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Port Angeles Disaster Aid Team |
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Five Christian firefighters from the Port Angeles Fire Department will be departing for Haiti this weekend (January 23rd). Team members include: Captain James Mason, Lieutenant Kevin Denton, Paramedic John Hall, Mark Karjalainen and fire fighter Bryant Kroh. The team will be entering Haiti completely self supported with their own food, water, and shelter. The mission for this endeavor is to provide basic medical supplies, medical aid, and general man power where needed.
We’d like to thank donors that have helped the team including: Independent Bible Church Jim’s Pharmacy Walmart Home Depot MSRC Captain T’s Airport Garden Family and Friends Fire Department Co-workers
If you’d like to donate please use the link below.
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John Hall, Mark Karjalainen, Bryant Kroh, James Mason |
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On January 17th 2010 Team Mercworks was formed. Mercworks standards for “mercy works” and reflects the attitude of our team in its goal to provide mercy for the victims of disaster. The team was conceptualized by member John Hall and utilizes a unique deployment format that meshes with the work schedules of full time fire fighters. The team uses a 10 day in and out strategy. This strategy allows the team to be completely self sufficient while in country. Members carry all of their own food, water, and shelter along with medical supplies for the victims. This strategy allows us the ability to not utilize the precious food and water that has been brought into the country for the victims.
I would like to thank the Port Angeles fire department administration for its support. Also this venture could not occur without the support of all our co-workers who have volunteered to cover work shifts for us while we are gone.
1-18-2010 Today was our first group meeting. We discussed logistics and team composition. At the moment the idea seems a little like a dream and a bit daunting. Right now we’re just a few guys that want to use our medical and rescue skills down in Haiti. How do we get there, how can we best help the people, what about our safety, what are our families going to think, these are just but a few of the thoughts running through our heads. We decided to go home and talk with our families and to meet the next morning.
1-19-2010 We met this morning and began to list some of the logistical issues that we would need to deal with. One of the major issues was how do we get there. The U.S. government is controlling all of the air traffic in and out of Port au Prince, Haiti. There are no commercial flights into Haiti and unless you are a major relief agency, it’s just about impossible to get onto a military aid flight. Unfortunately we didn’t know this at the time and spent a lot time trying to get our self onto one of these flights. I sent out a blanket email to all my friends and acquaintances describing our dilemma in trying to get into Haiti. I want to thank you all that emailed back on leads with the Coast Guard, Navy, Air Force, and other agencies. By the end of the day I had chatted with an Air Force Pilot in Mobile, AL headed to Haiti that evening, a coast guard base in Florida, and contacts at Boeing. Other members began working on contacting co-workers to work out shift trades and purchasing the equipment needed for the trip.
1-20-2010 One of my mass emails requesting assistance had been forwarded to a lady in Florida that contacted me today. She had a lead on getting our team into Haiti, I can’t tell you how excited I was. Amanda put us in contact with 2life18.org an organization that utilizes corporate and contract planes to fly in relief supplies and workers. If we had not received this contact, our plan was to fly a commercial flight into Santo Domingo and make the 160 mile journey to Port au Prince, which would not be a easy task. Also, today Kevin Denton received confirmation that he could get a passport by going to Seattle tomorrow and picking it up, he was pretty excited to be able to join us. Independent Bible Church provided us with air miles to use for travel to Florida where we will join up with 2life18. Almost everybody on the team has sore shoulders as we went to the health department and received up to 5 immunization shots each, ouch!!
1-21-2010 Today we continued to stock pile supplies such as food, medicine, and other essentials. I’d like to thank donors of supplies including, Jim’s Pharmacy, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and many other local businesses. This evening individuals also began donating on this website. THANK YOU SO MUCH. We will use these funds to buy medical goods and equipment. Tomorrow we meet to pack supplies and make last minute decisions. I will include more pictures tomorrow and we hope to keep updating this site if we can occasionally get internet service.
1-22-2010 It took me forever to fall asleep last night as my brain doesn’t want to shut-off, I keep thinking of things that we need to take and logistical issues that have to be dealt with. I went to the UPS loading center around 0930 and picked up our Metalious El Cap gear bags, they are truly gigantic. After picking up other supplies including masks and latex gloves I met with one of our ER doctor’s who helped us with the acquisition of antibiotics. The Port Angeles and Sequim Wal-Mart's provided us with great discounts as we stocked up on thousands of antibiotic pills, along with other medications. Olympic Memorial Hospital also provided us with vital medical supplies. The community support has been absolutely amazing. I have received emails, phone calls, hugs, and hand shakes all conveying love and thanks. We look forward to arriving in Haiti and passing all of this love onto the people we meet. Also all of the donations have been over whelming, thank you to everybody that donated. |
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Kevin Denton and Jamie Mason showing off the big bags |
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Bryant Kroh loading up. |
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Family members having dinner before we depart. |
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After we all had a large family dinner, we went to a North Olympic Christian men's meeting at light house Christian and received prayers and support for our endeavor. It’s been a crazy day, tomorrow we leave for Sea-tac in the morning.
1-23-2010 This morning we all got together at the fire department to get the last of the gear ready and to say good bye to our families. We made a quick stop at REI for a helmet and then we were on our way to Sea-tac. We met a crew from Q13 Fox news for a quick interview and then Jamie worked his magic on the check-in attendant who waived the over weight charges for our bags. We had one stop in Atlanta and we’re currently in the air now on our way to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We should arrive around midnight east coast time. Also I’d like to give a big thanks to Daniel Montana and Rob Gunn for the awesome breakfast. |
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1/24/2010 We’re at the Fort Lauderdale Executive airport waiting for our flight. We’ll try to update the site when we can.
1/24/2010 Jamie here! Well, we’re pretty jet-lagged already, but doing well. Still @ the executive airport trying to hop a ride. We’ve had several folks tell us they though they could fit us in, but so far, we are still here. So, if we don’t get out in a couple of hours, we are planning to head down to a big hanger where food is being loaded onto planes. We can at least volunteer to help with that until we can fly out. So much of our community has invested in this trip, so we want to work hard to honor a donor’s intentions. Would covet your prayers for the above!
1-24-2010 It’s almost 10 pm and were still in Fort Lauderdale; however our gear is on the plane, we had dinner with the pilot, and were scheduled to depart at 7 am. Getting transport into Haiti through non-government flights is a bit tricky as we’ve found out. Each air field in Haiti has a flight coordinator; however flight coordinators change frequently. Also all of the aircraft being used are by donation, so some are making quite a few flights into the country while others are only make one. This makes planning for the flight coordinators quite challenging. Also the flight coordinators try to get what they believe are the most important resources in country first, so not having the title of doctor is a little hindering. However we found that we are one of the most prepared teams we’ve come across, every team we’ve met so far is dependent on others for their food, water, and shelter while we are completely self-sufficient. Comparatively speaking, we are also very well stocked for medications. We already have groups interested in the antibiotics that we are bringing. We can’t wait to get into Haiti and meet the people that are in such need of help and to do the most we can for them. Tonight we are camping out in the airport, but luckily there are couches spread through out the terminal. Our flight tomorrow is on a twin turbo prop King air, which is loaded to the gills with us and our gear. The pilot states it will take about 2.5 hours to get down to Jacmel the town we are flying into. Jacmel is about 25 miles south of Port au Prince.
1-25-10 Hey guys, last night we ended up changing our minds and got a hotel around 11pm instead of sleeping at the airport. This morning after a great night’s sleep we met in the lobby for a little prayer before heading to the airport. We met the pilot at 645 this morning and boarded the plane shortly afterwards. We had one other passenger who joined us, her name was Sarah and she was going to Haiti to help her missionary sister who had a six month old baby. She said her sister could not be convinced to come back to the states because she felt her skills as a medical practioner were truly needed. The flight to Jacmel took about two and half hours and were able to view quite a few collapsed buildings as we came in for a landing. Two days ago a plane almost identical to ours had a crash landing when one of the landing gear buckled, luckily every body walked away. However the plane is still there off on the side of the runway with two mangled props. Once we touched down in Jacmel we began formulating options for were we needed to go. Jamie, Mark, and Kevin got a tour of Jacmel by the local police and fire chiefs along with the UN I believe. They saw one dead body still in the ruble and also toured the local hospital. We were told we could stay and help at the hospital however we all decided as a group that the need here for us didn’t seem quite right. The Canadian military is running the Jacmel airport so to leave there you really need to go through them. After dealing with a rude French Canadian we meet a much nicer gentleman with their military who hooked us up with a ride in a huey to Port au Prince. We loaded all of our equipment on the chopper and were just about to take off when a order came down stating we had to get off, which we did. You could tell the pilots wanted to take us, but orders are orders. So the chopper took off empty to continue shuttling equipment however, about 10 minutes later it returned to pick us back up. Some where somebody had a change of heart and we got our flight out. I believe this was Bryant’s and Kevin’s first helicopter ride and they found it exciting. On a more somber not though, we got a birds eye view of the devastation in Port au Prince, it is truly mind boggling the amount of damage done. I never knew how mountainous Haiti was, the cities are either built in river valleys or on the flat land near the coast however most of the island is very steep.
Once we landed at the Port au Prince airport, we staged our gear and Jamie and I went in search of way to find a field hospital that was set up in down town Port au Prince that we had found out about yesterday from a few doctors that we met at the Fort Lauderdale airport. We also were in search of our Missionary aviation Fellowship contact. Jamie and I walked down to the airport terminal and after a long walk and little help from the U.S. military or State department we went back to meet the guys. This was the low part of the day, both Jamie and I were a little bummed and hungry. Again we said a little prayer and then Kevin, Bryant, and Mark headed out in another direction that Jamie and I had not gone while we ate some lunch. Almost immediately they found the MAF head quarters were they met a nurse from Seattle children's hospital. They quickly found out that a group was leaving from there headed to the field hospital that we wanted to get to. Again we met another awesome Canadian Soldier who gave us a ride from there base over to the MAF headquarters. We jumped on board a truck with about 20 others and we rode through the middle of town looking at the devastation, the smells were similar that you would find in any large third world country and the traffic was crazy.
The field center where we are now is walled on all sides and we have a US military contingent in-side the compound with about 95 soldiers, there’s plenty of water and they are cooking food for all the workers. It sounds like we will be deployed out into refugee camps for the day and then come back into the compound at night. We’ve met so many awesome people and I can’t tell you how many times things have just clicked and worked out perfectly, either you believe in the Lord or we have the best luck in the world. Also the community has become a melting pot of aid workers, there is even a very large group of Chinese on-scene. Again we have found that we as a small team are the best equipped and prepared which has reassured us in the concept of self-sufficient small disaster work.
1-26-10 There’s a chance our team will meet up with a US Marine expeditionary force today and fly into some more remote sites, if that’s the case we will most likely be staying in the field and I will be unable to update the website; however we will sat phone in our reports to Jeremy Church. I’ll try to keep you updated. Well we didn’t go out into the booneys with the Marines today; however we did have a very productive day. This morning, we were deployed as a team of five with a driver and an interpreter (Peter). Our mission was to go to the encampments that people are living in. This generally means large areas covered by a mix match of tarps and sheet metal, while we are at these tent cities we were to treat and if necessary transport to the hospital. At our first stop Peter got out of the small Toyota pickup and used a bull horn to ask if any body was hurt and needed help, seconds later people began congregating around us. We saw a 9 month old with serious burns all along his upper thigh, a 8 day old with a hematoma on the skull, and many patients with lacerations to there lower extremities. We had one little boy with burns between his toes that were infected and had puss. We cleaned all the wounds to the best of our ability and gave anti-biotics were needed. Then we came across a young girl that had a thigh that was swollen almost twice in size because of infection, so we loaded her up in the pick up truck and took her to the hospital. The amount of devastation and condition of life her is indescribable and you see it every where. After dropping off our patient at the hospital we went back to the compound where we are staying to pick up more medical supplies. At the compound I met up with a group of doctors from Colorado, they helped me take our antibiotics from the bulk containers and put them into zip lock bags which we labeled with directions with a sharpie pen. One of the doctors lived in Seattle for 25 years and knows doctor Sam Baker. I asked if they had one doctor that would be interested in joining us when we went back out, they stated they would be more comfortable if they sent two. So I said if they didn’t mind being cramped in the back of the truck we’d love to have them and it was great working with them. We found a 11 year old girl with a stable tib/fib fx and young boy of about 7 that had almost all the skin degloved of his foot. We redressed his wound and took him to the hospital where he could hopefully get a skin graft. The young girl with broken leg and her father also went to the hospital with us, however we commandeered some fiberglass casting material from the hospital and one of the docs with us cast her leg on the back of our pick-up truck. I also have to say the cast he did for her looked better than all the ones that were coming out of the hospital. After we cast her leg we took her and her father back to there encampment. We saw several other patients with severe soft tissue wounds that we cleaned, dressed, and gave antibiotics too. It was a very fulfilling day and it sounds like tomorrow we will be deployed by helo into the booneys. Peter wants to go with us and it sounds like he will which will make it easier for us. Also as for safety we haven’t felt threatened at all, but people do swarm around us when we arrive, however everybody is very understanding and nice.
1-27-2010
Do we woke up after a sweltering hot night in the tent. Jamie went to a morning briefing and it was decided that we would deploy back out from our base station here in Port au Prince and go to the tent cities treat the wounded. It’ kind of funny but many of the doctors, nurses, and several others want to be deployed with us as we are actually out in the field and not in the clinic setting. We also picked up two nurses and a general surgeon for adventures out in the wild today, however that many people wouldn’t fit in the back our Toyota pickup so we also took 3 motorcycles as well. Jamie, Kevin, and myself were on the bikes. The roads, traffic, and driving habits of Port au Prince are crazy, but we all felt pretty safe in our climbing helmets. The bikes are Chinese made and mine had 9 miles on the odometer before we left and about 69 when we got back. We had to stop several times to adjust the clucks as the cables would come loose and you’d loose all ability to shift. Our first stop was a large tent city in an outlying neighborhood of Port au Prince. We parked next to a police compound and began treating patients immediately. Again we saw dozens of soft tissue injuries that needed debreding and dressing changes. The doctor with us taught us how to numb the wounds with lidocaine and debrede them. We all found this to be a interesting and worthwhile skill to learn. We found two patients that needed to have digits amputated and we were going to give them a ride to the hospital, unfortunately one of them became scared and bolted, the other we had to reassure that he would not feel the procedure as they would give him medicine to knock him out. After we transported our patient to the hospital we went to go check on four orphanages, luckily non of them had any injuries for us to treat. We then finished up the day with several other stops to different tent cities where again we did a lot of secondary wound treatment. Back at the compound and after dinner and a shower, our team Doc gave us a class on suturing. We used a t-shirt that we cut holes into as our practice material. Tomorrow it sounds like we will go back out as the same team and do similar work.
1/28/2010 Last night after our suture class Kevin came down with nausea, about an hour later Mark did as well, and from their it progressed into full blown nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea all night. We put them on antibiotics and gave them meds for the nausea and diarrhea. We also gave Kevin a 1000 cc’s of IV saline to keep him hydrated. Mark’s feeling a little better this morning, but Kevin states he’s still pretty wiped, he’ sleeping at the moment. The sick boys are going to recoup at camp while we go back out today to do the same as yesterday. Amanda and Sara our nurses and John the Doc will also be going back out with out with us. Right now we are waiting for a truck to drive us around. Just before we left Amanda had a little GI problem and decided it was best if she also stayed in camp. With a smaller crew, we headed back out. Jamie, myself and Bryant still rode motorbikes. Our first stop was at a tent city near our compound, Jamie and the Doc did some serious wound debreding and we also ended up transporting one patient from there to the hospital. Bryant and I also did an ortho-glass cast of a lower arm. After transporting our patient we headed to another tent city, shortly after arriving a lady on crutches came to the back our truck. She had a bandaged lower leg and puss was exiting the bandage near her toes. As we removed the bandage, I was optimistic and hoping that she would only have a small wound that was infected. Unfortunately when we removed the bandage, we found that 80% of the skin on the top of her foot was gone and you could see three of the major tendons on top of her foot. The doc stated that here in Haiti she would most likely have to have the foot and lower leg amputated, so we transported her to the hospital as well. After our second patient transport we went back out to the tent cities, through out the day we treated old and new wounds. One of the new wounds was a arm laceration after a knife fight. We cleaned and dressed his wound and gave him a shot of antibiotics and then sent him on his way with a pink coban bandage on his arm. Two more transports later and we called it a day and went back to our safe haven. Again our interpreter Peter has been awesome. He actually speaks about a half dozen different languages. The boys are beginning to feel better and hopefully will rejoin us tomorrow. |
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Team members signing a patients cast after we applied it. |
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Kevin working on a wound |
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People around the back of our pickup as we treat patients. |
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New team members, John, Sara, and Amanda |
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Jamie tending to a very yound infant. |
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One of the make shift clinics in a tent that we helped treat patients in and transported from. |
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Tent housing provided from the shelter box organization. |
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1/28/2010 From Jamie: Well a few reflections on the last few days. I had a really great talk with a pastor whose job it is to provide spiritual counseling and debriefing to this entire camp. He went with us today. Having lived here for seven years, knowing the culture and loving the people, he has struggled with folks asking him the “why” question. So we had a really great discussion about the sovereignty of God. I used an old illustration about seeing an oriental rug from underneath that Pastor Mike uses. There are threads hanging everywhere, no recognizable pattern, just an ugly mishmash of color and chaos. Kinda like life can appear from time to time….especially here…especially now. But if we could get a glimpse of the rug from above, from the weaver’s perspective, we would see order rather than chaos, beauty, reason and care for the creation. It is certainly hard to appreciate difficult times like this from our perspective, but it does not negate the fact that God ways are higher than ours, his purposes are good and filled with love. We have been doing what is, in essence, surgical debriding in the back of a pickup. The wounds sustained two weeks ago were either treated, but then no follow-up occurred, or the initial care was poor or non-existent. So our job is to help these folks. Unfortunately, for many, a quickly patched wound or amputation is now to the point of needing major intervention or new or more extensive amputation. Currently, a major need is crutches because so many people have suffered amputations. We are trying to stave off a huge loss of life due to infection. I praise God that it has not rained. When it does, there will be huge sewer issues that will impact the population. I am kind of amazed at how slowly the time seems to be moving. In a way that is good, but I am beginning to miss home a bit. We’re just praying that we can continue to be a blessing to the poor folks who are struggling for survival. 1/29/2010 This morning we are a complete team again; however right before we left camp my GI system decided that it would act up, I quickly took some pills for the nausea and loose poo and I also started some antibiotics. I started off in the back of a pick-up taxi called a tap tap and with the heat and rocking motion, I almost lost it. Mark sacrificed his motorcycle and let me ride it so I could get some fresh (stinky) air blowing on my face. Today was an interesting day, we started off at one of the camps that we had been to yesterday. We treated several patients and transported one to a near by hospital. Then we returned to the compound to pick up a nurse that needed transport to a neighboring town. We stopped to pickup a few other passengers and then we made our way to Carfur (not sure about the spelling). It was a long and hot drive and unfortunately we could not find the clinic that our nurse needed to be at. After a brief search for her clinic, we informed her that she was stuck with us for the rest of the day. One of the other passengers that we had picked up was a pastor and he took us to a church that was housing homeless individuals. There we found a young boy, just several years old that needed to have a lower leg amputated. We loaded him and his mother and took them to the hospital. On our way home we stopped at a very large tent city in search of more patients. When we got there the U.S. Army was handing out food and water, luckily they had dozens of soldiers that were able to prevent chaos as the food was handed out, however at this time food and water are more important than medical care, so nobody came to our truck as they did not want to leave their place in line for the food. This evening most of us avoided the local provided food and have decided to only eat the food we brought. Everybody is feeling pretty good and we look forward to tomorrow. I will miss helping the people of Haiti, but I am looking forward to coming home to family and friends. We love you all– Team Mercworks. 1/30/2010 Yesterday most of the team really bonded with a tent city of several hundred and their need for general medical care beyond trauma injuries and their need for food and water. So Jamie spearheaded an effort to get a medical team into them this morning as well as food and water. However before we guided the other medical team to that tent city, Jamie and Bryant were struck by the local cook’s revenge. Each one got an IV and some meds and then they got tuff and headed out with us. I’m really proud of the dedication to this team. The day started off a little slow, but we finished with a bang. Mark sutured a wound today, Bryant has become the ortho-glass technician on the team, and I got to numb and reset my first finger fracture. Also, yesterday a baby was born here in the compound. At one of the camps we found three patients that needed transport to a hospital, luckily we had another crew with us as they wanted to come see how we were operating, they ended up transporting the patients for us so we could stay in the field. Yesterday we had talked with a US Army officer and he had stated that one of the area’s we had been in earlier in the week was becoming more dangerous. The location is known as City Solei and is a poor suburb of Port au Prince. When we had been there earlier in the week we saw quite a few patients, so we felt we needed to go back. I’m glad to say I felt much safer today than I had several days ago. Their was a large military presence by the US Army and UN troops. Fortunately other aid groups had also been visiting the area and we had no patients there that needed to be treated or transported. Dr. John Moll and nurses Amanda and Sara have also been awesome, Dr. Moll has been a great coach and sounding board for our team as we treat patients. Always his first question is “what do you think?” And Peter our interpreter, has increased our efficiency by 100 percent and he loves to help treat patients too. Also most of the people in our camp (over one hundred) have come down with some form of GI problem so now everybody is on a prophylactic cipro regimen. Again thank you for all of the prayers and support. 1/31/2010 Yesterday Jamie was invited to preach at a local church, so the whole team joined him as he gave his message. The church service was held under large tarps as the church had collapsed in the earth quake. Jamie had stayed up till 1 am preparing his message which the congregation seemed to really enjoy. After the service we treated several minor wounds and aches there at the church. I forgot to mention, that Peter gave us a class on speaking Creole the other night, and that we’ve all been working on it as we treat our patients. After the church service we stopped at several tent cities, their were very few patients. At around 2pm we headed up into the hills because Peter had a family friend that was ill, so we went to check on him. While we were there we found several other patients. Mark and Sarah ended up recasting a leg and several other minor injuries were dealt with. While cruising down a steep dirt road Bryant laid his motor bike down, he’s ok as he was going super slow and Mrs. Kroh I reassure you that there is not a scratch on your son, just a little hurt pride after we teased him a bit. On our way home for the evening, we stopped at a tent city and there we found the bulk of our patients for the day. One of the patients was a little girl about 2 years old, she had a deep laceration about 2-3 inches long on the top of her head, I had to clean and redress the wound and the whole time she smiled and tolerated my pokes and prodes. I’ve never seen such a cute and tuff little girl in all my life. |
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Bryant’s gonna be a good dad some day. |
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The tough little girl I described above. |
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Kevin found some new friends. |
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Jamie and our interpreter Peter rocking the Sunday service in Haiti. |
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Dr. Moll finds all the cute babies and he can always make them smile. |
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2/1/2010 Today should be our last full day in Haiti. This morning we did a little recon around the city to check on various orphanages. We did this for another agency, Crisis Response International (CRI). We were trying to assess their medical, food, and water needs. Fortunately we found that UNICEF had already been to most of the orphanages and provided them with the basics. At the first orphanage a 10 year old girl asked Sarah if she would take her home to the United States. It was a heart wrenching moment. Also the caretaker of the orphanage asked to show us pictures of the children from the orphanage, unfortunately they had lost about 50 children in the earth quake and many of the pictures were of dead children after they were pulled from the ruble. We were not expecting that, and Kevin was very strong and supportive to the care taker as she told her story. While looking for another orphanage, we came across a tent city that had a few individuals needing medical care. Right before we were about to leave, a father came up to our truck holding this limp 11 month old boy, the little boy was almost lifeless, he was truly a critical patient. We scooped him up and grabbed his father and immediately headed to the nearest hospital. After an intense drive we transferred care to the awaiting arms of hospital staff. |
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Amanda holding the baby as we quickly drive to the hospital. |
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I forgot to mention that yesterday we also had a Haitian motorcyclist crash right in front of us while we were driving. We pulled over and gave him a quick exam, bandaged his leg and continued on our way. I like Haitian EMS, you don’t have to complete any paper work afterwards. After transporting the baby to the hospital we cruised back to the compound and had lunch, the group was going to go back out and check on a few more orphanages. I decided to stay back and let another person take my spot, while the crew was gone I ended up starting an IVon another poor soul with horrible diarrhea. Just to let you know, everybody in our group is feeling great and looking forward to a USDA approved steak and cold beer back in the States. When the guys got back from their last trip out into the city they reported that they had an action packed afternoon. They checked on several other orphanages and then they stopped by the airport to talk with UNICEF representatives. While they were there, they double checked with Missionary Flights International (MFI) to confirm that they had use on their list for departing flights. Unfortunately they found that MFI’s computers had crashed several times and they had no record of us. Jamie was able to sweet talk some of the guys from US Homeland security and he found out that if we arrived late in the evening their was a good chance we could leave on a military flight. We all had dinner back at the compound and began breaking down our camp. Jamie met with the other group leaders and passed on his information and it sounds like they will miss the particular type of service we were providing. We arrived at the Port au Prince airport around 9:30 pm and we were on an Air Force C-17 military transport plane at about midnight. The military is only allowed to put passengers on the floor of military transport planes under certain circumstances such as distasters like this. One of the air crew stated that the Air Force hasn’t done this many floor seated passenger flights since the Viet Nam war. On the plane we sat on the floor in rows, then a crew chief took 30 foot cargo hold straps and put them over our laps. One strap would seat belt about 8 people. We landed in a rainy Orlando, FL, unfortunately our flight home is supposed to leave tomorrow from Fort Lauderdale. After speaking with the sweet people from Delta airlines, they let us change our flights for free so we get to leave from Orlando today and we should be home by 7PM. YEA!!! |
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John and Amanda in the truck near a tent city. |
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Team mercworks chillin at the back of our ambulance before we head out for another day. |
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Jamie on the C-17 with Sarah in the back ground |
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The mass of people sitting on the floor our ride home. |
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From Jamie: Let’s see…how do you summarize a trip like this? How do you encapsulate the sight of intense suffering, of the knowledge that things will get worse before they get better, of the stench of the death; the fragrance of hope?
I suppose, like trying to describe an attribute of God, words just fall short. These memories, freshly seared into our consciousness, sadly will in time fade. I know God would have us take a lesson from what we have experienced this week. I am fortunate….I have three:
1- God is still in control. In the face of such wide spread, catastrophic disaster, it is natural to doubt. It is natural to have fear. But I hang on God’s promise in Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” We claim those promises for Haiti.
2- I am consistently amazed and overwhelmed at man’s ability to suffer, yet serve. We saw Haitians who had lost everything, roll up their sleeves and serve their fellow man. There is no doubt that we mourned with those who mourn. But standing shoulder to shoulder with other Christian Haitians, we were bound by a tie much stronger than race or ethnicity. The fact that our faith bound us was an eye opening blast of fresh air to me. It said that all of the crap that we build up between us isn’t necessary…as long as we keep the main thing, the main thing. (see #1)
3- Anything is possible. So many portions of this trip were just walks of faith. Not knowing where we were going or what we were doing made us desperately dependent upon God to move. That made us not anxious, but excited for what God would do next. We walked by faith, not by sight and held tight to the fact that God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly beyond all that we can ask our think. If God is for us, who can stand against us!
So all of that to say: We’re here Lord. Waiting our next assignment!
I have posted our pictures on smugmug.com feel free to check them out here |