The Trip!!!

As we got into the van and headed for the airport, there were a number of unanswered questions. How are we going to get from Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince? (which is a seven hour trip by car) Where were we going to sleep? How and what were we going to eat and drink? Are we going to able to buy food for the kids at our orphanages? How were the Haitian people going to treat us in a time of desperation? So many questions with no real answers. There was one other question that came to mind as I was driving the recon team to the airport. It came from a reporter that I did an interview with the week before, quote "Sir I need to ask you this, WHY?". That is a question that all of us in that van could answer very easily, "obedience". Our job was to be obedient to what we felt God wanted us to do and leave the details and the results up to him. What we all found out is, that God is not only the King of the universe, but He's a pretty good travel agent as well.

We arrived in Port-au-Prince a half a day ahead of schedule and got right to work. We went to visit our kids at Good Samaritan and set up the tents and the tarps that we brought for their temporary shelter. They were thrilled to see us and after a lot of hugs and kisses, they jumped right in and helped us get everything set up. (Thanks Rick and Denise for donating the money for all the tents, tarps and supplies)
Knowing that we were going to head to Leogane in the morning, we headed down to the UN base to see if we could get some food and water. We hooked up with the Commander of supplies and he gave us 480 MRE type packets and a whole skid of water (about 120 cases) At the end of the day, we looked up, knowing who was responsible for our productive day and I feel He looked down, smiled, and thought, "wait till tomorrow".

Wednesday we got up, loaded up the trucks, picked up some of the girls at Good Samaritan, and headed to Leogane to visit an orphanage we've been helping over the past six months. When we arrived we found this:



One hundred children lived in that building. The Pastor "just happened" to send them all out to play about 15 mins. before the quake and all their lives were spared. We also found that there was a UN base about a mile from the orphanage and they were taking care of the kids by bring them of food, water, and a large truck load of lumber and tin. The UN Soldiers are going to build them a temporary shelter and are going to keep an eye on them as long as the base is there. While we set up a tent for the Pastor/Father of the orphanage and his family, the girls from Good Samaritan cleaned up the kids and braided all the girls' hair. Momma Cazeau made and brought a hot meal for all the kids and we were able to help serve and watch all the kids enjoy Momma's cooking.

701574848674

On the way back to Port-au-Prince we stopped at another orphanage our last team spent some time with in December in Petion-ville. Again to our surprise that orphanage also was able to get hooked up with food and supplies. We counted over 50 bags of rice along with other food and water. We left feeling very encouraged that others were also in this fight and the food and supplies were getting out to the right places.

So on our way home from Petionville I decided to call a friend of mine that is running a clinic right near where we staying. He told me that they could really use some food because they concentrated so much on getting medical supplies in that they forgot that they were going to have to feed their patients at some point. They were reaching that point and didn't have much to give them. So after talking to the other guys we decided to give them about 200 MREs. We also gave some to an orphanage that we also knew needed food. The rest of the MREs we gave to Poppa Cazeau and he distributed them to the tent community where we were staying after it got dark. We got a lot of little winks of gratitude from those in that community the rest of the week.




Thursday was another full day. We went to a dear friend of ours, Pastor Nathan's home to see how we could help him and his church. We found his house, which is directly above the church, was destroyed. We set up a 20' x 30'tarp for his community to use for shade and Church. We also gave him some supplies and a small tent for he and his family. After a time of prayer with him and his family, we headed off to Freedom House Orphanage to set up their large tent and to evaluate their needs. We found that their building was in good shape, but they were low on supplies and especially water. So before we left we gave them some money for water and headed out with a mission to find food.

After a conversation with Anderson Cooper from CNN along the road, we found out that one way to get food was to head down to the airport and try to get hooked up with Miami University Hospital. So Matt and I went to check that out and along the way we dropped off Marv and Doug at the UN again to see if we could get more MREs. We were able to reach the hospital via an armed escort through a secured area and were able to talk to a person at the hospital. They told us to go back to the UN and ask for OCHA reception and they may be able to help us. Just minutes after telling us that, Marv called and said they got a line on food, turns out they were at OCHA reception and got paper work for us to pick up food in the morning. After hanging out with the kids at Good Samaritan, we went back to our little tent community for the rest of the evening. As I laid in the back of a pick up truck trying to get some sleep, I looked to the Heavens once again in awe, and again God smiled and said "wait til tomorrow"

We had one mission on Friday and that was to get as much food and water for our orphanages and affiliated ministries as we could. The first warehouse we went to was not open due to the mob of people that were standing at the gate trying to get food. So on to the next one. We didn't really have any idea what was there, but we did know that whatever was there we could have. We got there and the person that was in charge of the warehouse pointed us to the end of the facility and said take whatever you want from this section. "Take it all if you'd like" he said. We loaded up a large 14' box truck three times along with six pick-up loads.

Some examples of what we were able to secure were:

Over 12,000lbs of rice.
Over 6,000lbs of beans.
Over 4,500lbs of tuna/sardines
1000 12'x12' tarps
500 cases of water
cases and cases of toilet paper/hygiene products/diapers
2700 Energy bars

Total estimated value was around $100,000

We were also able to get 150 boxes of medical supplies. The supplies were all in Spanish and labeled. Antibiotics/Cardio/Pediatrics/Pain reliever/First aid. After we talked about it, we decided to give Dr' Jude a call. Dr. Jude has worked with our teams in the past and helped us run a clinic in Leogane this past Oct. and Dec. He informed us that he was working at a clinic right outside one of Haiti's poorest sections and that they needed med.'s desperately and oh yeah, we also found out that Dr, Jude is fluent in Spanish. Seemed like a good fit.

So that gives you an idea about the first half of our trip and here are a few more pictures. I'll fill you in on the rest soon.

Keeping Looking up,

Jeff




Leogane Pastor/Father of the Orphanage





One of our girls at Good Samaritan feeding a liitle one from Leogane