from my eyes...

I live at the World Wide Village Guest House in Tabarre Haiti. A couple Heartline adoptive parents were at the guest house visiting at the time. I was at my computer when the shaking started. I've read that the earthquake was maybe 20-30 seconds... but it felt like it went on for minutes. It took me a while to process what was happening. My immediate thought was that it was just a big truck or something. Then I realized that was silly... this was much more than a truck. I looked up and saw one of the kids walking by, so I grabbed him and covered him in the hallway. I could hear and see things falling. And then it was over. Everyone that had been in the house at the time started gathering in the front yard. Two of the Livesay kids were over watching a movie. Troy came over to check on everyone. No one really seemed to be thinking clearly yet, we just knew we needed to make sure everyone was okay. All the neighbors were coming out of their house gathering in yards, too. After we were able to process what had happened, we started looking at the damage. The guest house was still standing fine, but had many cracks and was a mess. Vivien and I, the two that live there, have been staying with the Livesays. The guest house is probably okay, but with all the aftershocks continuing, many of them rating over a 4.0, we decided it would be safer to not stay there. We also realized that we live in a good neighborhood, and even the guest house was a good building. If even that got cracks in it, what did the rest port-au-prince look like?? All the phones were down and internet was down at the Livesays, but was still working at the guest house. I was able to communicate with people right away. I immediately thought of Three Angels, but knew we would have no way to contact them. The more I talked to people who had heard things through the media, I grew more concerned about Three Angels. People were saying that the Caribbean Market was collapsed, which I found hard to believe. Then I heard the St. Joseph's also fell. Both of these are very close to Three Angels. I decided I could not wait until morning to check on them, I had to do it now. Troy generously offered to take me there. Even though I knew it would be bad out, I still had not been outside my gated neighborhood yet. Even in the dark, the drive to Three Angels was worse than I had imagined. The closer we got, the more worried I got. Many buildings were down along Delmas. When we knew we were getting near Delmas 91, we tried to watch carefully so we didn't miss the road. But we soon realized we had gone too far. We turned back around. I looked to my left and I saw a little girl laying on the sidewalk. I knew she was dead when people would walk by, pause to look at her, then keep walking. Then I saw why we had passed Delmas 91 the first time, you couldn't see the road. A large building on the corner had crumbled. Troy parked the car and we walked around a back way to get to Three Angels. A neighbor told us all the TA people were all okay and at a neighbors across the street. They have a pretty big yard, and had started gathering people over there. Many were injured and had been carried in. I found Abbey, who was staying alone at TAs, and greeted all the nannies and employees. Most of the kids were asleep on blankets. There was only one nurse over there, but she was doing what she could. While I was standing there, a lady was brought in with a gash in her leg. I'm not sure if "gash" is even the right word... her leg was torn open. I held the flash light as the nurse tried to clean the wound out. She poured peroxide on it and washed it out and said that's about all we could do for the time being. She would probably live through the night, but she would need a surgeon to amputate her leg. Before we left, tears came to my eyes as I heard all the people that were gathered start singing. They were lifting praises to God. After we left Three Angels, Troy and I stopped to check on a few other nearby ministries, and then headed home. On the drive home, we saw people were gathering in large groups anywhere they could. No one wanted to go back inside. They were gathered in parks, schools, front yards, and even just in the middle of the street. Many more times, I heard singing coming from the people gathered. I knew that these people were in pain. They had lost their homes, their possessions, and family and friends. As if life in Haiti wasn't already hard, it seemed inviable now. But here they were, in the midst of that, in the midst of something I still could not comprehend, lifting up songs to the Father. And that was January 12, 2010 for me.