Hello again folks. My heart is heavy and my eyes are wet as I try to write this.
Many of you have called or written me to ask how the children at HATS-Haiti Mission are surviving this onslaught by the gang in our area. It is difficult for me to respond individually so I decided a blog is in order.
Haiti has been in a mess for several years but the situation continues to worsen. I’ve been rereading things I posted and things I shared in 2016, 2017 and 2018 about the gangs and the mess Haiti was in and proceeding to worsen.
Help was needed back then. It has gotten a lot worse over the years and there is still no ‘boots on the ground to help the police in handling the gangs’. The gangs have constantly continued to take over more territory every day. People are desperately trying to leave to save their lives and that of their children. They are trying to leave Haiti in rickety/broken old boats after paying money to traffickers who promises they will arrive and have a much better life. These rickety boats often do not arrive anywhere. Those who did manage to land on one of the other islands or Florida are sent back to Haiti again and were then even worse off than before they left.
It is terrible for the precious innocent people who have to live in the once beautiful Artibonite Valley with this gang terrorizing people there. If it is difficult for me to write about it, how much more difficult is it for those who have to live with it.
I am changing the word ‘live’ to ‘exist’. People exist as best they can in a miserable situation. Hunger, fear of being kidnapped, killed, abused, beaten, females being gang raped, all these things abound there now. Having to exist with this cannot be called living.
1:30 in the morning three weeks ago I received a call, followed by messages, for prayer support as a gang had invaded our area of the Artibonite – shooting, killing, kidnapping, looting. People who could do so ran from their homes and hid wherever they could. Now, 21 days later, this torture is continuing throughout our area of the Commune of Verrettes, and elsewhere in the Artibonite valley.
The gang members are asking for phenomenal amounts of ransom for the people they kidnapped. Where on earth are the hungry, terrified people supposed to be able to find huge amounts of money to pay for their freedom? Freedom that should never have been taken from them.
Our HATS-Haiti children are in hiding like many other people from the valley. They are always on alert wherever they are and on some nights have had to leave their hiding place during the blackness when they hear shooting and go hide in bushes somewhere for hours. For the first 9-10 days of the invasion by the gang Luckner had to move our large combined family of 22 from place to place, to hide in one place by day and to hide in another place by night. Moving them around like this was very difficult with so many children. To say my heart is heavy over all this is putting it very mildly.
I thank God many times daily for Luckner who has done everything possible for the protection of his family and our HATS children. They are all together these days as one big family trying to stay hidden from the gang members.
It appears that most of the people in our area have gone elsewhere or are doing likewise, hiding somewhere. Many business and professional people have gone across the border to the DR. Others have gone to a different location in Haiti hoping it might be safer. Hospital Albert Schweitzer, in Deschapelles, after 67 years had to close its doors, due to the gang in the area. Police stations in towns in our area are abandoned as many police in our area have been killed by the gang members.
It is unfathomable to many of us that people from their own country and their own culture are putting their own Haitian people through this torturous existence.
For 28 years I have loved the Artibonite Valley, the beautiful, peaceful, valley. I loved going from one small town to another, each town had special people I knew, loved and visited regularly. This gang has turned it in a place of tremendous fear, killings, and torture.
We need to pray, pray, pray. God hears our prayers. We need to get rid of this evil and see the valley returned to its peaceful beautiful self where kindness and support will abound to those around us. We need to see our schools operating once again. We need to see children playing and laughing. I need to see our HATS kids back where they belong, playing on the swing set in the compound again, playing soccer, ball hockey, drawing and building something, not hiding in fear and trembling.
The children in happier times
The business people in our area need to be able to operate normally without fear of being killed and their business looted for providing a service the people in the area need. This has to stop!!!
Years ago I chose Psalm 91 as the psalm over and for HATS-Haiti. We had it read almost every day in our devotions at the mission. I am continuing to read Psalm 91 for HATS and now for the Artibonite Valley. I ask you to join me in reading Psalm 91 for our area of Haiti.
Psalm 91 1,2,3 and 4
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God , in whom I trust.
surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge, his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
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