EVACUATION!

After a night of aftershocks and sleeping outside, we prepared for another day of the unexpected. As a mother, I stayed with my friend Karen and kept the children entertained to keep all of our minds off of the tragedy beyond the walls of the house. Brandon loaded up as much supplies as he could and headed to find our church people and make sure they were ok and to find out their immediate needs. Karen's husband, Kim, and their board members set out to check on their school children and to find one of their boys that never made it home the night before. I can remember, as we sat their and I finally got Kofee down for a nap, their was a huge aftershock, and one of Randy and Karen's haitian boys, who was very shook up from everything, ran inside and was screaming , "KOFEE, KOFEE! He is inside, we have to get him out!" I remember crying as I saw the concern and fear in his eyes that Kofee was in the house. The day wore on and Karen and I became very stir crazy as we waited for our husbands to return with some kind of news as to what was happening. As they began to arrive, we began hearing how the outside world was, and it was very sad. Tears were shed as we found out that the haitian boy that Randy was in search for, was killed in his school that collapsed. Brandon told of all our church families who had lost everything, but was safe. Randoy left again, and the second time he returned, he was ready to take his wife, staff members and baby girl to the Canadian embassy so that they could be evacuated. I remember how in control I was while knowing we were surrounded by people, but when I heard that we would be left, I was in complete devastation. I looked up at my husband with tears in my eyes, and he knew his only choice was to take us to the embassy. On the way to the embassy, there was no talking just crying. I praise the Lord that he allowed the girls to sleep all the way there. I would never want them to remember what is forever etched in my mind. Bodies upon bodies lined the streets and the ground of hospitals. Buildings that we frequented often, were gone. We arrived at the embassy and told the woman at the desk that we were just checking in and wanted to let family know we were ok, but she took one look at how small our children were, and told us that we would be on the next flight out. We stressed the fact that we lived in Haiti and were just not visiting and we would have to return to secure our home. She gave us approval for that, and placed us on a priority list and told us to be at the airport the next day for 7 am. Little did we know what we were in for.