Hope for Haiti

While Mark and I sit here watching the HopeForHaiti telethon, we are reminded yet again at how very lucky we are to live in such a great and safe country.

I would like to share the facebook story I received from an agility friend of mine Timmie.

Timmie's sister Tori's close friend, Catherine is adopted from Haiti and her dad is a doctor. He often goes there to help out and since Tori is studying to be a nurse she thought it would be a good experience. Tori arrived in Haiti on January 6th along with her friend and the Doctor and was staying in Fond-Jean-Noel near Jacmel.

When the earthquakes hit, Timmie had no way of knowing what was going on with Tori. She did not hear form her for 2 whole days. I can;'t imagine the stress and fear she and her family had to deal with and what they were imagining.

On January 14th at 6pm, Timmie's facebook status was "Tori is OK!!!! :-D The buildings have all collapsed and there were landslides. She's staying in a truck and they don't know when or how they're getting back to Canada...but they are ok!".

Later in the status, there was a further comment giving a bit more information.

"They (Tori, Catherine and Dr. Menard) are sleeping in the car because they are afraid to sleep in the buildings because of all the aftershocks which went on all night and are still going on but much less now. The landslides were not directly where they were, more in surrounding areas, not much damage where they were. A few people were hurt... See More in the landslides and one 12 yr old boy was killed, that is all they know of so far. They were able to drive down to Jacmel and then saw the devastation there and it hit them how bad it really was. They were able to buy some rice and get back up to Fond Jean Noel where they actually feel safer. There are 6 or 7 Americans with them. They found out that the hotel they stayed in Port au Prince the day they had arrived, had collapsed and the lady that owns it and her son are okay, but their aunt died. When they learned that, it really hit them as to how scary it really all is. Up in the mountains, they didn't realize how bad the earthquake and devastation was."

Tori did not manage to get home from Haiti until January 19th - but she is so very lucky that she was able to leave the devastation. So many will be living with the devastation for so very long.

Mark and I have donated to do what we can to help. If you can, please donate to help rebuild this broken country.

Love to all,
J