The Announcement

I'm sitting here trying to begin to write about an event which perhaps will sound minor to you, but that left me rather distressed.  Just thinking about writing about it brings back strong emotions.  It concerned the sponsor - child visit day... the big day we were all waiting for, and to be honest, the main reason we had come to Haiti.

We were having a group meeting before dinner when Becca, one of our co-leaders, said she had an announcement and we needed to pray.  The announcement was that there was bad flooding in the north of Haiti, and two of the children might not be able to make it for the visit.  I knew immediately Kimberlie must be one of the kids because she lives near the northern coast. 

Becca didn't say who the affected sponsors where, just that she would be coming to talk to the two of us during dinner.  We had a time of prayer about the situation and then headed to the dining room.  I was a little surprised when talking to some of the other sponsors on the way into dinner, because they didn't know which part of Haiti their kids lived, so they were worried it might be their child.  If you sponsor a child and don't know what part of their country they are from, I'd recommend looking in the booklet Compassion sent when you first sponsored them.   It will tell you the town or area your child is from, and you can get on an online map website and probably find some neat satellite images from there.  I've done this for our three Compassion kids and really enjoyed it.  There may even be photos from the area.  Or if you join "Our Compassion" -- your children's center/s will be there on a map and some of them have photos of the centers, like these of Kimberlie's project center:

There is a lot of other information on the "Our Compassion" website, too:

The other sponsor whose child was affected by the flooding was Jason, whom I had "met" before the trip because he had posted on "Our Compassion".  I knew his child lived in the same area as Kimberlie.  Sure enough, he was the other person Becca talked to.  I know I did a lot of praying that night and I'm sure other people on the trip did, too.  Everyone in our group was wonderful and very supportive.  I prayed that Kimberlie and Jason's boy would be able to come, but mostly that they and their families would be safe.  It was a long night, and the news didn't get better in the morning.