begun receiving food shipments, but the director was overwhelmed at organizing it and establishing a distribution system. He asked only for the team’s labor of unloading trucks and organizing a supply line in exchange for food they could take to the orphanages. “I’ll never forget the cheers that erupted as we drove into the orphanage gates,” says one of the team members, speaking of arriving with food from the warehouse. As they transported injured people to a hospital in the area, they found that the medical staff had run out of food two or three days earlier. The team provided them with food, as well.

During a week in Haiti, the three orphanages were supplied with food and water to last until a shipment could be arranged, injured people were transported to clinics, and a child whose adoption had been finalized just before the earthquake was helped out of the country with her adoptive parents. Everywhere there were the stories and stunned faces of people still in shock--not yet grieving, only staring at the rubble. There was the old man who, with his wife of 58 years, was visiting from Canada when the buildings collapsed. Her body was removed from the rubble, and he asked Henry to take a photo of her passport picture “so that the world will not forget Anne Marie.” There was the family who lost 15 members in the collapse of their home. Four bodies were recovered and placed in one coffin, but the other 11 were still in the ruins. The family asked Henry to take of photo of the surviving members. The heartbreaking sadness was knowing that hundreds of thousands of people had similar stories.

But in the midst of such tragedy, after the team’s work, there were three orphanages which had smiling children with full stomachs. They understood that God had brought Henry and the team to help them.

Thanks for your gifts to long-term Haiti relief.

Haiti relief video to share

Thanks for posting this to your own sites and helping us spread the word about the long-term needs in Haiti.

Haiti Relief from OM USA Video on Vimeo.

team in Haiti after flight change

The donated charter jet leaves Georgia for Haiti.

The emergency response team sent to Haiti by OM USA in partnership with New Hope Baptist Church was diverted to the Dominican Republic. The team had been given a confirmed landing time for Haiti, yet the air space was closed and they were sent to the Dominican Republic. So they traveled by land into Haiti and have arrived at the first orphanage, the one written about here yesterday. Everyone there survived the strong aftershock of this morning.

We will keep you updated on the team's progress. Word has gotten to them that a second orphanage on the other side of Port-au-Prince was also spared, as was a third orphanage farther away. What powerful reminders of God's heart for the orphan, referred to throughout Scripture. Please continue to pray that the team will be able to get food and water to the kids, as well as pave the way for subsequent teams.

partnership gets team to Haiti

The team packs at OM USA.

The search and rescue team that left for Haiti yesterday spent some time at OM USA before they left. They met members of New Hope Baptist, an Atlanta-area church who partners with the same orphanages this team will be serving. New Hope member Rhodena Buck was able to show pictures from the area and brief the team on who they would meet and what they could expect. During the briefing, the team was treated to lunch by a local Chick-fil-a, with plenty left over to take with them.

Former OM member Rusty Garrison put this 6-man team together and watched as the Lord provided everything they needed. First, each man on this team is certified in search and rescue, a must at this stage in Haiti's earthquake recovery. To get there, a local businessman offered the use of his corporate jet, saving the team $6,000 in last-minute airfare. Another business leader is offering his jet for the return trip, possibly bringing a fresh team with him. A local branch of the NAACP was hosting a parade and rally for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and half of the funds they raised will go toward OM's relief work in Haiti.

Thanks for your continued support of this team. As you pray and give, you are joining with them.

team en route to Haitian orphanage

Kids before the earthquake, at the orphanage where OM is sending a team.

OM USA is sending out a six-member emergency response team to serve several orphanages in Haiti. Each team member is certified in search and rescue. The group will first search the rubble of a school just outside Port au Prince for possible survivors. As many as 2,000 children may be buried there beneath the rubble. No rescue teams have yet been in the area where they are going.

Water is the greatest need for an orphanage that was miraculously spared. The kids are sleeping outside since it is unknown how safe their building is, but praise God for protecting these children. The town around this orphanage was completely destroyed so the orphanage is providing aid to the neighborhood survivors. Pray for this team as they go, that the Lord will protect them and that they will be able to find anyone still alive. Subscribe to this blog for more updates. And click here to give to OM relief work in Haiti.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:
to look after orphans and widows in their distress.
James 1:27