from orlandosentinel.com:
"A group of Central Florida students on a mission trip to Haiti is scrambling to escape the crumbling country in the wake of Tuesday's devastating earthquake.
Forty-one people — most affiliated with Central Florida churches — are stranded in Leogane, about 20 miles west of the capital of Port-au-Prince, authorities said.
"We certainly have a mess on our hands trying to get these kids out of there," said Bud Bennington, an Orlando lawyer who is working with government officials to fly the students home.
Faith Grosshans, 15, is among the nine students from The First Academy in Haiti. They left Saturday to deliver shoeboxes of toiletries, edible treats and toys to impoverished children, said Carol Grosshans, Faith's mother. Three adults went with them.
Grosshans spoke to her daughter Thursday night and said Faith was in good spirits. She was visiting with a teenager named Evelyn, whom the Grosshans family has sponsored for a decade. It was their first meeting after years as pen pals, and part of it was spent feeling the ground shake and fearing they would be swallowed up.
They spent the first night after the quake outside praying and slept inside a damaged mission school the next night.
"She wasn't scared," Grosshans said. "In fact, she said, 'Mom, we had a dance in the cafeteria.' Her spirits were very good."
People from Oviedo, Ocoee, Winter Garden and Pennsylvania, all affiliated with other churches, are among the group from Orlando-based New Missions, said Steve Whitaker, headmaster of The First Academy. The school is affiliated with First Baptist Church of Orlando. Missionaries from separate groups based in Tennessee and Texas also are stranded in Leogane, according to news reports.
New Missions' Web site says it is working on two evacuation plans. The first would use government help to rescue the missionaries. The second would be a private evacuation through friends in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
Parents are eager to fly their children home because the situation in Haiti is deteriorating, and more people are becoming desperate, making the students the target of possible violence.
"They have food and water," Whitaker said. "They're safe. We're thankful for that. But we definitely need to do all we can to get them out."
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