The Background

The first day after the quake, our family spent mourning the Port-au-Prince, Haiti earthquake disaster. Overwhelmed by it's epic proportions, we answered non-stop phone calls of condolences and questions. "Is your family OK?" "Is that where you worked when you went to Haiti?" "What can I do?"

The outpouring of love from our friends and family was truly amazing. And we are grateful. We also made some calls of our own, desperate for contact with friends and relatives inside Haiti.....

Now, due to the terrific amount of time I am spending on the phone, I decided to blog what's happening so that I can clean my mudroom floor. Well, maybe not.

To answer the basic questions, yes, my family is safe, but I have an aunt who needs diabetes medicine. Bryan cannot locate one friend of his, who lived in the capital. Secondly, we did not work in Port-au-Prince, we were based out of Jeremie, which felt the quake, but was unharmed. For the blessings, we are so thankful.

Anyway, everyone who watched the quake's damages on TV understands the immense feeling of hopelessness and helplessness that we all felt. I think our whole nation felt it. And continues to...until the headlines change, anyway.

On the second day, we suddenly thought that maybe we should actually DO something...besides praying and wringing our hands. Now we're praying and moving. We will give up and come home when we can go no further.

So....many hours of phoning later, Jon Fussle volunteered his services, free of charge, as a pilot..and he found a plane we could use for up to 100 hours at $100/hr. and the cost of fuel (that's a cheap charter, by the way)....but it needed a part. OK. We would wait.

Then he found another plane...that needed insurance. OK. We would wait.

We blatantly asked for money, medical supplies and tools. And we got them.

Our church family set up an account for local donations toward the trip and additional supplies and the money came in from our friends and churches throughout the area.

I asked for water purification systems from HTI, which our dear friend Nathan Jones immediately over-nighted to Miami.

Then, bad news...no flights into Port because of overcrowding. NO SMALL PLANES!

We were discouraged---for about 3 minutes. What about flying into Cap Haitien? What about Santo Domingo? What about illegally bypassing customs onto one of the drug runways. Hey, we would be carrying drugs! Fussle said no.What about a boat from one of the islands?

Then a call from a wonderful philanthropist named Mark (I won't give out his last name so nobody calls him) who wanted to donate $50,000 worth of water purification equipment, but wanted to go through a non-profit organization. Enter Full Life Crusade and the bank account. Thank God for the efficiency of 50K in...50K out. In one day. Committee-Free.

Wire transfers... and then: 10,000 individual water purification units and 8 hydrowell units, which each provide clean water to 400 people a day... for a month! God is so awesome.

However, the logistics of the weight of that much stuff on pallets was more than our little plane could handle. And if we shuttled it, the government wasn't allowing small planes into P-A-P anyway.

By the way, another phone call. Could we take missionaries back to their devastated church in Carrefour? Yes. We could. These dear people had lost 10 church members in the quake when the building they were meeting in collapsed. Their kids were remarkably still alive, along with 20 others. Pray for Lloyd and Darlene Smoker and their family. As well as these dear Haitian believers.

Hey, not only could they ride in our plane, but they could take us to these people...with our stuff, to help in any way possible. We were all excited about the hook-up.

My sister, April, an RN, had "scuttled" about the area collecting medical supplies. Even some sutures and syringes and anesthetics. Our living room floor was looking like a pharmacy. And April wanted to go. All her shifts would be covered.

Jon decided to fly into Cap Haitien, north of P-A-P. The team would then journey down to Carrefour, a very rough section of the capital city. Like a suburb...only from hell.

As of yesterday, residents of this Carrefour area still had seen no sign of aid. Not one person. And they hadn't eaten for 3 days. And they were drinking dirty water. Ahhh, the water machines!!!

A call from Jon. The part came for the plane. It was 7:00 p.m. Friday. He would be in the air within 2 hours, headed for Florida with my other sister Heidi, also a nurse.

It was time to buy the tickets to meet Jon in Fort Lauderdale, which we did. There was some family squabbling over who would get to go. Bryan needed another strong back and wanted Trav. April thought I should go to help with translation. But in the end, it was Kate who was the final seat, and who probably would have hitchhiked to Haiti on the back of a shark had we said no. I would have to stay behind, in utter misery, to handle ground control.

As of right about now, they are leaving for Cap Haitien, in two shuttle groups, 8 hours apart. I'm waiting to hear from Bry before takeoff and hopefully he'll find one of those $10 cell phones that actually are still working loud and clear from the country's mangled capital.

Our needs right now are money for the cost of freight, and transportation of these pallets of hundreds of pounds of water purification units, and lots of prayers for God's timing. But so far, thanks to the generosity of so many, the money has been the easy part.

Upcoming blogs won't be so long and tedious. Thanks for praying. Let us not forget our brothers and sisters who are suffering on our doorstep. It sounds so selfish right now to pray for the safety of my wonderful family, but I never claimed not to be selfish.

Love,
Lisa