Updated 1/25--scroll below to see new satellite image.

Thank you all so much for your support and prayers. We have been in more regular contact with Chedrick Caneus, our leader in Haiti, and can report the following:

• The aftershocks, while terrifying, have not caused any further damage or death.
• Chedrick writes: “We did our best to feed and help a lot of people of Pele to find water because we were at the beginning of the month and we used the food of the school to serve them during the first week of the quake, that was not easy but praise God we did it. Now we cannot continue because we don't have food anymore. People really need food, water, somewhere to sleep at this moment and any kind of help is welcome.”
• All of our leaders and kids are living outside and food and water is very scarce. International aid has not yet reached them. However, some food and water is now available for purchase, and Western Union has just reopened (banks are still closed). Western Union has waived its normally steep fees, and we have begun to send money to our leaders to begin to provide food, water, and shelter for them and the children.
• Four of our Jenn Vi (Young Life) clubs were destroyed. All of the leaders survived but at least five of the kids died.
• Our new vocational school, which a group from First Presbyterian Church Richmond began to build last summer, is the only part of our campus that did not suffer serious damage. A tiny bit of good news!
  
• It appears that all donations to help in Haiti through February 2010 will be deductible on 2009 tax returns. Please contact us if you would like to take advantage of this and we will send you the appropriate documentation.
• Photos of the school and church can be viewed at: http://tinyurl.com/cspphotos
  

Our needs are overwhelming and still unfolding. If you would like to make a special donation, please use the following Paypal link, or send a check to Child Sponsorship, PO Box 17851 Richmond, VA 23229.

Here is further information from Chedrick:

On Tuesday January 19, the national staff was in the streets to visit some camps where our leaders and kids take shelter and the victims in general. Information which we collected the first day of the meeting made it possible to know that our young people are shared out in 17 miserable camps of refuge. They do not have water, food, latrines… The great majority of them suffer from fever especially at night, flu, diarrhea… some of them present signs of great weakness. We also have recorded in the club of Simon two cases of madness that require the intervention of a psychiatrist.

Many young people and leaders have left Port-au-Prince, but unfortunately some of them have started to come back again because they do not have anything to provide to their needs, they are suffering from hunger and they wish to receive something from what the foreign governments are distributed to the victims and these assistances are very difficult to be received by the victims. (Now everyone needs, everyone is thirsty and everyone is hungry.)
 
Many leaders and young people do not have house anymore and consequently they do not know where they will go when the life become normal again. Now, everyone lives in the streets and the deprivation of house is not felt yet and does not make problem yet but when people start to return to their house the leaders and young people will begin to face the blackest misery.
 
Following the various information received from the leaders, we enumerate the needs in order of priority:
A. Food and water
B. Tents
C. Hygienic materials
D. Clothing
E. Medical help.
F. Immediately after the events (Housing).
 
We just were given this satellite image of the school post-earthquake:

Child Sponsorship Program :: P.O. Box 17851 Richmond, VA 23226 :: 804-767-2360