It's been almost 3 weeks since a team of 26 Canadian Christian workers and 14 American Christian workers had to be evacuated by heliopter from a missions base in Grand-Goave, Haiti. 

The teams were there to help Haiti Arise with hosting a women's conference and work on a housing construction project (Haiti Arise - Blog). Haiti Arise is a Non-Government Organization that plants and partners with local churches, provides schooling for underpriveled children, operates a medical clinic to meet local health needs, runs a homebuilding project for those whose homes were destroyed in the 2010 earthquake, and provides homes for orphaned children. (Haiti Arise - About). 

Lisa Honorat is CEO of Haiti Arise along with her husband Marc. She explains what happened. 

"Since the riots & protests began on Feb 7, we’d been staying on our Haiti ARISE campus and within town away from the highway. The protests were supposed to subside by Feb 9, so we initially were not concerned about the team being able to head home on Feb 13. But as riots and roadblocks escalated past the 9th, we had to turn another team around that was on their way to Haiti as well as a third group that had already arrived but were stuck in [Porte-au-Prince], unable to get out to us in Grand-Goave. Everything all over the country has been on lock down- roads, schools & businesses closed with risk of danger & violence if people tried to get through blockades. It became quickly apparent that this situation was getting bad. Reports of random cars and businesses being burned throughout the country and vehicles being attacked were unnerving. Fortunately, our team on the ground was safe in our secure campus and we had enough reserves of food, fuel & water, but as the days continued to stretch on with no one able to go out, resources began to deplete. We know that not everyone in Haiti has the luxury of having extra." (Haiti Arise - Blog)

"Many Haitians that live day by day have already been suffering from no food, water, health care, power & fuel and we had heard that there had already been some deaths because of this. We had been in contact and advised by the Canadian Embassy to stay put til things opened up, since we were safe. There was no way to get to the airport until then. It was a rollercoaster of emotion for the days extended beyond planned as each morning we were up by 4 and 5am to find out any news we could. Marc would call his policeman brother and at least 3-4 other sources in hope for road blocks to open or for the police to be able to reach us & provide an escort out, but they couldn’t and the road blocks didn’t open. The national highway was blocked everywhere and riots continued to erupt." (Haiti Arise - Blog)

The teams were eventually able to get to the Port-au-Prince airport by arranging a flight with a local helicopter company. On Saturday, February 18th, the 40 Christian workers were taken to the airport in 3 trips and able to get flights out of the country (Haiti Arise - Blog)

The riots and protest have since calmed down, but there is still a lot of uneasiness, according to Honorat (Haiti Arise - Blog). 

"...There has not yet been a solution to answer the insurmountable financial trouble Haiti is in. Quite frankly, it’s been a mountain building for years, decades, I would even say centuries of political and financial turmoil. This most current political issues are not just a result of this current president, Jovenel Moise, whom the people are insisting to step down from office. That won’t actually solve the problem, cause he was not actually the cause. It is years of government corruption, waste of funds that should have been used for the impoverished country’s development." (Haiti Arise - Blog)

Because of the political unrest, Haiti Arise has had many teams cancel that were to come and serve in the next couple of months. This is the reality they are faced with until the US and Candian Embassies have their travel warnings in effect (Haiti Arise - Blog). 

Honorat asks for prayer in this time:

"So thank you for your prayers. We ask that you continue to stand with us. Pray that Haiti will be changed by the power of the gospel, that revival would capture hearts the yolk of poverty and the enemy’s plans to kill, steal and destroy would be broken. Please keep us also in your prayers as a family, for God’s grace to be sufficient for us." (Haiti Arise - Blog)