TN Baptist Disaster Relief - Haiti: Team 1's Final Report

The following is Team 1's final post to this blog. Thank you SO much for praying for this group of men.

Please continue to pray for the TN Baptist Disaster Relief Team 2 that is currently in Haiti. Their first blog post can be found below this one. Continue to visit the blog to stay updated with the experiences and reports from Team 2 in Haiti.

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This last Report from Jack was to come out on Monday night of the 15^th; however we didn’t get home until after midnight, so I’m getting it out on Tuesday evening. It’s also a catch up from the weekend as we wound down our stay in Haiti.

It was great to see the 10 new men from TN Baptist Disaster Relief show up at the hospital compound on Sunday! By then our group had pretty well “shut down” as we were mentally and physically spent. We did show them all the procedures and what we had been doing and what changes had taken place in the last couple of days as the doctors and nurses had shared with us how they wanted to re-organize the shelves to meet subject needs, etc. At any rate, by the end of the day on Sunday we were happy to turn over the computer, printer and phone and go started packing our belongings to head home.

By 6 a.m. on Monday we were basically up and packed for the trip home. It had rained most of the night and the steam was already making it muggy. I don’t think any of us had any breakfast. I tried a tiny cup of coffee, but it was so strong my spoon would stand up in it, so Ken and Jim passed on the coffee. Around 7:30 a.m. they started loading our luggage in an old truck and we started scrambling into Toyota vans like canned sardines.

We arrived at the airport and then stood in long lines about 4 or 5 people wide trying to get into the terminal. We finally got through the Haiti customs and out to the other side of the terminal where the planes came in. Charley found a man selling cold fruit drinks and bought us all a treat and that helped us to withstand the heat for so long. We sat out in the sun from about 8:30 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. before starting to load. It was wonderful when we entered the plane and remembered what air-conditioning felt like!

As the plane landed in Miami there was a great applause from the crowd! It truly felt great to be back on American soil! David commented that if he could find soil instead of concrete he might just get down and kiss the ground! Of course we then faced American customs, but by then we really didn’t mind so much. We got through that and headed to Chili’s for an American meal. We had hoped David could eat with us, but his flight was at the far end of the airport, so he decided to not try to come down to our end for a meal. We all four pigged out on big burgers, etc. (I’ve paid dearly for it all day to day…enough said!) We made it to Atlanta, and RUSHED to get to our plane to Knoxville…only to find it was being delayed for about an hour and a half. That gave us time to eat a late supper and still be ready for the flight.

The best part of the trip was landing in Knoxville and seeing a crowd of people holding “Welcome Home and Thank you for serving our Lord” type signs and waving at us. It was a surprise and a real treat! We knew our wives were coming down with Don and Nonnie Owen on the bus, but didn’t know Jim’s daughters and granddaughters would be there too, so it was quite a celebration for a few minutes. Charley slipped off home with his wife during our celebration and a picture or two. Charley, you were “the man” and we appreciated getting to know you better and would go anywhere to work with you again. We know why David Acres loves you like Visa, and “doesn’t want to leave home without you.” It was just a little after midnight when we got home safe and sound.

I can’t speak for the rest of the men, but I slept in the next morning…until 5:55 a.m. and then my body knew it was time to get up and go to work, so I woke right up. Luckily I realized I was home and in my own bed and I was able to roll over and go back to sleep!

In summary, as we looked back and discussed our time in Haiti, we pondered various aspects of the experience and concluded that the work wasn’t so hard that we couldn’t do it; but the environment was a strain on us beyond what any of us had ever experienced. If God had not sent us and been with us, I don’t think we could have survived the trip as well as we did. We were all so thankful that nothing major happened to any of us and that God provided for us daily even though we sometimes wondered how it would happen. As we thought about returning to the comforts of home it also made us think about all the wonderful Haitian friends we were leaving behind and all the people that were just trying any way they could find to survive from day to day. Our hearts will go out to these people for a long time as we remember them in our prayers. We also want to take this one last time to say THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts for all of your daily love, prayer and support that we felt while serving there. It truly meant a lot to each of us.

Please remember the other 10 men serving in Haiti this week and continue your prayers on their behalf.. I understand they will continue on with a Blog report. We thank Don Owen and Allison Young for helping us with our Blog as it wasn’t always easy or practical to get one out, but they were faithful to follow through on our behalf and we take this opportunity to publicly say “thank you” to both of them for all they did to assist us on this trip. I’ll attach a few last pictures of our return adventures.

- Jack