Sunday, January 30, 2011--Packing Day

Today was the official packing day. All 7 of us attended church today at St. Stephen's Lutheran in Cedar Rapids. Pastor Lyle had a wonderful children's service about Haiti, then called us to the front for a blessing. It was very nice.

 

The 7 of us stayed after church and, with the help of family and a few wonderful friends, started packing. The easiest way to pack a suitcase is to fill it with all like items. It makes sorting things easier when you get there, and really speeds things up. Apparently I am unaware of that simple fact. Here's the thing. If you pack like that, and one suitcase does not show up, you might be missing all the women's clothes, or all the medicine. My way of packing is to put some medicine, toiletries, school supplies, food items, diapers and clothes in each bag. Then, if you lose a bag, you lose 8% of everything, not 100% of one thing.

So, we opened boxes and bags and put a little bit of this, and a little bit of that in each bag except the tool bag. The tool bag has 6 new "D" handle shovels and a pick which were donated by the Yo-Ho Tool Company in Monticello. I'm gonna digress a minute. Norm went into the Yo-Ho Tool Company a couple of weeks ago and told the owner what we were doing. The owner told him he could have whatever we needed. Now that was amazing. And everywhere we talked about the need, people responded.

I got a huge amount of antibiotics and antihistamines, as well as burn salve from Dr. Brian Darrow-Anamosa. I got more from Dr. Tim Sagers. Mercy Hospital donated $250 worth of meds. DOZENS of diapers were donated by a baby shop in Mount Vernon. I know several people from individual pharmacies donated supplies. And I cannot even begin to say THANK YOU to all the donations of clothing, shampoo, school and other supplies that came in. Our only problem was in getting everything packed.

I had packed my two bags and sent them to Florida last Thursday with my wife (she drove). So we had 12 more bags to pack today, each with 50# of supplies. The tool bag had shovels, a pick and a few clothes. So we could pack 11 bags with the supplies. We packed the medicine and heavy supplies first, and I could quickly see we had too much stuff. I weighed a few bags, and we started to weed things out a little. It is so hard. Everythiing was given with the knowledge that it would go to Haiti, but some clothes had to be left behind. Norm did pack a 50# bag with just clothes. He hopes to sweet talk someone at American Airlines to let it go through. Yeh, good luck with that.

Some of the items will be offered to another team at a later date. A few items may have to be given to Good Will.

Last night I got an e-mail from the orphanage asking for a few last minute supplies, which I purchased before church. They also asked for a readiator for a Toyota Land Cruiser. I'm thinkin 20-30# for that, plus it looks like $475 to buy one new. I talked to Steve Scheib about it. He said the vehicle was not made for the US market, so you can't get things here that fit the models there.

So anyway, we packed today, and had pizza for everyone. Each of the bags is exactly 50# by my scale. Let's hope they are all close enough for American to send through.

We could sure use prayers for a safe and productive trip.

 

BTW: on my last blog entry, I commented on bringing Molly back to the US and that the immigration floks did not notice I was a creep going home with my prize. Rita wanted me to tell everyone that I may be a creep, but not THAT kind of creep. Molly is expecting her 2nd child in March, and is a real sweetie. The picture is a Halloween picture of her 2 year old son, Christopher.

 

That's it for now. I leave tomorrow morning for Florida. Rita says it is in the 70's there. I know I will enjoy that. I will try to make one more entry before we leave FLorida on the 5th of February.

 

LaMar

Mission to EGO in Haiti-2011

I began planning for a mission trip to Ebenezer Glenn Orphanage (EGO) in Dessalines, Haiti a little over a year ago. The January 12, 2010 earthquake put those plans on hold. After my May trip to Leogane, Haiti, I decided to continue thoughts of going back to EGO.

 

I made my first trip there in December, 1988. I worked with a team from Cedar Rapids who built a concrete block fish tank and erected a windmill to fill it. It was a good trip. I remember spending a lot of time there, but I also spent a lot of time In Port-au-Prince getting paperwork, passport photos, etc. for Molly. When it came time to return to the states, I had all but the final decree signed. The directors at EGO were working on that while I went to the airport with Molly. Another person from the orphanage was with me while we waited for the signed documents, just in case I had to leave Molly there. I remember that boarding for the flight was called.

 

And I waited.

 

Everyone else was through the gate.

 

And I waited.

 

At that moment, the directors came running into the area (it was a lot easier then, before the security concerns), yelling that they had the signature. I fell to my knees, with tears of joy streaming down my face.

 

I boarded the flight and found my seat, with my youngest daughter in my arms. She was 4 months old. It sure was a good thing I brought her back, because I did not take any pictures of her there. OOPS! On the plane, a Haitian gentleman turned to me and said I was saving her life by bringing her out of the country. That was pretty prophetic, because unbeknownst to me, she had a Staph infection in her blood. A month later she was in intensive care, being treated for the problem.

 

When we got to Miami, I was pulled aside and interrogated for a couple of hours at US Customs, just to make sure I was not a creep. Fortunately I was able to fool them and was sent back to Iowa with my prize.

 

So, I digressed. My intention for this trip was to return to EGO and help them with whatever projects they had in mind. I made my plans known to friends and at church. Norm Zimmerman—a contractor friend who has been to Haiti once with me, signed on fairly early. Ev Petersen—from my church had expressed interest in going a while back, he signed on early, too. Jay Wiebold—mechanic extraordinaire who has also been to Haiti with me, was on the line for a while, but also signed on. Dave Hagan—another church member with a great heart for the Lord had expressed interest in adopting. I talked him into going to see what Haiti was like. Bob Streeper—an outreach evangelist at our church signed up. Hunter Smith—my 14 year old grandson whose mother went when she was about 14, signed up over Christmas break. Our charge on this trip is to build a concrete block house that the orphanage can use as a rental. Since the earthquake a year ago, there has been a huge influx back to Dessalines to escape some of the destruction and squalor of PAP.

 

We pray that things will go well for us. That we will stay healthy, that we will build a strong home for the orphanage, and that we will  return safely.

 

Stay in touch with the blog. We will try to update it as we go. Probably will NOT have pictures until we return.

 

LaMar Grafft