how about some good news.

I heard from my friend, Lesly, today.  He e-mailed me.  From Miami. 

Somehow he made it to Miami.  I don’t know how or any of the details.  He dropped me an e-mail that only had a couple lines and very little information.  He is in Miami and headed to NY soon.  I think he has family in Miami and his dad in NY.   I am relieved to know he is alive and well. 

This morning Sam and I went to town.  We had a huge list for RMI, a list for Gary, a list for my household, and my personal list of supplies and food items we were trying to stock up on.  We spent from 10am to 2pm, shopping.  I’ll post more details on that later.  While Sam and I were in the grocery store, I saw a familiar face looking at me and smiling at me.   It quickly dawned on me it was Lesly’s cousin, Charlemant.  I was so happy to see him.  We hugged, shared greetings and I asked him about his family, if they were well.  He said yes.  I then asked him about Lesly, if he was OK.  I couldn’t understand exactly what he said and we didn’t have much time, or even physical space to continue our conversation.  I know that sounds odd, considering I’ve been concerned about his well-being but it was really quite chaotic in the store.  It was only grocery store opened this morning and the store was packed with people, trying to stock pile what they could.  If you moved to get out of the way when someone said “excuse me” and needed to pass, you were immediately in the way of someone else saying, “excuse me”, and needing to pass.  So I just couldn’t chase him down and hound him for information.  But I felt good about the fact that he hadn’t told me he was not OK.

I got home around 2, at lunch and around 2:30 I signed online to check my e-mail.  I had an e-mail from Lesly.  I officially knew that he was OK. 

Not long after, I was still on the computer, I received an Instant Message from someone I didn’t know.  It was someone that had requested to add me a few days ago.  The name and all information was in French.  When I received the IM I asked who it was and she immediately responded, Sonita.  Sonita is Lesl'y’s other cousin, Charlemant’s sister.  We had all become friends while I was in Boyer back in November with a team.  I was so excited to get word that they were all OK.

I didn’t have a phone number for Charlemant but had tried to get a hold of both Sonita and Lesly on the phone and had heard nothing.  I find it amusing that I heard from all three of them today. 

In other good news, the Wray family, one of the missionary families here on the center, drove some of the Haitian youth that work with them on the Sunday School Feeding Program to Port au Prince.  These were people who had family in Port who had yet to hear from them.  The Wray’s have a big truck with a large metal frame on the back so they loaded a bunch of youth up, and drove them to Port to search for their families.  They returned this afternoon with fifty people on the truck; many of them were people whom they been located in Port!