Let There Be Light Photography: The Day After

These photos were also all taken on January 13th in Petit-Goâve, Haiti - where we were staying.

Before you look through these photos and brief descriptions, take a moment to check out info for my next trip to Haiti and consider supporting my team and I as we head down to Haiti this coming Saturday, March 13th. Also, please be praying for our team and also for the community we will be working with - we are excited to see the people we love so much in Haiti.

He was a pro at cutting the coconuts and having the perfect size hole for drinking the milk out of the coconut - quite the skilled man.

Our lunch on Wednesday - it was such a cool thing to be able to cook not only for ourselves but also for the group of Haitians staying in the field with us. The cooler part was that they returned the favor that night, cooking us dinner!

It was just so fitting. Made in Norway - both of them!

These were some of the items we grabbed out of the house the night before right after the earthquake. While we were inside getting them, there was yet another aftershock so we quickly got out. We drank the water and this soda and the snacks only lasted through that day really.

Lunch - would have spoiled in the fridge if we didn't eat the cheese and meat.

The view down the street the day after the earthquake. Quite a strange site to see considering we saw it the day before entirely untouched. Power lines must have come down pretty easily.

Weak foundations crumbled.

Some places didn't look all that different from the first look - but this place didn't have much standing behind the front wall, except for a fallen roof and walls.

Even some of the nicer homes were greatly damaged.

The wall painted by the Gathering the year before. The verse translated from Creole:

Shout for joy, O heavens;
rejoice, O earth;
burst into song, O mountains!
For the LORD comforts his people
and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.
Isaiah 49:13

Amazing that the wall right next to it was destroyed. This wall brought hope and positive change to the community - yes, "just" a wall did that. The community placed benches next to the wall for a place to gather and hang out. God spared it for a reason - a continued sign of hope.

This is the only decent photo I got of the latrine we were working on - they made some good progress Tuesday afternoon, and only 1 of the walls fell over during the earthquake - and it was fresh concrete!

Some houses simply collapsed as if there were no walls holding them up.

Other houses lost an entire wall, but were otherwise standing.

Made some scary thoughts go through my head. What a blessing that this earthquake didn't happen in the middle of the night - I can't imagine how many more would have been inside their houses.

This is the "street" of Percin - though the only vehicles that occasionally see this "road" are motorcycles - no room for cars to even get into the small community. Also, as you can see many of the houses in Percin were relatively unaffected. Most of the homes are made from corrugated metal, branches, sheets, and other materials not greatly affected by the earthquake. It is almost like everyone was brought to the same level. The people in this community were already living in something like a "tent-city" that we see on TV that most of the nation is living in currently. There is a lot to learn from these people...

This is where the sewage makes its way out to the ocean - it also serves as the border of this small community. As you can see, the wall on the opposite side of Percin (the left) fell down completely. This small community was basically walled off from the rest of the city on all side - yet most of these walls fell during the earthquake.

A lot of mangos fell that night...

Some streets didn't look as affected as others.

This entire building literally crumbled. Hard to see this in person and not know what was lying beneath the now crumbled building.

Yes - the cleanup began the very next day. Even while aftershocks still shook the ground beneath them. However, as you can see, most of the city of Petit-Goave didn't know how to react or what to do. Only the tractors or working, everyone else seems to be in so much shock that all they can do it simply watch.