A Moment to Reflect

Of course you have seen the images coming from Haiti.  On Sunday we spent a bit of time being shown around by Haitian friends of the MAF staff.  Here are a few images of my own.  They require little comment.

Life on the streets continues.  Food is available, if you have money to buy it.  But that's the problem.  Normal sources of income, as meager as they were before, have been disrupted.  Port Au Prince is in a "slow burn" as the secondary crisis mounts.  Rainy season will begin in weeks.  Disease will become public enemy number one, but security will also decline as people get more desperate.  I was impressed with how well-mannered the Haitian people were, considering what they've been through, but how far will their tolerance stretch?

We attended an English service church on Sunday.   The pastor reflected the soul-searching that all Haitians are going through.  And he called for a renewed commitment to obedience to God and a seeking of His will for Haiti in this catastrophe.

Next week Mark Wuerffel and I will be in Spokane, finishing off the training of our latest two Kodiak pilots from Papua New Guinea.  Then Mark will take a turn in Haiti, and I will probably follow him for the last two or three weeks of March.  Where is the end of all this?  How will the city ever be rebuilt?  Answers to those questions seem like a luxury right now as we work on the immediate goals of  relieving the suffering and averting a secondary disaster, while in the process try to demonstrate God's love and His story of redemption.

Down to Business

Friday, February 5

We  began the task of fitting into the team already working in high gear.  Below is a letter I wrote to friends not long after getting back home this week:

There I was again this morning, shoveling the cold white stuff off my driveway, not even one day after getting back home from Haiti. This time I didn’t need to speculate about how it would compare to the heat in Port Au Prince.


7:00 a.m. The pilots and mechanics would be gathering outside the residences of Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) families to get into their Land Cruisers for the twenty minute ride to the airport where another day would begin.

Hundreds of personnel and tons of food and medical supplies have been pouring in via Missionary Flights International (“MFI”) of Ft. Pierce, FL. The material has to be sorted and stashed, then made into loads (about 1,800 lb.) that can be put into the Kodiaks for their quick flights to the outlying towns for delivery to relief workers, missionaries, orphanages, hospitals and “IDP” (internally displaces persons) camps that are growing as people flee Port Au Prince.

MAF has worked in Haiti for decades, and knows the country and people. The wives and kids have all been sent home, and in their place a team of about 30 pilots, mechanics, coordinators and logistics personnel (mostly men) have moved in, some sleeping at the airport in tents and in the hangar. The rest drive through town every night to “batch it” in the former residences of the MAF families. Electricity for the team is provided by solar power, batteries, and a few diesel generators. Water comes from rain cisterns. Internet comes via satellite. Phone service comes via a Voice-over Internet Protocol (VOIP) at the airport. The homes even have satellite TV which works on the available power.

In spite of all these essential logistical assets, the work is grueling and the hours long. Dust coats everything, including computers, airplanes (inside and out) and clothes. It creates a brown pall that hangs thousands of feet over the valley. But it will soon be replaced by mud as the rains begin, probably in a few weeks.

The staff from MAF, Samaritan’s Purse, JAARS, Missionary Flights International and others all work as one team. The two Kodiaks (one from MAF, the other from Samaritan’s Purse) sit on the ramp awaiting their next mission.

I was only there a week, and felt a little guilty leaving so soon, since the typical rotation is 3-4 weeks. But I accomplished the mission I was sent to do – fly down the Samaritan’s Purse Kodiak, and complete the training of the other JAARS pilot, Gerry Gardner, who will remain there another ten days.

My other responsibilities at JAARS remain. Bible translation goes on around the world, and requires our service. Two of our pilots from Papua new Guinea are at Spokane Turbine Center getting their Kodiak initial training. After a short week here, I will head up to Spokane with one of our fresh Kodiak instructors, Mark Wuerffel, and together we will finish the training of our pilots from PNG before they return to the field. Not only will we be finishing their training, but I will be using the process to polish Mark as a Kodiak instructor. That week will be followed by a week’s missions conference at our church here in Charlotte, and in early March I may be heading back to Haiti for a longer stint. Our next Kodiak is scheduled to be picked up at the factory the end of March.

This spring and summer suddenly got very complicated, but like I’ve said, the quake in Haiti wasn’t on anyone’s schedule.

Pray for the team there as they work to meet the overwhelming needs. Pray for good communication, extra measures of grace, and wisdom in evaluating the need. Pray for safety, good health and mechanical reliability of the equipment. Pray for workers and resources to continue coming. Pray for the people of Haiti as the medical needs change to disease control and treatment and as Port Au Prince’s squalor worsens and peoples’ living situation improves little. Pray for God to be manifestly glorified by what seems to be an impossible situation.

Thank you for your prayers to date.

MAF has served in Haiti for decades, and their hangar and the surrounding turf hosts the hub for processing and forwarding the material arriving from Ft. Pierce.  Their office is a finished (and air conditioned) shipping container.

Every day began with a quick meeting with a short meditation followed by announcements and flight schedule information.

The aircraft from the US arrived continually, bringing tons of food and medical supplies to be carried out to the surrounding towns and villages by the two Kodiaks and the other smaller MAF Cessnas.

Into the Thick of It

After a brief night in Ft. Pierce, Gerry and I took off for Port Au Prince in N466SP.  While we were directly over water most of the way, the Bahamas and Turcs and Caicos Islands offered plenty of places to which to divert in case of trouble.  Fuel was also available at a number of places along the way.  However, the Kodiak carried enough for the four hour flight with plenty of reserve.

By mid-afternoon we were on the General Aviation ramp at the Port Au Prince airport, next to the MAF Kodiak that had arrived over a week earlier.

Ready to Launch

Getting out ahead of the ice storm in North Carolina, we took off from JAARS in the Samaritan's Purse Kodiak for Ft. Pierce, Florida, home of Missionary Flights International.  Three hours later we touched down, with Gerry Gardner on the controls.  Gerry is an old hand with JAARS aircraft, just new to the Kodiak.  JAARS and Samaritan's Purse are helping Mission Aviation Fellowship with the relief flight effort by adding one more Kodiak (MAF already has one there) and a pilot.  Tomorrow morning we will head out along the Bahamas and make Port Au Prince in about four hours.

Meanwhile, we had some time to kill at the Missionary Flights hangar, watching the amazing mobilization of goods and people.  Aircraft from several organizations are running between here and Haiti, making a round trip every day, and working into the night.  Here are some views of the MFI hangar turned into a storage and processing facility, overseen by a stately DC-3 that had to miss out on the action because it is down for repairs.

Tomorrow we'll arrive in Port Au Prince and join our colleagues already hard at work.