{"id":853,"date":"2010-03-19T23:16:56","date_gmt":"2010-03-20T04:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/?p=853"},"modified":"2012-06-23T23:25:21","modified_gmt":"2012-06-24T04:25:21","slug":"response-to-the-earthquake-in-haiti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/?p=853","title":{"rendered":"Response to the Earthquake in Haiti"},"content":{"rendered":"

1st Haiti Trip<\/strong><\/p>\n

Janet and I heard of the earthquake in Haiti while we were in Honduras in January.\u00a0 We returned home on January 20th\u00a0and heard about the request for tents and shelter from the Haitian government.\u00a0 We talked with Len\u00a0 Suzette Clevenger who had taken us to Haiti in 2003 about what could be done to help Haiti.<\/p>\n

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Janet, Bill, & Terry loading tents into a trailer<\/p><\/div>\n

Janet and I immediately began buying tents and camping gear to be shipped as quickly as possible to Haiti.\u00a0Watered Gardens, a homeless shelter in Joplin, donated sheets, blankets, crutches, and walkers.\u00a0 Terry Gribble, a nurse, rounded up thousands of dollars worth of medicine.\u00a0 On Feb. 3rd, Terry, my son Jesse, cousin Max, and I headed to Florida with all the supplies.\u00a0 They were dropped off at an aviation mission to be flown to Haiti the first of the next week.<\/p>\n

Terry and Jesse flew out of Tampa the next day to the Dominican Republic where they rented a vehicle and drove to Fonds-Parisien in Haiti.\u00a0 Max and I drove back home after putting 100 gallons of cooking oil on a sailboat flotilla that was going to deliver groceries to Haiti.\u00a0 On Feb. 10th, we flew into the DR.\u00a0 We were met there by Omar, a Dominican pastor, who facilitated buying supplies and a pick-up for us to use in Haiti which took three to four days, a story in itself.\u00a0 We then drove to Haiti.<\/p>\n

We had expected our shipment of tents, equipment, and medicine to be waiting for us in.\u00a0\u00a0 Unfortunately, the supplies we gathered were put on a container to be shipped to Haiti instead of flown. They arrived in four days but because of a labeling error, the container had been held up in customs.<\/p>\n

Since we did not have our equipment, I spent time looking for places to put the tents once they were released.\u00a0 We made several trips into the mountains to small villages there. On my first trip, I was able to buy some rice up on the mountain and distribute it to people who had nothing to eat.\u00a0 We saw so much poverty and misery.\u00a0 The depravation, lack of sanitation and good hygiene, and need was overwhelming.<\/p>\n

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Jesse with a child at the clinic<\/p><\/div>\n

Terry and Jesse had been working at the HCM clinic in Fonds-Parisien for over two weeks now.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been told that Jesse had become the \u201cgo to\u201d guy for numerous things!\u00a0 He had transported critical patients numerous times from the clinic to other hospitals who could better deal with their care.\u00a0 He was the one the doctors would call when they needed equipment and couldn\u2019t find it. He brought refugees into the clinic when they couldn\u2019t get there.\u00a0 The medical personnel he worked with said he accomplished more than three people could.\u00a0 He loved it!<\/p>\n

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Mobile medical team<\/p><\/div>\n

On our second trip into the mountains, we took Terry & Jesse, Dr. Ty Adcock from Joplin, Max, a translator, and some other Haitians on a mobile medical mission.\u00a0 We stopped at a little village called Toma where they treated severe cases of scabies and passed out dewormer to the children, and treated numerous other complaints.<\/p>\n

The population of Fonds-Parisien had swollen with refugees from the earthquake.\u00a0 Many families had taken in relatives from Port au Prince as this area had not sustained damage from the quake.\u00a0\u00a0 We became very well acquainted with one family whose numbers had gone from eight to over 20 in their small home.\u00a0 Two of the young ladies were sleeping in the back of a pick-up and one in a car.<\/p>\n

One afternoon, some of the young ladies of the family saw me tired and over heated and insisted I rest on their front porch on a cot.\u00a0 I noticed over next to me in another room just off the porch two elderly ladies lying on a piece of cardboard on the concrete floor.\u00a0 I felt bad that I was lying on a cot while they were on the hard floor. But I fell asleep and woke up to these two ladies singing Amazing Grace!\u00a0 Unbelievable!\u00a0 It actually brought tears to my eyes!\u00a0 We often saw people who had been through horrendous things praising God!<\/p>\n

The young ladies had been on one of my trips up the mountain.\u00a0 As we came down off the mountain, I started singing some hymns.\u00a0 The girls joined in.\u00a0 They recognized the hymns and knew most of them in Creole.\u00a0 It was so beautiful!\u00a0 I started asking questions, delving into their spiritual lives and getting\u00a0to know them.\u00a0 When I asked them what their vision of the future was or what their plan was, they had none.\u00a0 They had no choices except trying to live from day to day.\u00a0 No dreams, no goals for the future, and couldn\u2019t imagine that tomorrow would be any different from today.<\/p>\n

We had all seen the poverty and sickness that day in the mountains.\u00a0 I asked them, if we could get them some basic medical training, the medications they needed where they could treat things like worms, scabies, etc., and a vehicle to take them to the mountains, would they be willing to go to the mountain villages and help some of their people.\u00a0 They all thought that would be absolutely wonderful!!!\u00a0 All the Haitians I\u2019ve talked to about this LOVE the idea!!!<\/p>\n

I was privileged to speak to 4-500 people at a church in Port au Prince one Sunday.\u00a0 I was able to talk with them about the personal grief I have experienced though I can hardly comprehend what they must feel after losing at least 1 in 10 of the population of PAP.<\/p>\n

The longer I stayed in Haiti, the more I felt that there was something we could do there.\u00a0 I found some property we could lease and some we could buy for places to put the tents and erect more permanent housing in the future.\u00a0 The equipment we had sent was never released while we were in Haiti.<\/p>\n

We were scheduled to fly back home March 8th.\u00a0 Several of the Haitians insisted on coming to the airport with us.\u00a0 The young ladies who call me \u201cDada\u201d and are always asking about \u201cMama Janet\u201d cried and cried about us leaving.\u00a0 It was hard to do so!<\/p>\n

There were so many amazing experiences in Haiti.\u00a0 We came to love so many of the people.\u00a0 We are making a serious plan for long term help for the folks we met.\u00a0 We can\u2019t help the millions of people that have been devastated by the earthquake and now are facing the rainy season living under sheets.\u00a0 But we can help some of the people that we met personally, refugees from PAP, who are trying to carry on with their lives.<\/p>\n

We will be sending more information about that tomorrow.\u00a0 Jesse and I have tickets to return to Haiti next Thursday.\u00a0 We ask that you keep us in your prayers and we pray that the Lord guides our steps as we continue on this path.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1st Haiti Trip Janet and I heard of the earthquake in Haiti while we were in Honduras in January.\u00a0 We returned home on January 20th\u00a0and heard about the request for tents and shelter from the Haitian government.\u00a0 We talked with Len\u00a0 Suzette Clevenger who had taken us to Haiti in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=853"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":864,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions\/864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}