The rainy season is starting soon in Haiti. This period generally lasts from March to May, and then hurricane season runs from June to November. Most of the people who live in the streets and in tent cities as a result of the earthquake will be exposed to the heavy rains.

We don’t have accurate information on how many of those living outside are in shelters that can withstand the rainy season, but it’s clear that a large number of them don’t have rainproof materials. The materials most commonly used now for shelter are bedsheets. These provide a bit of privacy as well as protection from the sun, cold and dust, but not from rain and wind.

We are focusing our efforts on addressing temporary and transitional shelter needs by providing tarps as well as materials for transitional shelters. We will not be able to assist everyone in need. We will focus on those who are most in need and who have not received shelter assistance from other organizations.

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Four million babies die each year in the first month of life. Half of these babies die in the first 24 hours of life. And in the aftermath of last month’s earthquake in Haiti, the risks for babies and toddlers throughout the country have increased.

As the government focuses on the immediate and critical needs facing the country, please help us help Haiti. Help us rescue babies and toddlers from these startling infant mortality statistics, statistics that don’t care about the recent crisis in Port-au-Prince … because they are a crisis of their own.

Help us rescue babies and toddlers by supporting a Child Survival Program in Vertieres, L’Estere, Cap-Haitien or Fauche.*

Your support of $20 a month provides at-risk babies and toddlers:

• nutritious food and supplements
• immunizations
• ongoing health care
• physical, emotional, and spiritual development

And it provides mothers and caregivers:

• prenatal and ongoing health care
• nutritional training
• parenting-skills training
• the loving embrace of a local church

As always, our local church partners carry out our ministry, and in the case of the Child Survival Program, they contextualize the program to each situation individually.

Our church partners provide the critical interventions and build the open and trusting relationships with the mothers and caregivers that are critical to our success. Survival Specialists from the churches visit homes and educate mothers in their own environment. There, the actual needs of the baby, mother, family and community are known, seen and met accordingly.

Support a Child Survival Program in Haiti.

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I hit a point several weeks ago where I didn’t think I could handle seeing one more thing or reading one more article about Haiti. I needed some distance and recuperating time, which is a good thing. But despite the time of stress and trauma, there is one thing we must keep doing:

“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” – Ephesians 6:18, (NIV)

Imagine this.

You’re at work and you run into a coworker. You ask them how they’re doing. Their aunt has just passed away, and they’re having a hard time dealing with it.

Then you’re sitting in a meeting at work. You look around and realize that every single person in the room has had a loved one die in the past month. One a cousin. One a pastor. One a father.

Now imagine that you haven’t slept in your own bed for one month. 30 full days.

You’re not sure your home is safe, so you, your spouse and your kids are sleeping in a tent outside. At night you hear the dogs bark and cars roaring up steep hills. You don’t remember the last time you got a full night’s sleep. You duck inside your home in the mornings to shower, but other than that, you stay clear away from those uncertain walls.

Now imagine you have also just had your brother and and a good friend both pass away on the same day.

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While we continue delivering food and supply kits to our church partners for the immediate relief of the families they serve, we are beginning to shift our focus from short-term relief to longer-term solutions.

One possible component of a larger strategic approach includes working with other organizations in Haiti to implement income-generating activities for those who have lost homes, property and the means to provide for themselves.

Beginning in March and continuing every three months, we will begin hosting conferences and workshops for key church leaders in Haiti. We not only want to encourage them, but we also want to challenge them to be a prophetic voice during this time.

Edouard Lassegue, Vice President of the Central America and Caribbean Region says,

“Compassion has earned respect in Haiti and we are uniquely positioned to leverage that respect and the strong relationships we have developed with church leaders. We want to use our credibility to encourage them to be a voice for what is right, for service, for responsibility — that is what is required in a time like this.”

As far as the children themselves, safety is our top priority. Until children and their families can move back into permanent dwellings, protecting them in the tent cities is essential.

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We continue to procure and deliver relief supplies through our staging area in Florida and our two supply warehouses in Haiti. We estimate that 1,000 emergency relief food kits are arriving in Haiti daily, some of which are donated by church partners in the Dominican Republic.

Food kits are put together in the Dominican Republic and delivered to our Port-au-Prince warehouse via large trucks. In high-risk areas, we use security assistance from the U.S. Army, though at times this draws unwanted attention. As food and relief supplies become more readily available, there will be less of a need for this.

Smaller vehicles from our Haitian church partners come to our Port-au-Prince warehouse to pick up the food kits.

Each food kit gives a family of five one meal a day for two weeks.

Join us online on Feb. 27, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. CT for a special benefit concert for Haiti.

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.

Compassion Canada CEO Barry Slauenwhite and a group of fellow Canadians were met at the Port-au-Prince airport on Jan. 12 with an unexpected diplomatic reception. It lasted only 15 or 20 minutes, but it was long enough to possibly save their lives.

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.

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The critical need the poor always have for water has been heightened in Haiti after the earthquake. We’ve used various ways to distribute water to our church partners, and we’re looking to our strategic partnerships to continue to meet the short- and long-term needs.

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.