Haiti 2011 and more

Haiti 2011 and More
Sorry for the delay in getting this report out, and news of upcoming trips and projects. Our trip to Haiti in January was very successful on a number of different levels, and with some new travelers, we changed a few lives, American and Haitian. I always enjoy having new people join us, because we almost always get new perspectives on things that should have been obvious.
We had a full team for two weeks this year, plus one. Since I handle the trip planning, it was my fault that we wound up with a team of 20, when the plane from the capital to the North Coast of Haiti only holds 19! I stayed in Port au Prince by myself as the team went north, and then pretty much had to beg my way onto the last flight of the day. I have quite a few friends at the airport and in Haiti in general, so I may have displaced someone else, but I got to Port de Paix the same day. Our luggage didn’t do so well however. It took over a week for the ton of luggage and supplies to fly north and then a few more days for it all to be delivered to the missions.
The team was split for the first week with a small team going to LaPointe to work at the House of Hope (children’s TB clinic and orphanage) and a larger group going to Passe Catabois to work at the Hospital project and missionary support for the Dutch couple (she the Doc and he the missionary), who are having difficulties in their personal lives. Our team of nurses was a breath of fresh air for the overworked staff at the hospital as usual. A nurse from Holland arrived on the day before our team, so our experienced crew was able to help get her up to speed in short order without overwhelming her.
Our primary task at the hospital was to get the solar system fully functional and get some vehicles repaired. Since I went to LaPointe for the first week, the vehicle repairs were waiting for me, but the solar project was pretty much completed as soon as the supplies finally made it from the capital. That wasn’t however until the second week!
There were plenty of other projects as usual, as well as a swelling of the patient load due to word getting around that there were more “blans” in town.
At Lapointe I got time to go and do some of the things that I had never had time to do in the past. I got to go out into the village and meet some of the folks that we see at church, in their own neighborhoods. We also got to see the real work of the child evangelism teachers that the missionaries teach to spread the Gospel. I did finally fix an Ambulance that the hospital has had for years, it runs, but still needs some of the medical equipment repaired, I hope to get to that next time. I did have a couple of new guys with me who were a great help with the vehicle projects at both locations.
You can go to my facebook page to see pictures. I will be posting this to my blogsite as well, so you can go there to see previous reports on Haiti and more www.beetleinhaiti,blogspot.com.

NEXT
In about a month (June 23) I will be heading to a new location for missions. I am going to go back to Vietnam after 41 years, on a different sort of mission.
During the holidays last year, we had a fund drive to donate to two charities. One was Antioch Adoptions, a local charity that funds adoptions in Washington State. The reason given for NOT adopting is that the cost just makes it impossible to adopt American orphans. There are thousands of children in the State waiting for adoption.
The other, international mission that we highlighted was Free Wheelchair Missions. This organization has been delivering rugged wheelchairs to third world countries for the last 10 years. Not ordinary wheelchairs, but ones with a resin deck chair, supported by a full steel frame, with mountain bike tires for use in difficult areas. The chairs are light, strong and can be purchased and delivered for less than $60.00 each!
Snohomish Community Church stepped up and donated enough funds to purchase and deliver 370 chairs. We had initially decided that the chairs we purchased would go to Haiti, but 4 full containers had already been sent there after the earthquake, sponsored by other groups. We were given a number of other possible destinations, and since I was in the planning stages for taking a missions team to Vietnam, it just fit that we would sponsor a container there.
The other organization that I was going to go with to Vietnam had some conflicts that were going to delay me sending (leading) a team there, so when spots on the distribution team for our chairs were opened to us, I jumped at the chance. I will be joining 14 others (one from our church) on the trip to distribute wheelchairs, spending time in Ho Chi Minh City (previously Saigon) and traveling out to rural distribution points. I will be in Vietnam from June 25 to July 1, then will debrief in Hong Kong on the way back with a little time to sightsee there.

HELP NEEDED
This is going to be an expensive trip. The costs for the whole trip will approach $4000. A friend at church stepped up and bought my plane tickets ($2600.) but the other costs, transportation, lodging and food will be on me. I don’t usually ask for donations for Haiti, but since I already spent my missions fund for Haiti this year, I am asking for some help on this trip.
Send any amount that you can, anything will help. Please send donations in the form of checks made out to Snohomish Community Church, with NOTHING written in the memo area, but add a separate note indicating that the donation is for Larry Bailly, Vietnam Wheelchairs. The checks can be sent to me at the address above, or to the church directly at 13622 Dubuque Rd. Snohomish, WA 98290.

To view videos of this very worthwhile mission, go to http://vimeo.com/14963716
Or just Google Fee Wheelchair Mission http://www.freewheelchairmission.org

If a monetary donation is not possible at this time, prayers are needed as well, for our team and me. This is going to be a difficult mission trip on many levels. Pray that our encouragement and outreach would be well received and a hand up, not a hand out.

Larry

HAITI: Earthquake plus 1
It is hard to believe that it has been just over a year since the devastating earthquake that rocked Haiti on January 12, 2010. I traveled there in April of last year and just returned on January 27th from another trip. This year I took a group of 20 made up of about equal parts of construction and medical help to our missions on the North coast of Haiti at Port de Paix.
What is even harder to believe is how little has changed since April. The total lack of progress on what would seem to be the most basic of needs throughout the country is the most discouraging. I won’t lay blame as there is enough to go around for just about every organizational and governmental body both inside and outside of Haiti. What hasn’t changed that gives me hope for the future is the spirit and resiliency of the Haitian people, but even that is beginning to wear thin.
We don’t spend much time in Port au Prince, where most of the damage remains and much of the aid money and effort has been sent, without much evidence that anything has really been accomplished. Our missions are over a hundred miles away but are still being affected by the aftermath of the quake. The numbers of internally displaced residents (people who had moved to the Capital for jobs, but returned home after losing everything) has swelled the populations in both the urban and rural areas of the country.
This population increase makes the unemployment figures of 70% or more an astonishing figure. There simply are NO jobs of any kind, while promised and donated funds are being held hostage because of flawed elections in Haiti. Again, there is plenty of blame for shoddy elections when meddling by outside interests are involved, each trying to impose their own will to elect a chosen Government for self interests.
Our time was spent in support of our two missions. LaPointe is 5 miles, a one hour drive, to the east of Port de Paix. Passe Catabois is
about 20 miles west and a difficult 2 to 3 hour trip through a number of river crossings in the best of conditions.
I have been helping at the House of Hope www.houseofhopehaiti.blogspot.com , a children’s medical facility at LaPointe, since 2003. We do maintenance on their mission vehicles and facilities maintenance for the mission compound, a regional Hospital, Centre Medical Beraca, as well as a CEF school and other facilities supported by Crossworld Missions, www.crossworld.org. This year there was a new, larger generator to provide power, but the water system had developed even more serious problems than in the past, and with cholera on everyone’s minds, we needed to take additional precautions, even with the filtered water available. From a high of 175 cholera patients a week (at the Beraca Hospital alone) to less than a dozen now, at least the epidemic proportions are under some control with the help of ongoing teams from around the world showing up to help.
After a week at LaPointe, I took the 6 others who had gone with me out to the other facility at a place called Passe Catabois. Our teams have worked at this location for the last 4 years. In 2007 the facilities were a partially completed guesthouse for workers and a Hospital and clinic under construction. Medical care was dispensed in a small two room clinic building with basic medical care in one room and minor surgery performed in the other. The hospital building was little more than a covered shell with gravel floors and no windows or doors. The missionary and his doctor wife had carved out this place with sweat and prayers and little support from anyone in the U.S. Most of their support had come from a foundation in Holland that has since been radically reduced in size. This is where we came in along with a few other church groups from the U.S. and Europe.
Today this facility is a fully functional medical facility that will continue to provide support and medical care for this primitive area of Haiti. A second Doctor from Germany has been spending time at the Hospital and there is now a functional operating room that rivals almost any other in this poor country. The operating room is even air conditioned!
The difference has been the work of teams from around Snohomish and other parts of Western Washington and the U.S. Nearly all of the ground floor is tiled, plumbed and handling patients, including a few with cholera, most of them from out of the immediate area, as water quality is not a common problem here. The water system here is one of the best in Haiti, built by a former Boeing engineer by piping water from mountain springs many miles away.
The most impressive part of the transformation of this facility has been the installation (now complete with our recent work) of a solar system that can easily handle the load of medical equipment and provide around the clock lighting that was previously unavailable except with the expense of burning fuel in generators. Many emergency procedures were done in the dark with battery powered headlamps the only source of light.
The one word that best describes Haiti today is difficult. Every piece of life in Haiti is hard, rough and tough. But don’t count the people of Haiti as a beaten or disheartened population. Every Haitian that I have come to know is a survivor because of their national pride and knowledge that they still have so much more than the ancestors who were brought to this place and abandoned by the World when they would not bow to the colonial powers who enslaved them.
Time works at a pace in Haiti that maddens many, working its way from one disaster to the next. It will take more time, and a lot more of the energy that our team gave to overcome the missteps of past generations, rulers and disasters. If a small team from 4000 miles away can make a difference like this, why is it taking so long for more to be done?
I wish to commend the members of our team for giving of their time and money to make it possible for a few more drops to be put into the bucket that will one day fill to make the lives of the Haitian people less difficult.

Larry Bailly is short term missions coordinator for Snohomish Community Church and a member of RESULTS www.results.org a grassroots organization working to bring education, medical help and the end of poverty to the World. He has been to Haiti 11 times since 2002.
Comments are welcome at baillybusbarn@juno.com , future trips are planned, but signup lists fill fast.
The photos are above, in reverse order.

The Hospital at Passe Catabois


The solar panels provide enough energy to provide around the clock power.


Our transport to Passe Catabois, a farm tractor and 4 wheel trailer with only 3 wheels.


Everything that winds up in Haiti is recycled. Containers become patient wards.


Kids are kids wherever you are! I told them to go crazy!