Here's an update on Hurricane Matthew from Jody Castillo, our partner in Môle-Saint-Nicolas. She posted this on Facebook around 4:45pm today. Please continue to #PrayForHaiti.
***Update***
We have truly been moved to tears by your responses. The internet has been really spotty so we haven’t been able to respond back right away - but please know how touched we are. It is very humbling.
Thank you for your outpouring of love. Thank you for sharing my past post with others. Thank you for your encouraging comments and messages. And most importantly - thank you for praying intentionally for Haiti!
PLEASE DON’T STOP PRAYING!
This storm is very slow moving. Even though we could see the outer edges coming towards us - it spent most of the night pounding the mountains behind us.
Currently though we are getting slammed with wind & rain. We have several trees down on our property. The tin roof & wooden frame where our orphans are being housed right now is shaking. We tied the frame down to a cement beam that stretches across the middle of the room. With this type of blowing rain though - we can’t seem to keep that area dry. It's leaking through the tin. Please pray for wisdom on how we can keep our orphans safe & dry.
My husband went downtown to assess the situation. This is his report:
The force of the rain made my face sting. There are several big coconut trees down not to mention all the smaller trees. In fact I had to run from one as it crashed down right behind me. All of the "wooden shack" businesses are missing roofs or walls.
There are a few nicer homes where the tin roof has blown off already. There is a pastor in town who just had a wall cave in. There were several people gathered by the main school downtown because that roof is shaking as well.
Several of the yards with wooden/bamboo fences are gone. The main streets are a little over ankle deep in water and there’s large streams still coming down the sides of the mountains. I can only imagine what is happening to the straw huts on the mountainside. With this type of blowing rain there’s just no way they are able to stay dry or that their straw roofs are intact.
One of the side gates at the catholic church downtown broke free right as I was walking by and I had to run and duck to keep it from hitting me. That’s when I decided it wasn’t safe to keep walking around anymore.