Their world was shaken and destroyed in 30 seconds.

On January 12th, 2010, Haiti suffered a devastating, 7.0-magnitude earthquake.

Food For The Poor immediately responded by shipping and distributing food, water and medical supplies through our Haiti office. The destruction was catastrophic. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, numerous people were injured, buildings and homes were destroyed, and more than one million people were left homeless.

The earthquake presents Haiti with its greatest challenge yet. Countless homeless people now live in refugee camps beneath bed sheets and tarps that offer little or no protection against the approaching storm season. Your compassion and support are urgently needed to rebuild communities for displaced families in Haiti.

	“My house split open. I cried out, ‘Jesus, save me!’ I couldn’t understand why the house was shaking.”

Anese Simaile, 27, recalls the horrors of the January 12 earthquake. Like many other Haitian mothers, she was going about her daily routine when her world came crashing down. Anese’s house in Grand Goave was destroyed. Some of her loved ones and friends died in the catastrophe. Her children’s school is now gone, and the little ones have nothing to do.

Like so many other families in Haiti, she and her children are homeless.

Five months pregnant, Anese and her four children sleep on a hillside in a tent made of bed sheets and a tarp. She sleeps on cardboard placed on the rocky ground and puts the children on the bed salvaged from their house. Because the bed’s mattress is made of boards, Anese pads it with sheets for the children. She tries to make them feel comfortable and keep them healthy, though Marti, 6, has frequent stomachaches and fevers. The damp living conditions cause many children living in tents to suffer from colds, fevers and diarrhea.

“Everything is difficult. Now all you can do is pray and cry. I cry a lot,” Anese said. “There’s no other place to sleep. I have no house. I don’t know how long I’ll stay here… only God knows,” she said.

Anese shares her tarp with her neighbor in the next tent, spreading it out so that it offers a little protection from the rain and cold. Prayer gives her strength and helps her survive from one day to the next.

“There’s some calmness in the praying. I feel like I’m alive because I’ve lost so many people,” Anese said.

If she had one prayer answered, Anese knows what it would be: “I’d ask God to bless all the people who are still alive,” she explained. “I pray for the entire country because I’m not the only one in this situation. I just need a place to sleep.”

For Haiti’s earthquake victims, you can help heal the anguish of a horrific disaster by providing a ray of hope.

Your compassion can place a roof over the heads of an unsheltered family or give them lifesaving water. Your generous heart can provide sanitation units for a tent city or offer the opportunity to earn an income to those whose workplace was destroyed.

In all, you can help ease an innocent family’s devastation by offering them the chance of a better future. May God bless you for all you do for those in need…