Digging out the Rubble

Tuesday, Feb 2, 2010

Got up early to pack up and get ready to take a team of workers to Leogane to dig out the houses of two of our leaders.

I had to take all the tools I could find because we were going to take at least 8 people to help with the work. My original idea was to take some Haitian young men from the Bolosse church who had been former members of the Lemuel Soccer team that Elysee and I had spent 3 years training. But when I got to QCS, I found out that 4 guys from Crisis Response International wanted to come and they had lots of tools. So we ended up taking only Elysee, two of his brothers, and two other men from the Bolosse church.

We went in convoy with a team from TEAR Fund, UK. And the director rode in my car. Her name was Cressida and she told us that the organization's name means : The Evangelical Association for Relief Fund. It is made up of a bunch of evangelical churches in the UK that seek to help the poor and suffering. They have worked for years in partnership with the UEBH (The Haitian church we work with), but now want to set up an office in Haiti and expand their presence.

The Tear Fund UK team that we went with consisted of Matt, a water engineer, Annie, a child psychologist and Cressida the team leader. When we arrived, I introduced them to Pastor Guillaume (Giy-yom) and after we left to go and work on some of the Leaders houses, they ended up talking to him for quite a while.

After a quick breakfast of Croissants, we went to Pastor Guillaume's son's house, Guidony. On the day of the earthquake he had just finished a day of teaching at his Father's school and was outside chatting with other teachers in the courtyard. When he saw what happened, he ran home to see if his house was still standing. When he arrived, he found the house leveled, but saw no one and heard no cries. His heart stopped for a moment until his neighbors told him that his wife had been inside, but had snatched their sleeping baby from her crib and ran out the door with their six-year-old son just before the house fell.

We did not have heavy equipment, so all we could do was clean up the debris from their courtyard so they could put up a tent inside their property walls and at least have a little privacy.

The next house we went to was the one that the Baby miraculously escaped from. Her Father had been laying down with her on his chest, but when the earthquake came, he instinctively turned his back as the house fell down and shielded her. He had some broken ribs, but the baby was unhurt.

We decided that the house was much to big to remove the rubble from, and since they had already gotten their valuable papers like birth and marriage certificates out, there was no reason to sift through the rubble.

Instead, we made it our project to make her sister's house which was unfinished, but had a good raised foundation and cement floors, safe for them to put a tent over and live in. This required some demolition work to remove some half-finished walls and arches that could easily fall if not removed.

We spent the rest of the day there and even got the kids of the community to help out, with the promise of a soccer game after the work!

Later in the afternoon, Pastor Guillaume came over to help and told us that is wife had prepared a nice meal for us, and we should stop by the church to eat before we went home. Although this was not asked for, or expected, I was not surprised by the offer because it is a Haitian tradition to feed workers when they come together for a “Konbit” or work party to do a big job, like clearing a field. We enjoyed great fellowship as we ate together, with our dusty clothes and sweaty bodies.
When I dropped our Haitian friends from Bolosse who helped us, the CRI workers went and looked at the house of one of the men who had helped us. They found out that the rubble of 3 houses had piled up and was blocking the road to one of the main supplies of water in the area, forcing everyone in the area to rely on the Bolosse UEBH campus exclusively for water.

On Thursday we hope to go and work to remove this rubble and clear a path to the water source.



Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010

Since I had been doing so much physical work, I decided to work on Expense reports today. There are so many details to keep track of and so many expenses. Sometimes I feel like a MAC machine! However, I did manage to get our reports done and sent to Crossworld. Of course I had to clean up the house a little for Carol's long awaited return on Friday!

Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010

Got up early this morning to get ready for our big day of work near the Bolosse campus. This is the campus we used to live on from 2000-2003 during our first term. Today our goal was to clear a path to a well near an old Fort called Ft. Mercredi. Three houses had fallen on top of each other and were blocking the way. This means that the only source of water for these people was a 10 minute walk up and down a hill to the Bolosse campus which currently is home to about 2,500 refugee families.

After collecting my supplies, I drove over to QCS to pick up the Crisis Response International team of about 10 people and their supplies. CRI has volunteers coming in every week for 2-week stints. For some, this was their first overseas experience! Before we went over we had to stop and get supplies from my favorite hardware store. I found out that one employee and his family had died, but everyone else was OK. I guess it will be like that each time I visit a store I used to shop at.

We got what we needed, and Mike, the leader of the CRI team remarked that what we paid $100 US for would have cost $50 at Home Depot. But, hey, this is Haiti after an earthquake and everything is more expensive than it was. I also noticed that they had large tarps for sale, and later I purchased one for Margaret, our cook and her family.

On the way over my phone rang (as it often does these days!). It was Lee King from a NY church, the man we had taken around last Thursday to look at possible locations for his water purification systems.
He said his son had malaria and he was being air-lifted out on a military flight that day. He asked me to pick up the water systems that were being delivered to the airport that day and store him for him until he could give me instructions on who to distribute them to and how to install them. I told him I would do all I could to help him and in gratitude he said he would give our ministry one of the water systems. (These systems can purify up to 6,000 gallons a day – that's 15 tank trucks of water!).

When we got to Bolosse we found Elysee there waiting for us with a number of Haitian men who wanted to help us. After praying, we made our way over to the old Fort and climbed up the big hill. It was a beautiful, clear, hot morning, and the bay was full of ships – A hospital ship, an aircraft carrier, troop ships, cargo ships, all kinds of ships. We also saw plenty of helicopters flying around distributing food, and carrying patients around.

Then we set up a long bucket brigade and started to pass buckets of debris from the bottom house to the Fort on the top of the hill. I was sad because we had to dump the rock on the small soccer field they had made in the courtyard of the old fort. (The fort was called Fort Mercredi, or Fort Wednesday because the French had originally built seven forts around PAP, each named after a day of the week).
In all there were about 40 people working together, Americans and Haitians working side by side for the benefit of the community. We told the Haitian workers that they would not be paid, but that we would all eat a meal together when the work was done.

After getting the group started I drove over to the airport with Ecdes and my security guard named Mitou. It was a good thing they went with me, because when we got there we found 16 boxes of water system material for Lee King. While loading the truck, Lee called and said there was more stuff coming on a later plane, so we waited around for them to unload the plane. In the meantime I talked to the MAF man in charge of cargo and he said he could give me some food for the refugee camps I was working with. He ended up giving me 5 boxes of food that could feed 120 people each, and 8 cases of baby food for babies 8 months old. By this time, my small pick-up was pretty well loaded. Then we got 16 more boxes, and the car was loaded to the hilt! I was actually proud of the packing job, and nothing fell on the trip back to QCS where we ended up storing them.

Then we had to go back to Bolosse to pick up the work team up. However, on the way we dropped off the boxes of food at Ronald William's refugee camp. He was really glad to get the supplies. When we arrived at Bolosse, lots of Haitian kids were crowding around our CRI friends who really enjoyed sharing a meal with all who helped. This is a Haitian tradition. Whenever people work together, they share a meal. The CRI team had given Elysee money to pay for the food, and he had arranged for it to be prepared. Since they were drawing a crowd, I gave them evangelistic tracts to hand out, which they really liked.



That night Ecdes and I actually had enough energy to play basketball with a bunch of Army guys at QCS, then we went home, took a cold shower and went to bed.Friday, Feb. 5, 2010

Today I picked up Carol at the airport! I was so excited to see her.

However, before that I took a man to the UN clinic at the airport who had stepped on a nail. In talking to the doctors I discovered that there is a serious shortage of Tetanus Anti-toxin in Haiti. Many people are getting Tetanus because they were never vaccinated as infants. I was also supposed to take another man who was very sick with Tetanus. When I asked where he was, his friend said he was afraid of getting a shot. I knew the man was in danger of dying, so I was pretty upset. His friend said he had tried to explain the seriousness of his condition, but that his friend had a “tet di” - was hard-headed. Part of the problem is that when you have a lock-jaw seizure, you don't remember what happened. Since he couldn't see the consequences of his condition, he was not afraid. In addition, Tetanus is a progressive disease. It takes time for the toxins to build up enough to kill you. I reflected that this is like is like sin in our lives. One little sin doesn't seem so serious, but then one sin leads to another until it becomes a root of bitterness and then strangles our spiritual life. Please pray that this man named Johnny listens and agrees to get the care he needs.

I also dropped off two single mothers at the house of another missionary who has a jewelry-making ministry. He and his wife show single moms how to make jewelry and then sell it in the US. Please pray that this would work out for them so they can support their children. One is Sophie, the Mom of Sophonie who we helped after the Quake. The other is named Francoise and she was the one that had the 2 year old boy who was burned and who we helped get medical care for. She has 3 children.

While at the airport I found two more boxes for Lee King, and then I got the call that I was waiting for!

Carol was in Haiti!! But she was at a different airport terminal. So I had to go and pick her up there. It was a great reunion and we still have so much to catch up on.