Haiti is still in turmoil. The causes are many and there are no quick or easy solutions. RMI has had to cancel several teams and our Haiti office has been closed for 10 days. Our missionaries and staff have been safe and have had good supplies of food and water. However, as things have escalated, Saturday morning the US embassy strongly encouraged all US citizens to leave the country as soon as possible. The safety of our missionaries is paramount as well as enabling them to carry out their ministries effectively. At this point, our ministry is paralyzed and the missionaries have been on lockdown in their homes for more than a week.
The decision was made Saturday to evacuate all RMI missionaries as soon as possible. This was accomplished yesterday when Missionary Flights International flew in a DC 3 to the Cayes airport and picked up our missionaries plus several other agencies' missionaries and flew them to the Port-au-Prince airport. [The road to the capital has been blocked by dozens of barricades.] All of them were able to get on commercial airlines to the US and are now safely home. This decision wasn't made lightly - but it was needed not only for the missionaries but to relieve our Haitian leadership from the responsibility of caring for them in a time of crisis.
We will remain in constant contact with our Haitian leadership to continue to assess the situation and, hopefully, the missionaries can head back and teams can resume soon.
Our hearts break for our Haitian brothers and sisters and this dear country. Their hardships are compounded by this crisis. Pray for peace and stability to return to Haiti quickly!
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