2010 Mission Trip to Haiti

First of all, I'd like to thank my Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ for taking me to Haiti and bringing me back safely.

I'd like to apologize for the delay in this report. I've been thinking a lot about how to start this and what to say and not to say. It has been a challenge since there was so much to talk about.

I never knew what people had meant when they very often said "we are filthy rich compared to people in third world countries". I just hadn't truly seen anything to compare my student-status wealth with. I can now say that if I only had a tenth of what I have currently, I still have way more than some people do. I just need to learn to be thankful in every situation I am in.

As you may have heard from my last blog entry, I went to Haiti for a week on a medical mission trip involving two Christian ministries: Breathe Global Christian Outreach and True Vision Ministries. Our teams' goal was to help treat people and through that preach the Gospel.



Where to start..  Well, on May 1st, I flew out of Sacramento International Airport and was on my way to Haiti. I arrived to an extremely humid and hot Port-au-Prince International Airport (Toussaint Louverture Int'l) early morning Sunday. The first thing that ran across my mind was how I was going to deal with the heat and humidity. But quickly, I felt really self-centered 'cause it was already 'about-me' and my comfort--I got over that really quickly. We then took a shuttle to go to customs. We got in a fairly long line, waiting to get our passports stamped and approved. Once you pass through customs, you have to be careful as you go looking for your bags. Locals, trying to make a living, set their eyes on you and once you grab your luggage, they approach you and try everything they can to help you carry them to your car/taxi. Even if you are able to carry your own stuff, they almost grab the stuff from you and insist that they help you. Of course, in return they ask for money. Even the people that just stood around watching you ask for money...start pushing into you asking for tip. Denying them tip was definitely not an option. It was actually an interesting yet very scary situation. Security wasn't very high. Its not like we didn't want to help--everyone was just scared of getting mugged. Luckily, everything worked out fine and we made it to our ride. (Pic not taken near airport).

One of our fellow-missionaries, James Pappoe, Jr., had contact with a local pastor in Haiti, Pastor Luc, who picked us up from the airport and brought friends to help us with everything. We sat in the back of this pretty awesome Chevy pick-up. Our team consisted of 7 people: Gabriel Galofre, James Pappoe Jr., Jason Lubic, Jerry Oliaro, Terry Zahniser, Stephen Maxwell, and myself. We jumped in the truck and were on our way to Walls International Guest House. Upon approaching the gate, we saw a vendor trying to sell some local art to make a living. He had found a good spot to set-up-shop.

 We went through the gate and saw this. It was supposed to be the hotel we would be staying at for the full week.  "Wall’s International Guest House was badly damaged in the earthquake; tragically, the middle building collapsed completely, killing five people. Those lost included two Canadian guests, one American guest, and two of our staff" (http://www.fida-pch.org/index.php?p=20).

  As we arrived, we soon found out we'd be staying in tents! :) The news WE had gotten was that we'd be staying in a hotel, but things I guess hadn't worked out. However, we definitely didn't mind but felt more safe in tents than in a concrete building.

 (above: the spacious 3 person bedroom. below: the extra spacious 4 person bedroom)

It was actually quite humbling staying in tents! It was relatively safe where we stayed because we had a security guard with a rifle on premises 24/7...except for when he fell asleep. <--happened quite often during the graveyard shift. 

We unpacked and settled down quite quickly. Then, Pastor Luc wanted us to go to their Sunday service to introduce ourselves. As we were driving, they told us that their actual 3-story church building had collapsed and they were holding their meetings outside a member's house.

This picture is from far away, but you can kind of see the congregation under the blue tarp. It was extremely sunny and near a hundred degrees (Fahrenheit) already. Heat was radiating from the dusty gravel road and from the concrete walls. But regardless of conditions or circumstance, they still gathered and worshiped and praised their Lord Jesus Christ. Our team was sitting down in front of church facing the people. As I sat there, sweating more than ever (seriously), I couldn't help but think of those days at church back home when I thought it was a little hot and I'd complain...wow, how selfish and self-centered was I??? This was normal practice here.  We introduced ourselves and found out that these guys are so nice and welcoming. A ton of people came up to us afterward and shook our hands and personally welcomed us. It was quite refreshing. It was amazing seeing these folks fervently pray and worship Jesus...I had to try really hard to not tear-up.

Here is where the original church used to be. Most of the rubble has been cleared out. Now they are in the process of slowly rebuilding. The picture to the right is of a new wall being put in. "If we can just put four walls up, then it would be safe for us to start gathering at the church. Until we have a fence around us, we cant really gather here yet. We're just too exposed; its not safe" said Pastor Luc. 

The pictures on the left are of the front of the church. The guy posing (one of our guys-James Pappoe, Jr.) was here in 2008 for a conference and had been standing right there when the church was actually there.















After the church service we were driven home to rest-up and plan the week out.




We went to our hotel and started organizing meds and putting them into duffel bags.

We had prepared separate bags for each day and had back up bags as well.

Before I go into how we went about treating people and etc., I'd like to show a couple pictures of the destruction from the January earthquake.



Words couldn't describe the things I saw in the city.

Random buildings had fallen and just crumbled.





The pictures I have were all taken from the back of a moving truck.

They aren't from very good angles and don't show very much of the destruction.

There was rubble all over the streets.



Dust covered and lingered all over town.

I just really don't know how to explain all of the damage or what I saw.




The Haitian community was very strong through all of this, however.








They had already started cleaning and rebuilding.





Massive concrete ceiling just dropping down...I really don't understand where the walls went. I bet they were relatively thin.


Many buildings just collapsed and looked like pancakes.

I don't know where the walls had gone. It seamed like each floor of each story had just fallen flat on top of each other, crushing anything and everything there was underneath.

The building near our hotel...ready to fall.




Many bodies haven't even been recovered yet after the earthquake. There is no way people could have lifted all the rubble up to rescue loved ones.

Ceilings and walls were really just turned into dust.


Even the Presidential Palace was in ruins.
You would think they'd make sure THIS building was done right.

It was quite upsetting to see this much destruction all in one city. What could have been the reason for the poor methods of construction?? From several missionaries, we heard several reasons their building weren't able to hold up to earthquakes. Simple solutions to several simple problems could have saved many many lives. The most disappointing thing that I witnessed was the continuing effort to rebuild USING THE SAME OLD METHODS that gave room to all this devastation. But what could I have done? We talked to a carpenter from Canada that visits Port-au-Prince annually and this gentleman was telling us all the wrong ways of building that locals here used to build. He also mentioned that most of these guys don't even listen to you when you show them the correct way to do things. Unfortunately, none of these buildings are any safer than they were before. God forbid, but if there is ever again any seismic activity that takes place here, AGAIN there will be tons of lives lost. Mostly all due to poor practice.

Many buildings that had crumbled down, had severe cracks. To this day, there is regular minor seismic activity taking place and not much shaking is needed to make a building like the one to the left collapse.

Several buildings were left with major damage and weren't safe enough for residents to go back in and live there.



Then there were the buildings that withstood the earthquake. However, even these buildings were left abandoned. Residents, to this day, dare not go back inside to live. Fear has entered and abides in the deepest of their poor little hearts. Death to over 200,000 people is no joke.
Solution?? TENTS!!

Hundreds of thousands of people lived in tents in Haiti. Even people with perfectly fine houses lived in tents. People were scared...scared that it would happen again. So they put up tents right outside their houses.

Currently, thousands live in tight-knit tent communities. This pic taken right next to airport.

Tents provided by the Red Cross were good quality...way better than most tents.

  Many tents there were just tarps held up and tied together with strings. As you can tell, some tents were better than others.

And then there were areas with worse shelter, as shown below.

These tents are actually right in front of the Presidential Palace...thousands of people everyday wake up seeing their leader's home in ruins.

These are houses in the country. As you can tell, they're not much.

I think the worse thing for me in Haiti was seeing people's homes in ruins. I couldn't imagine how difficult it would be to live in tents posted right next to hundreds of other tents...no moving space...no breathing space...and no privacy.

People in Haiti needed help. From what I witnessed, mostly people in the city were really hurt by the earthquake. But randomly helping a person or a couple people could be a pretty risky thing. The roads of Port-au-Prince are always filled with people-day or night. Just driving around the city, people run to catch up to your truck and ask for food or money.

On one of the days, Pastor Luc came and picked us up with his truck and took us to the countryside.

We arrived at the little church there and met the locals. Everyone was nice and polite. It was amazing how fervently the children worshiped Jesus! It was quite inspiring. :)

We were going to open up the clinic inside here, but it was definitely too hot in there. It was hot enough to where we could have easily passed out if we didn't keep hydrated.

Instead, we decided to set up shop outside under the trees.

We had about 150 patients on the list that we had to see. Some people had to wait several hours to be seen.

We put up a couple sheets for privacy and set up a couple chairs and VOILA, you have a mini clinic!

 Dr. Galofre, founder of BreatheGlobal, shared the good news of Jesus Christ with every patient he treated. This was after all, first and foremost, a mission trip to preach the gospel! The medical treatment we gave them was unfortunately only a temporary healing, but the spiritual treatment was an eternal treatment. 

Dr. Oliaro using his ER skills to treat the sick!

This poor little kid was really sick. It took us a while to diagnose him and make sure all was going to be okay! Thank you CDC for your help.

Our good man and EMT, Jason Lubic, mostly filled and prepared the medications at our pharmacy this day. But he did find some extra time in between to help treat wounds and make temporary casts for broken bones! Jason is a strong soldier in Christ's army!

After the patients were seen by our docs, they were given prescriptions and were asked to go to the our pharmacy and wait in line for their medications to be filled.

Prescriptions were given to our very own nurse practitioner, Terry Zahniser. Terry was the pharmacy master. He would take the prescription and tell either Jason or myself to fill up a little baggie with a certain number of a certain drug (ie: 20 tablets of Advil). Then with the help of an interpreter, he'd give the patient instructions on how and when to take the medication.

Jason Lubic's department at work had donated a couple bags of candy. I started passing some out but had to soon hand the bag over to this older gentleman. When kids saw or heard of candy, they pretty much pressed into you until they had both hands full. It felt good giving them candy, but very soon it got out of hand. Hence, I had to give it to an older guy...kids listened to their elders in Haiti. ;)  I pretty much couldn't handle passing out the candy myself.

Along with their medications, we gave out bags of prepackaged rice to each family. Once we started running out of medications and the rumor got out, things got tense. People started crowding around the truck begging for food. We gave out food to everyone we possibly could.

As we finally somehow booked it out of there, we saw locals washing up in puddles of muddy water. We threw out as much candy as we had left to kids as we drove off. They were definitely excited...it put smiles on our faces.

A local walking back after her treatment. Some had to walk miles upon miles to get to see our docs this day.

We probably saw around 160-165 patients that day. Praise God--we did what we could.

Our next clinic was to be set up in the mountains. We drove in the back of the truck for about 2.5 hours and arrived in the mountains. It was quite beautiful here. The water was of better quality as well. However, people here didn't really have access to doctors. Most people didn't own any means of transportation.

This is some of the housing we saw on our way up the mountain.

Some people here have gathered around streams to wash up and to do laundry. Of course we got stares when we drove by. Luckily, the water was amazingly (compared to the countryside water) clean.

Here we gathered at the little church. All children, as you can see, were required to wear uniforms. Pink was the color for both boys and girls. These kids were amazingly spirited when it came to singing or praying. It was quite the experience.

After introducing ourselves at the church, we sent Dr. Oliaro out to quickly triage the people and give them a slip with a number on it. The numbers ranged from 1 to 4 (1 being needs most attention and 4 being needs least attention). This was so that we made sure the people that needed the most care were able to get treated, in case we ran out of medications or time.

After everyone got their slips with their number on it, we went inside the church and set up our clinic.

Here we have Dr. Gabriel Galofre treating a mother and her child.

This is our pharmacy. I was helping Terry Zahniser this time with bagging up the medications.

Jason Lubic loves children. He definitely was a blessing to the Haitian people.

Here we are anxious to leave. If you look at the clouds in the background, you'll know that we ran into a storm on our way back to Port-au-Prince. We were trying to beat the storm down the mountain but definitely didn't succeed.

This is our team, consisting of doctors, security, translators, drivers, etc. :)

We left as soon as we could to avoid the potentially slippery dangerous rugged terrain of the mountain paths.

These are pictures of our return trip down the mountain.

The day before we left, we went to a Port-au-prince orphanage: MAISON DES ENFANTES DE DIEU (HOUSE OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD)...sponsored by US organization: For His Glory Adoption Outreach.  
For His Glory Adoption Outreach ministry is dedicated to fundraising and assisting the orphanage, Maison des Enfants de Dieu, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Maison des Enfants de Dieu was home to 125 orphaned and abandoned children prior to the January 12, 2010 earthquake. Approximately 100 of those children have been reunited with their adoptive families, but we are welcoming newly orphaned children. Despite a decimated facility, Maison is now home to approximately 70  children again. Adoptions are also beginning again. If you are interested in adopting a child from our orphanage, please contact Kim Harmon. We are also looking for those who would like to partner with us financially and in prayer to help us minister to the "least of these" who have been so impacted by the earthquake. Please consider donating or partnering with us on a monthly basis. Thank you!

"He who is kind to the needy, honors the Lord." - Proverbs 19:17

 James playing (fighting) with the kids!! This kid put up a good fight!!

 Majority of the kids there had a hernia around their bellybutton.

 Terry and I helped out with the dishes!  :)

 Any leftover medications we had, we donated to the orphanage. Our doctors treated as many of the kids as possible that day. We also played with them and helped out with anything we could.

 We had a good day at the orphanage. The kids were happy to see us and we were happy to see them. 


All these were life changing experiences we had. Living in America, sometimes I don't realize how spoiled I am and how blessed I am to have all that I have. 


Here are a couple pictures I took off of the "For His Glory Adoption Outreach" webpage. They show great detail of what the conditions in Haiti are like. 

This is a picture of a marketplace. 

A pig eating garbage.

A shack...very many of these around town. :(

A city street...fairly typical.

I think one of the coolest things I saw in Haiti was that a lot of vehicles (some public transport vehicles and others personal vehicles) had Bible verses and/or pictures on them. Below, for example, is a public transit van with Bible stories all over it! It was pretty awesome!

This truck's grill says "God Bless America".

"I TRUST IN MY GOD"

ROMANS 8:31

 There were plenty of vehicles very similar to these! It got me excited for some reason actually. I just really enjoyed how bold the Haitian people were about their faith. 

There are very many more stories to tell. But already this entry is getting way too long. It would take twice as much just to deliver some of the other good stories. I hope this is enough for now. 


God Bless you so much for reading this and supporting me through your prayers. Words can not express how Blessed we are to be living in America where our scraps would probably be enough to feed third-world countries. This is quite unfortunate actually and I hope people realize it and consider supporting countries poorer than ours. 

The main reason we had gone on this mission trip was to help expand God's Kingdom. All the medical treatments we did were good...but at the same time, they only provided people with temporary results. But spiritual treatments can have EVERLASTING results. All the Glory and Honor belongs to Jesus Christ.

Blessings to your reader!!


  “ How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace,
      Who bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:15)