Pray for PEACE in Haiti...

I got news from our agency yesterday that the Mayor of Kenscoff wants to go down to Immigration himself to get Jonas's passport. He feels that he will have more pull than the worker from the Orphanage. I love that this man is willing to go out of his way to help Jonas! God is at work... I doubt that we will get any word this week, because of all of the rioting in Port-au-Prince. Food has went up about 40% in the past year, and even the people with some money are finding it hard to afford food! Some of the demonstrators even broke through the Palace gates. The rumor going around Haiti is that the rioters want to burn down the President's Palace on Friday. People are hungry and starving, and food donated from other nations just sits in the ports rotting, due to coruption, and EXTREMELY high taxes put on the food to release it from the docks.

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Here is an update from the orphanage director yesterday:

Dixie just sent out this update on what is currently happening in Haiti. Please keep this country in your prayers, especially at this time.

The situation in the last few days has increasing gotten worse in Port-au-Prince. The price of food has sky rocketed in the last 4 months. Gasoline is now $5.93 USD per gallon which has caused taxi fares to also increase. For the average person and even those of us blessed with donations, day to day life is difficult. Our food bill has increased by 1/3 or more.

Over the weekend, rioting started in outlying cities and yesterday we had some in Port-au-Prince. Today, the crowds broke the gates to the Civil Court building and also to the Palace. They are breaking store windows and stealing things out of stores. They are burning tires in the streets and breaking windshields on cars.

All government buildings are closed. We tried taking papers to the courts but the court clerk told us not to come. Our son, Mark, had gone to school in PAP before the rioting started. Our driver picked him up at noon due to the problems. They had trouble finding a safe route home.

Mark just talked to one of his school friends on the phone and they are blocked at a market in the city and crowds just broke a window in the car next to them.

I told my staff that they would get more sympathy if they had mothers marching with their starving children! This violence does not help food prices nor make any sense to the rest of the world!

We foresee tomorrow being much of the same. We do not see the courts or Immigration being open.

So far, it seems quiet in our area. There is some road blocks on the mountain road but not as far up as we live.

Please pray for all of our staff and the babies that everyone will be safe. Pray for Haiti and that food costs will decrease so mothers can feed their children.