Thursday, July 1, 2010

Evacuation - Part 2


As we arrived at our home, to lock up and clean out our fridge, we remembered the children. Bailee and Kylee had already started crying because they did not want to go in the house, but they didn't want to stay out in the car either. It was so emotional and so hard to stay strong for them. As we began thinking about things that were necessary to bring, we were overwhelmed because we were not allowed any baggage. We were only taking a backpack and diaper bag. We packed a few changes of clothes for the kids and medicines for the diaper bag. We packed all our food in the car to take over to some friends of ours with whom we were staying with for the night. We drove to their home, unloaded everything, and got the girls and kofee settled in with a sandwich. Brandon left to finish getting the house in order and locked up tight. After a rough night of sleep from aftershocks and people hollering still in search of loved ones, we left for the airport. We all were so sad to be leaving our precious people in the most horrible time, but yet we felt we had to do what was best for our precious children, who were all so scared. Arriving at the airport, my heart went into my throat when I began to see the masses of people. Those who had tickets to fly out, those injured, both Haitian and American. I never thought in my naive mind that it would have been this way. We made our way through the people and got as close to the front doors of the condemned airport as we could. News reporters started asking for interviews. The first to interview us was a very liberal reporter from, I think BBC. He started asking questions and Brandon started talking about the fact that our prayer was that the haitian people would turn toward God through this devastation and not away from Him. the Liberal reporter looked at Brandon and asked, "Doesn't something like this shake your faith in God?" Wrong thing to say buddy! I just put my head down and began to shake it back and forth and Brandon started preaching at the guy. he cut him off really quick and went on his way! There was a group there of 50 americans, who had arrived the day of the quake. They ended up doing things that they never thought they would do medically. One dear lady from their group began talking to us and took us under her wing, the whole group did in fact. I don't think we would have made it through this long and stressful day without them. Our children were such troopers from using the restroom behind trees and in corners to sleeping with the diaper bag as their pillow on the ground, we trudged through the hot and tiring day. Hours of empty promises of a plane arriving became very nerve wracking. We were placed in lines of children, injured, and elderly. Towards the end, they said they would only be able to take the injured. I was so tired and hot; I had a sling and had held kofee in it as he slept, nursed, and played. I was so emotionally drained that I started crying and asked Brandon if we could just go home and come back tomorrow. He encouraged me and helped me to go on! Nearly 10 hours later, their was a shout from one of the main embassy workers for a family with kids, I began crying at as loud as I could shout it, I said, "We have kids!!!" We were taken to a US coast guard airplane and the journey to the DR began.

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