Live performances will occur in Nashville (7:30 p.m. CT) and Los Angeles (9:30 p.m. CT) and both concerts will be streamed live at HelpHaitiLive.com beginning at 7:30 p.m. CT.

The concerts will feature special performances by Big Kenny, Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, Amy Grant, LeeAnn Rimes, Mat Kearney, Jars of Clay, Francis Chan, Rebecca St. James, Matt Wertz, Brandon Heath, Dave Barnes, NEEDTOBREATHE and more.

Viewing online at HelpHaiti.com is free. Tickets for the live performances are priced between $25 and $75 and can be purchased at Ticketmaster.com and all Ticketmaster locations beginning today, as well as through:

• The Ryman box office: 800-745-3000 or ryman.com
• Live Nation for The Wiltern

All net proceeds from this event will support our relief efforts in Haiti. Visit HelpHaitiLive.com to learn more.

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Barry was leading a weeklong vision trip for six Canadian pastors and their wives. Their home for the week was to be the Hotel Montana. But less than an hour after landing in Haiti, it became clear that this trip would take a very different turn.

Instead of settling into the hotel at 4:53 p.m., they were still en route, traveling in a minibus with two Haitian staff. Barry recalls,

“We were driving on the back streets to avoid traffic congestion, and the bus had been bumping around a lot anyway, but all of a sudden it started heaving from side to side. We saw people who had been walking all falling. One lady fell right in front of us, and walls crashed down on both sides of us.”

As buildings shook and began to crumble before their very eyes, the passengers could barely process what they were seeing.

“From our vantage point, we could see the city of Port-au-Prince beneath us and all the dust that was blowing up. That’s when the gravity of the situation hit us.”

Miraculously, nearly three hours after the quake struck, they were able to text their families back home when one of their cell phones began working for about 15 minutes. As soon as everyone had typed out a quick message to report that they were safe, the signal was lost.

With people and debris filling the streets by the second, their vehicle could barely move forward. One woman was killed right in front of them, and bodies were already piling up as they inched toward their new destination, the Compassion office on Delmas Street. Still, the Haiti staff were determined to press on, even as their Canadian passengers pleaded with them to leave and go check on their families.

What should have been a 12-minute drive instead took three horrifying hours.

“We felt so helpless, but we knew the one tool we had was prayer. Our vehicle became a mobile prayer chapel. When we saw someone wounded, we cried out to God on their behalf.”

When they turned onto Delmas Street and saw huge commercial buildings flattened, they could only gasp, “There’s nothing left.”

At 8 p.m., they arrived at the Compassion office and were surprised to find it still standing. Also standing, across the street, was the Canadian Embassy, built just four years earlier.

As the first Canadians to arrive at the embassy, they were welcomed but told they would have to sleep outside since the building was still considered unsafe. They spent the night — most of them not sleeping at all — in a parking lot, trying to breathe through the thick dust that had hours ago been Haiti’s center of commerce.

Twenty-eight hours later they boarded a Hercules military transport that would take them to the Dominican Republic. By Thursday afternoon, they were home, where Barry sat glued to the media coverage of the country he had just left.

“The hardest part was leaving. Tears ran down my face as I asked God how I could leave my brothers and sisters at such a time. But I felt like God was telling me I needed to go back home and do what I could do here — be an advocate for these people, tell their story, raise money for their recovery. I haven’t stopped since I got home.”

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We have a long-standing relationship with Healing Waters International, providing water systems to church partners in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.

In response to the immense need in Haiti, Healing Waters International has provided 2,500 one-gallon jugs of water at no cost to Compassion Haiti. The water was bottled at the Healing Waters projects at our Dominican Republic church partner sites. If there is continued need, they are equipped to begin bottling on a daily basis.

The water will be trucked to Haiti along with the family food kits being assembled at our warehouse on the Dominican Republic/Haiti border.

We will also investigate several long-term solutions, such as building water systems at church partner sites in Haiti.

According to Gregg Keen, our Complementary Interventions Director,

“Healing Waters International and Compassion have been good partners for several years. When the disaster hit Haiti, Healing Waters was among the first organizations we called to ask what their response would be. They went to heroic efforts to find available water bottles in the DR when none could be found there. Bottled water will help people to avoid drinking and using contaminated water and the related diseases they can cause, especially in a disaster situation like this one. The impact of this can’t even be measured.”

Healing Waters’ mission is to empower local ministry partners to bring physical, social and spiritual transformation to poor communities, a mission that makes them an excellent partner for us.

Read more about our partnership with Healing Waters International.

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Will you join us in helping Haiti rebuild?

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“I’ve witnessed a metamorphosis here since arriving here 21 days ago. Then, the words I could use to describe what I saw was a whole city in shock, walking around like zombies, walking wounded. Blank stares. Hollow eyes, caked with mud, now dry from an inability to produce more tears. A survival mentality had set in – each one for themselves. Walk right past someone trapped, because they needed to get home to find their own loved ones.

“Today, car horns blare from 4:00am on late into the night. The continual roar of traffic, occasional squealing of tires, movement everywhere. Life is returning to Port-au-Prince. It started like a drip – in dire need of food and water, street vendors started setting up shop – hawking anything and everything. Fruits and vegetables started appearing. Clothes, used and new – recovered from the rubble of someone else’s house – who knows – now hand on clothes hangers covering a filthy crumbling wall like royal curtains. Mountains of shoes have also made it to the street vendors. Even seen a place where you could buy just one shoe! Not sure why, either they had a niche for those that could only find one of their shoes. Or more morbid, selling shoes to all those who lost limbs because of this tragedy.”

Read the entire blog post.

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Saturday, Jan. 30 – We had the chance to meet eight leadership students today. We sat in a circle in the parking lot listening to their stories as ashes drifted like snow upon us and the smell of burning plastics scorched the air.

They spoke of how important Compassion’s work has been in their lives. Some shared with tears about being selected for the Leadership Development Program. I don’t know whether the tears flowed from joy, gratitude or something sad.

Like the dream that almost came true. They had climbed so high. From the slums to the universities. But when we asked how many went to schools which had been damaged in the earthquake all of them raised their hands.

We asked how many had lost friends or loved ones and all raised their hands again.

At one school 90 percent (180 out of 200) of the students were killed. With buildings collapsed, professors and administrators dead, its hard to imagine how those dreams can come true now.

May God have mercy on us if we fail to find a way forward for them. They are Haiti’s future.

I’ve been saying that this disaster is not about the earthquake. It’s about poverty. Most of those who died would have lived if their nation was not too poor to afford rebar in their concrete, too poor to have heavy equipment to rescue the many who were trapped, too poor to provide the needed health care.

And as tragic as this disaster is, an even greater tragedy looms. The tragedy of the American media getting bored, Haiti leaving the front pages and the world forgetting – the American Christian forgetting – this country and her people. Again.

It’s already happening. Mid-week I saw the headlines. No Haiti.

What replaced it as “news”? A controversial gay kiss in a television ad.

That would normally make me angry, but I was hurting too much to be angry. It just hurts.

We must awaken the sleeping giant of the American church. Awaken her to her God-given mission. Her calling.

That she would radiate light in her good works and that rivers of justice would flow from her for the sake of the poor and oppressed.

That she would not be trapped and anesthetized any longer by our culture of… call it what you will… lusts and self-satisfaction.

If the energy with which we pursue our own entertainment and appetites were deployed on behalf of the poor instead, then the world could be a much better place and we would find the life Jesus promised.

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I’m in my tent. Too tired to go up to the place where I can connect to Internet on the sloping desk and wobbly chair in the parking lot – so I know this won’t go out tonight.

Today (Jan. 29) we returned to the area we visited on day two. Leogone. Almost a two-hour drive. It is an absolute war zone of destruction. Nearly the whole town is rubble. I felt a deeper sadness than the other places – a community completely broken. Yet, they were clearing away the debris from the streets and already beginning to rebuild.

We arrived at the church, a partner in our program, to find a group of people under a tarp canopy. We assumed they were patients waiting for our arrival as had been the case on previous days. They weren’t.

They were the people of the church who had gathered for fasting and prayer. They sang, “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our hopes and griefs to bear.”

We set up the clinic with greater proficiency today – larger tarps, larger ropes, higher anchors so the heat radiating under the plastic didn’t bake the people (and us).

Another day of broken bones and infected wounds. A few unexpected cases – a man with polio who had fallen and needed surgery, a young boy whose foreskin was nearly sealed, preventing urination, creating back pressure and infection risk.

Half the team has suffered intestinal problems, but they carry on despite their misery. It didn’t help that there were no latrines available today. We “stood guard” for one another.

The person I will be specifically praying for tonight is Chantal. Mother of five. We saw her two days earlier and I believe it is by God’s guidance that we came to this site today.

A large cinder block had fallen on her head during the quake and had sliced an L-shape wound (about 3×4 inch per side) all the way to her skull.

We cleaned it on Tuesday, but today we saw that the infection was still progressing. It is likely that debris has tracked far under the skin of her scalp and will require hospitalization to adequately treat. We arranged a referral via to a clinic located in the middle of one of the “tent cities.”

I held her IV bag as we rode on the benches in the back of the Land Cruiser. We picked up her brother. He told us that even with her injury, no doubt such a massive head injury would have gushed a lot of blood, she was able to dig out her husband and son from the collapsed house.

Her husband completely split his jaw. We saw him two days ago and today he is supposed to have it stapled back together.

Even with her skull exposed and a massive infected wound, Chantal smiled for a picture. Tiffany cleaned some blood from Chantal’s dress, and Chantal gently said thank you in English.

I don’t understand how she can be hurting so bad and still be kind. Join me in praying for her complete recovery. Pray that she will one day laugh with her grandchildren.

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In some ways today (Jan. 28) was the most exhausting. Mainly the heat in our “clinic.” Once again, under tarps despite a respectable-looking church right next to us.

Our team used the church for sorting meds and eating lunch, and I hope that our occupying it might encourage the people to overcome the fear that the earth may shake it down at any moment.

Treated over 100 people again today, but the conditions generally seem less severe in the city, where people are getting access to health services.

The story that will most trouble me as I try to sleep in the parking lot again tonight is the two very young children (approximately 2 and 3 years old) whose parents both died in the quake.

These young children are registered in our Child Survival Program. Their aunt came to take them and is caring for them.

I just learned an hour ago that their aunt is 15 years old and they are sleeping in the street under a makeshift tarp tent. It’s night now and I wonder how that 15-year-old girl is going to find any food for herself or for those little ones.

I’ve only shared about the kids and people we’ve been seeing, but I want to say something about our staff in Haiti.

It just isn’t possible to describe the emotional burden they carry. I spoke with Jozue (Joshua), who works for Compassion and is pastor of the church where we set up the mobile clinic today.

Jozue told me that on the day of the quake his wife was getting ready to wash their two little girls. Their water is outside, like a backyard spigot, and when mom went out to get the water one of the girls saw her go out and began to follow. Then the second one followed.

Mom saw the girls coming out of the house and said “Get back inside.”

But the girl said “No!”

“I said go back inside!”

But the girl stomped her foot and insisted, “No!”

That happened a third time and then mom gathered her girls and began to bring them back into the house. And that’s when everything started moving side to side and the house collapsed along with both of their neighbors’ houses.

At that time, Jozue had just left the Compassion office, and the drive, which normally takes 30 minutes, took more than six hours.

He described driving past the collapsed buildings and houses and seeing dead people and hearing crying and frantically trying to make his way home to his family.

He had a friend with him who told him, “God is in control. If He wants them alive, they are alive. If He wants them dead, they are dead.”

Jozue maintained his strength and arrived at the scene of his collapsed house after 11 p.m. He searched with a flashlight and could not find them.

Then a man asked, “Who are you looking for?”

He answered, “My family.” And the man said, “They are there at the church.”

He told me he was strong until he saw them and then he was overwhelmed and “became sick.” Tears welled up as he told me several times how he loves his family.

He said he worked for 15 years to build that house but now he will need to live by faith. He said to live by faith always sounded good in a sermon but it was theory, and now he would need to really do it.

His wife was too troubled to stay in Haiti, and she left with the girls to be with relatives in Florida. I could see uncertainty in his eyes about his own decision to stay. But he said, “I’m a pastor. What words can I bring to my community?”

The bold, selfless blood of Jesus is alive in Jozue. Despite his opportunity to flee and be with his family, he believes that a pastor must serve in these very difficult times.

He and his church are the hope for Haiti’s future. So, today this man gave himself to the work of hosting our mobile clinic in an open lot next to his church where we treated more than 100 people.

Today I prayed with Dunia, a nurse who works for Compassion supporting the Child Survival Program. Dunia has been part of our team and doing an amazing job treating so many people. But her own father died and her aunt is critically injured.

This morning she had quietly separated herself from the group to cry because she had just been told her aunt would not live. She continued to treat others until we were able to secure her transport to the hospital treating her aunt.

Her aunt may make it after all – keep praying.

There are countless stories. Everyone of them matters. Lifting the burden of a physical injury or infections is pretty easy compared to lifting the burdens of sorrow so heavy in the soul. We need to pray for and generously support our brothers and sisters in Haiti.

They not only need to continue the ministry to Haiti’s children, but they need to piece together their own lives and homes as well. I would ask you to give until it hurts, and count it a privilege. There will never be a day when we regret an act of generosity or kindness.

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Today (Jan. 27) was … not sure what word could cover it. The team went to a rural site (HA748) and set up our clinic under a large mango tree.

I had to stay back in the morning because we had medical supplies that had missed the original plane and it was important to receive them. They were tagged to me, and we didn’t think U.S. forces would allow anyone else through.

So, with a tail number on an aircraft we went through the two checkpoints and were suddenly amidst the chaos of the tarmac. Massive cargo planes from the U.S. military being unloaded, vast field of materials, also some non-U.S. big planes – a 777 from Israel…. Helicopters of all types buzzing around.

We took a guess at a small plane and drove out to a field where they were parking smaller charters and we found our guy grabbed our meds and got out to HA748.

The team saw much heavier needs today. I held an 80 year old (approximately) lady for 30 minutes while she writhed in pain as our orthopedic surgeon amputated her toe. It had been crushed and was rotting infection up into the bone so it needed to be completely cleared out.

That old lady was made of leather and wire but wailed away. We probably saved her life – certainly her foot as the infection would have progressed.

I’m getting bit by mosquitoes and realize I forgot to put on bug spray – I am taking malaria meds.

Another pair of sisters today – sponsored kids. House fell, killed dad, one sister’s hand got crushed into their fire for two hours. Her hand was serious and we arranged for her evac via a contact we found here – U.S. group with lots of military support.

We thought they might fly in with a helicopter but they came in a boring old truck. We also referred and transported two others.

The other sister had her toe amputated during the crush so we cleaned it up and called it good. Split jaws, exposed skulls… a lot more today.

We came home…oops… back to the office, a two hour drive, and we sang songs lead by our Haitian brothers and sisters – all variety of hymns. From Amazing Grace to Oh God you are my God. There was a lot of smiling, passing nuts and dried fruits around. We sang pretty full throttle and didn’t sound too bad.

We saw two dead bodies being burned on the dump on our way home. The air was filed with stench and smoke and dust and we did sing This is the Air I Breathe with no irony but sincere faith.

I was humbled to be with Haitians who had lost loved ones singing “God is so good. He’s so good to me.”

We do have a mysterious, wonderful, unifying and good Lord who is in the business of re-building broken things, healing hurts and reclaiming beauty from despair. And that God is at work in Haiti even now.

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Last night’s (Jan. 25) arrival – in the dark, no lights in the airport, Humvees and Marines roaring around, bags thrown on the tarmac, smell of jet fuel, shouting, chaos, can’t find our pickup, pulling out over 30 duffel bags and boxes, driving through the chaos of Port-au-Prince with three of our guys on top of each pickup “guarding” baggage.

Touring our office at night with flashlights, framed mission statement on the wall tilted, leadership principles tilted, warning to walk clear of certain walls which are collapsing – pitch tent in parking lot, spray some DEET, take some Malarone, sweating from hauling stuff.

Today (Jan. 26), our medical team worked under tarps because the people are afraid to go inside buildings. Within an hour we were up and running and saw approximately 100 patients.

Each patient registered at entry through a gate with name, basic info including height, weight etc… and took a number. Some were triaged. Others waited to be called to one of four (sometimes five) stations. Each station had a doc, nurse and translator (though some of our Haitian nurses also served as translators).

The cases were not as severe as I expected with some very serious cuts and abrasions that were infected and needed dressing, some dislocations, a few bone issues. Many were just overwhelmed and needed someone to look at them and tell them they were okay. We prayed with some of them.

The spirit of the team is wonderful – encouraging, humble, aware of the complexity of treating the whole person. No one became impatient or frustrated (despite many reasons to be so). The day was a success in my view.

We sleep in a parking lot and listen to trucks and generators and dogs. We have access to one of the two buildings which has been deemed safe. The other is not safe.

The IT guy has set up wireless that seems to work reasonably well. My phone does not call but does text – weird. Verizon seems to work. They need to add Haiti to their map commercial.

The crew is sleepless, all-out working, coping with very complex issues and needs protection from external expectations.

I met two girls who were sisters – both sponsored through Compassion. There are three girls in the family. They were home when the quake hit. One got out. The other two were trapped.

Mom was selling food on the street and ran home. Dad also ran home from his work at a wood-working shop. Mom and Dad and uncle dug out one girl after about eight hours and the second girl after about 11 hours. Both girls suffered injury.

The sisters came to our clinic and we dressed and cleaned their wounds – infection. I asked each of them afterward some questions, prayer requests, both independently said – pray that I will get back to school and do well in school, pray that we can have our house back.

I asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Doctor and Doctor.

Mom stood next to them as they shared, and she was crying. We prayed that someday when people are hurt it would be these two young ladies who offer healing.

Shaun captured this story on film and is editing it next to me in the muggy Haiti night under floodlights, a tarp-tent sitting in a sloped parking lot with one of my chair legs wobbling in a pot hole. Shaun is holding a flashlight in his mouth as he works his audio.

Three of our docs are just returning from Salvation Army’s site here; they were visiting a clinic in search of pediatric meds (we had a hard time finding and don’t have enough). They also wanted to review how the Salvation Army clinic is designed – to pick up ideas.

Dinner is arriving in black trash sacks – rice and beans and scrawny chicken (kinda cold, not sure where they get it), but purchased and delivered in love in a place where every kid I saw today was hungry.

Hungry. I felt shame as I hid in a room with the others to eat half a sandwich for my lunch. But I felt proud to be a part of it all and offer whatever I could to serve these kids. They deserve everything we can offer and more.

That comment on hunger might make you wonder about food distribution – we’re doing it but it is very complex and cannot be done simultaneously with our clinic. That would be a serious mistake. So I snuck a little to the sisters and gave my half empty water bottle to another boy but otherwise we really could not do anything resembling food distribution.

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