Demonstrations

You might be hearing on the news or seeing on the internet that there is trouble in Haiti right now. There are indeed demonstrations in Port-au-Prince and Les Cayes and other areas. Pignon has had some tire burning and road blocks the last couple of days and St Raphael, north of Pignon has had about 4 days of burning tires and road blocks. Yet, south of us, in Hinche, all is apparently calm.

Bohoc is calm. We have had school as normal every day. Our teachers and students and staff are talking about nothing but the demonstrations in the rest of the country. And any glance into the school office will find teachers listening to the news on the radio. People are very concerned.

The demonstrations are about food -- the price and the availability. Just an example, my cook went out yesterday afternoon to try to buy some flour, sugar, rice and oil to stock up. She found the flour and sugar and oil, but no rice. The last merchant in the Bohoc area with any rice had just sold out -- at a higher price than what my cook had last heard. The merchant called her vendor in Cap Haitien who said that, he didn't have any rice either, but there was a boat due in soon and as soon as the rice cleared customs, he would let the merchant know.

The people are blaming the government, and indeed there are delays in customs that are holding up food imports and adding to the shortages. But the rising price of food right now is a world problem. Just today the teachers were telling me that they heard that there were food demonstrations in Egypt and Ivory Coast. There is only so much the Haitian government can do in the face of such a world wide problem.

Please pray for the food shortages to come to a peaceful end. Please pray for wisdom for the people and leaders in the demonstrations and that they will be willing to listen to reason. Please pray for wisdom for Haiti's leaders as they seek for the way out of a problem that is plaguing many parts of the world. And pray for the Haitian people that they would turn to the Lord, not to violence and that the Lord would provide for them. And pray for us that we would be able to be calm lights for peace and reason and that we would be able to help where we can.