haiti...wrap up

I know there is no way to remember everything that happened the last three days I was in Haiti. I was not pulling bodies from the rubble, no child's life depended upon my years of schooling and skilled hands. There was no M4 slung across my chest, right index finger at the ready. I wasn’t piloting a C130 bringing much needed relief, but God gave me the opportunity to do just a little to help bring change to the people of Haiti.

I scheduled flights. I suppose in the seven days that I was in Haiti I helped run the equivalent of a small, international airline, three to five flights a day out of a three-ring binder and a laptop computer. I ate one meal a day and whatever granola bar or power bar I could get my hands on. I had to deal with ten to twenty people simultaneously vying for my attention while keeping track of forty to forty-five passports, a few green cards and entering all the info into a manifest; all of which I knew nothing about before I got there. I can look at a visa and within seconds know if it is valid or expired and know reasonably sure of any counterfeiting. I have had people yelling at me, praising me, hugging, kiss me and yes, I thought some wanted to hit me and probably would have if a large helicopter pilot by the name of Brian Parker hadn't become my bodyguard one day.

Lest I give a false impression, let me tell you how I did it. I am not organized, I don’t have that type A personality for leadership, but I felt God's strength when I needed it most. Beyond that I had the most amazing group of guys that praised me when I felt I was doing it all wrong, helped pick me up when I would rather just have gone to my tent and did any errand they could for me even though they had plenty to do themselves. So, to the guys from MAF: Dirk, Tim, Will, Mark, Mike, Gregory, Fanes, Rick, John, Todd, Brian, Scott and Mike Labady from Agape and Roland Lussier, you have my deep gratitude and respect.

My world was an airport full of soldiers, helicopters, C17, C130 and every other type of military transport plane. I met famous people and rubbed shoulders with the greatest people the Nascar circuit has ever had. I rode jumpseat with pilots Ivan and Mike of Joe Gibbs racing, always had a friendly smile from Jackie, Stormy, Ken, and so many other names I can't even remember now from the Hendricks and Joe Gibbs teams. God has blessed me beyond measure and yet, even though I am grateful for being able to help and for all of these "extras" that God threw my way, there is one thing I can't get out of my head.

I was in an airport in a nice Coleman tent with an air mattress. The people outside the heavily guarded fences were in tent cities and on streets. If you drive through Port-au-Prince at night you'll see the people getting ready for bed. They block off one lane of traffic and in that lane they begin to spread their blankets. The children roll restlessly as they fight sleep laying on a single blanket on the asphalt. I don't even know if they've eaten. My stress and one MRE meal a day seem pretty good juxtaposed next to the hopelessness that stares those children full in the face.

We in the west in our comfortable arm chairs, designer coffee shops and flat screen TV's cannot comprehend it. I was there and I still can't. I do know this. Don't be like the media and be so quick to judge people like the ten that were arrested at the Dominican Republican border. I stared at a lot of paperwork this past week and I had to tell a lot of desperate parents that under the circumstances they couldn't get their child, the one sleeping in the street, out of Haiti. The Haitian's don't know the procedures, UNICEF is a mess and no one knows what is happening. The Embassy has closed ears and all of Haiti is in shambles. Next time the media says a church group or someone else was "child trafficking" don't be so quick to believe it. There are a lot of good people there and if you saw the hurting, you just might have tried the same thing. I don’t condone any law breaking, but if you had met Rob, you might understand the despondency of some of these parents.

Rob hung out with us for several days. He was from Colorado, his wife was in a rundown hotel in Ft. Lauderdale while he walked around Port-au-Prince, trying desperately to get his son and return to safety. He and his wife have known loved, visited, spent thousands and thousands no doubt trying to get their son adopted in Haiti. They have been victim to a corrupt government and greedy officials who see wealth and exploit helpless children, leaving their lives in limbo in order to get money from people (many who cannot have their own children) who long to show that child love. Rob was so discouraged. It hurt my heart to see him. The last time I saw Rob he said he was taking his boy back to the orphanage and he would have to return home the next day. The government and UNICEF had shut down all adoptions, even though they’d been in the process for years. I never saw Rob again. I hope he didn’t try anything desperate like those ten at the Dominican Republic border, but after looking in his eyes and hearing his story, watching him lay back on a tractor tire and just stare at the stars without the will to do anything, I can’ t say I would blame him.

I hope none of us in the coming months and years will forget Haiti. Like the AIDS crisis in Africa, Haiti is fast becoming a "sexy" issue that everyone jumps on because it makes them feel good about themselves and their compassion. It's easy to go to a concert, buy and album on Itunes or wear a trendy t-shirt...getting your hands dirty is another thing. My hat and prayers go off to all the missionaries, orphanage workers, doctors, soldiers, helicopter pilots and many, many others that are in Haiti right now. The flip side is this, if you have bought an album or a t-shirt in true compassion, than you’ve done your best. Not everyone can go down there and certainly not everyone should.

Sorry this is a bit disjointed. Some experiences you cannot pull into words and some images won't fit within the frame of a paragraph. Thanks for everything you are doing for the Haitian people. One thing to leave you with that Mark Williams, the program director for MAF in Haiti, a man who has lived over twenty years there said; no matter what we do, if we do it without Christ’s love, we are clanging brass and tinkling cymbal.

haiti...day 4

Dad came today. Even when you don't rely on your parents and you feel adequate or perhaps not adequate, but able to deal with a task, it's nice to have your parents there. If for nothing else to say to them...you did alright, you raised me well.

What I'm doing is rewarding and the handshakes I recieve and the smiles I get far out weigh those self-indulgent few that think because they came and volunteered, we owe them a free ride. I am blessed and tired.

haiti...day 3

I know I should probably put this in the same format, style...whatever as last time, but I don't think I will. It is 10:31 p.m. and I am sweating profusely in the hot, close air of the MAF office. My eyes are getting a bit heavy, but I feel better. James Collins did a favor for a Portugese fire fighter unit that have a really nice camp next to us on the air field. They have little portable shower stalls with water bags and wooden pallets for floors. It feels good to be clean. This will be my first night on the air field.

I have been staying with missionaries and that would probably be a good idea, but I just can't get used to sleeping in a two story, concrete house when all around me are piles of concrete that once were two or three story houses. It is interesting being at the airfield at night. Soldiers from countries all over the world wander the dusty paths in between the little tent "villages" with their separate colors flying overhead.

Today was hectic. There were three Saab aircraft today, two from Hendricks racing and one from Joe Gibbs racing. It was crazy and then the MAF guys saw me bashing my brains out trying to keep forty some people straight for one flight when there were about hundred plus probably clamoring for either a booking on another day, or else trying to get on a flight that day. It didn't help that Rooney and Negron and their small entourage were there. I'm no respecter of persons, but a Congressman does make you want to do the job a bit better.

The first flight went okay, but by the second it was crazy. I had to bump people from the second flight, to the first flight and then I had to bump people from the third flight to the second flight and still try and fill the third flight. It's like trying to keep track of three commercial flights, but you don't have a computer system, you don't have passport control there and you don't have a staff. If it weren't for the MAF guys, I think the fetal position and tears would have been the only recourse...okay, enough whining. God was good to me and it all worked out.

There were problems with immigration, manifests that had to be altered resent and then altered again and resent again. I don't even know how all these people got here, but they all want to get out and sometimes that can be interesting. This is compounded by the long trip up to immigration. I only did one trip, but I still can't get over driving around huge military aircraft on a little, green motorcycle. Life is always amazing when you're serving God.

I've had to turn a lot of people down. I've also had the privilege to get some very pleased parents who have waited for years, out to the U.S. with their adopted children in arms. The handshakes, smiles and "thanks" give you a good feeling even when it's crazy.

Well, my dad will be here tomorrow...looking forward to that. All the MAF and MFI guys and the guys from Operation Blessing that are working out of this hangar are great. I said it's like some utopian community, we all share and share alike.

The MRE's sit heavy, but I'm thankful for the food. I'm finding out that lunch is not an option doing the flight coordinating. Cheers and goodnight.

haiti...day 2

The sun is starting to come up when Brian comes and wakes me up. We eat a bit of Cap'n Crunch and then get ready to go to the airport. I walk to the end of the road and get a bird's eye view of people living in the post-quake squalor down in a ravine below the hill where the house is.

It's down the road to the airport and my camera is out. The houses are unbelievable. You see a building that is now standing about eight to ten feet above the ground and you count the floors, sometimes three perhaps four, lying like the layers of a sandwich. Unbelievable. You keep hearing things like "you can't believe it until you see it." It's true. There are no bodies now, no gruesome sights and life seems to be going on as normal as possible. Normal, until you see them shut down a lane of the road at night to sleep in the street, terrified to go into the buildings, now laced with cracks.

We get to the airport and it is instantly crazy. I have never heard my name so much. It takes no time for people to realize Jeff is gone and it is Jeremy now who they need to see to get out of Haiti. I feel like a celebrity, but one that no one wants to be. I thought this was supposed to be a slow day. It was only one large flight, one of Joe Gibbs racing team, but it seems that slow is not in the cards. About twenty people don't show up and I have to wait until the last minute to take standby people...it gets really hectic.

It feels kind of weird. There's Gary Uber, in scrubs, standing off to the side waiting for Joe Negron and Congressman Rooney and their aides. I shake hands once they're off the plane and ready to go. They look a little shell shocked but the airport is so crazy that I don't blame them. It almost seems surreal to drive a little, green motorcycle down an international tarmac past U.S. soldiers sitting by their trucks while right in front of you are deafening C130 planes being loaded and off loaded. Choppers take off and land and the traffic in the sky is staggering.

The Joe Gibbs team brought us egg mcmuffins, something I don't realize until about 2 p.m. when I still haven't eaten. My MRE sits on the side of the desk...I guess tomorrow.

It's about 4 p.m. and I'm sitting at the desk working on checking and returning emails. Suddenly it feels like I"m swaying side to side, but the other two pilots don't bat an eye so I don't either. Turns out it is a 4.2 aftershock. I guess I would have always thought a 4.3 would feel worse, but it feels different from the giant planes taking off.

It's back to the missionary house and once again, I feel a bit weird in the house, but I guess I just trust Jesus and leave things in His hands. I am going to switch to the airport tomorrow. It's not as nice and I don't know in the long run if it's safer for other reasons, but I'll join James Collins in a tent.

Well, goodnight. Thanks for your prayers.

haiti...day 1

I arrived at the Ft. Pierce airport and awaited my marching orders. Slight chill in the air, MFI staff preparing for the day, bleary-eyed and coffee in hand. I decline the coffee and gear up for the flight down. I know I'm going on a private jet parked just outside the hangar. A group of doctors is weighing their luggage and medical supplies. I send my bag on a later flight to make room for the doctors belongings and equipment.

We are told it's time to go board. Our pilot's name is Bob, a kind gentleman with graying hair and mustache. I am the second on board and we are all just blown away. I hear the exclamations of shock behind me. Leather seats, wood-grain and cabinets. Every handle, seatbelt latch and fixture is gilded and a big tray of donuts and bagels is on the front galley. I have never experience anything like this. The guys are from Flight Options and like so many others, their hoping for anyway that they can do to help out.

Ah, just rich people, they don't miss it.

It's tempting to think so, but we ask the mechanic and he says it takes about ten to twelve thousand dollars an hour to operate the plane...that doesn't include the pay of the mechanic and two pilots on board. This is no small donation. This flight I'm taking, just for my trip down, is about 20,000 dollars in costs alone. It's nice to have this, because I know once we land, all the luxury is off. The doctors and nurses are fantastic. A pharmacists sits across from me and his wife, a former ER nurse along with a nurse practitioner and another nurse and Haitian translator sit beside me on the long couch.

We land and it's hot and it's dry. I was expecting dripping, tropical humidity, but this reminds me more of Arizona. The first day is hectic. I'm running around with Jeff who coordinates all the flights out, bookings and passenger lists, plus getting passports to the main terminal to stamp out. It is a crazy job and it is soon to be mine. Mike Labady helps run the passports when he can and it is a God send. When a flight comes in, everyone on the flight gives Jeff (now me) their passports after which he gives them to Mike or if Mike cannot he takes them himself. To do this you have to take a bumpy, dirty and rocky road through what looks like a squatter camp of rescue workers, private security teams, medical teams and military. Most of the camps have their own flag flying above their military-esque tents and their ensignia on the side of one or more of the tents. You go past the gate going and coming from the airport and past the fuel depot.

It looks like pictures of Iraq. Soldiers stand watch, weapons slung across their checks, flak jackets and zip ties for detaining slipped around the rings on their vests. They usually just wave us by and then its around the planes until you get to the main terminal to check the passports.

Once you're back it is getting the people (if you've already had their passports stamped)on to the plane and ready to go home...usually they're pretty anxious. It is a long day, my head is splitting from the heat and the noise. We had at least four Blackhawk helicopters land right on the tarmac to drop off some wounded going to the University of Miami tent hospital right behind the hangar.

We go to the missionaries' houses and split up to stay tonight. Uncle Rick and Will White (his house) invite me to stay there with the two MAF pilots, Brian and Scott, who flew a Kodiak down from Nampa, ID. I am nervous to be sure staying in a two story concrete house after driving by rows of houses that are reduced to rubble. I am too tired to worry much longer and go to sleep.

student teaching...

has begun today. It certainly was nothing earth shattering and perhaps that is because I didn't actually teach anything and won't until next week. I can't say that I exactly mind...it gives me breathing room to get used to the kids, used to the setting, etc. My first lessons will be on Nathaniel Hawthorne. I am to have the students read "The Birthmark" and "The Celestial Railroad." My first two choices would have been "The Birthmark" and "The Minister's Black Veil," but I am for this set of lessons, locked into an existing unit by the homeroom teacher, so I'll have to wait for another chance.

How do you get a group of sixteen or seventeen year-olds to grasp the significance of these stories? How do you get them excited about the fact that Hawthorne spent about a decade secluded in an attic more-or-less researching his Puritan ancestors and their witch burning, etc. before embarking on these stories of hidden guilt and suppressed sin and its effects. Any suggestions are certainly welcome.

The MAF missionaries that were evacuated from Haiti have just left for their respective U.S. homes. The infrastructure of the country is completely dissolved and so they have reduced their force from eight families to just four pilots at a time in the country. The pilots will take rotating shifts every week or two. They are going to need a lot of prayer and financial support to rotate these pilots (some who have been their twenty years or more and really know the people and the culture). If anyone reading this is interested in donating to a worthy cause (and believe me their worth it), you can go to this site here: www.maf.org and just follow the tabs to donate. I have personally known the regional director since I was about twelve years old and I having spent the last weekend with these pilots and their families, I can say with assurance that these people have Christ's heartbeat and a deep love for Haiti.

If you want a personal account from one of the missionaries, I suggest www.mafkrul.blogspot.com .

Another site for donating where I know it will do a lot of good is:

www.missionaryflights.org

I know this hasn't been the best blog entry, but I hope it will at least encourage you to give to some local efforts that have been on the ground there and mobilized from moments after the quake. Keep praying and keep giving.

this is a snapshot...

Most of the pictures I take could never be called a "snapshot" in the language of this blog. A snapshot here tells a story. Most of them are the memories I have inside that are waiting to be shared either through history or fiction, but a few, like this one, came through the lens. This is a snapshot.