Team 2's Tuesday Post from Haiti

Below is an report from Team 2- Please keep them in your prayers.
Team 2 is comprised of the following individuals:

Team Two

Terry Webb, Team Leader, FBC Concord

Jeff Taylor, Alpha Baptist, Morristown

Tom Hite, Alpha Baptsit, Morristown

Andy Wallace, Indiana Ave. Baptist Church, LaFollette,TN

Mark Partin, Indiana Ave. Baptist Church, LaFollette, TN

Don Ross, FBC Concord

Mark Walter, FBC Concord

Travis Webb, Lebanon Baptist, Talbott

Bradey County Association: Phil Taylor, Lawrence Cotton

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Team Two arrived safely and we hit the ground getting oriented around the Medi- Care facility at the Port-au-Prince airport hospital.

We have a great admiration for Team One and for what they successfully accomplished during their two week assignment. We said good-bye to them around 6 AM this morning. The work they accomplished may have not been seen press and hundreds of other relief workers but the real evidence is seen when the doctors and nurses looking for medical supplies. The real appreciate was seen when Team One left early this morning and several doctors and nurses came out to say good-bye and thank you.

Two TBCDR Chaplains Phil Taylor and Lawrence Cotton will be relieving the chaplains from California that have been serving in the Pediatric and Adult Units of Medi-Care. The CA chaplains have been visiting patient after patient on first name bases sharing about Jesus, ministering and bringing smiles to the patients and family members. The hospital staff stays focused on the patients and they are very appreciative of DR Chaplaincy work. Hospital staff has commented several times about how the work of Chaplains has uplifted patients and families.

Patients and hospital staff are sad over the departures and upcoming departures and we are all aware we have big shoes to fill.

- Phil

Team 1:

Left to Right, Front Row: David Acres, Jack Henson, Charlie Jones

Left to Right, Back Row: Ken Sheffield, Jim Wohlwend

Phil Taylor, Chaplain working in the pediatric ward sits with Michele, a Haitian mother of this 27 week old baby that was delivered two weeks ago.

Andy Wallace (Right) and Travis Webb (L)


Lawrence Cotton (right) sharing Christ with Haitian doctor (left)

Jeff Hite (left) and Don Ross (right) giving an overview of the Medical Supply tent to 2 nurses.

TN Baptist Disaster Relief Team 1 Headed Home!

Just spoke to Jack Henson and our Haiti Team is now in Miami ready to board a plane to Atlanta and then on to Knoxville. The team is expected to arrive in Knoxville at 9:19 PM. A bus load of family and friends will be meeting them at the gate to welcome them home.

Jack, Jim and Ken ask that we thank each of you for praying for them these last fifteen days. It was a tough assignment but God has blessed and much progress was made.

Please continue to pray for team 2 including Tom Hite, Travis Webb and Jeff Taylor as they are now in Haiti to continue the assignment started by team 1.

- Don Owen

Nolachucky Baptist Assoc.

Disaster Relief Director

Saturday (Belated) Report from Haiti

This report just came in today, with the amount of photos that were sent yesterday via e-mail from Haiti, somehow the report didn't get attached. Please check out yesterday's blog post to see the photos that were intended to be included with this report.

I would say it’s Saturday and we only have one more full day to stay, but then you would think we’re counting the days until we can leave, so I won’t say it! We had a big crew of our friends leave this morning and we hated to see some of them go. It’s amazing how quickly we have made friends here. They purposely come look us up to give us hugs and thank us again for being here and doing so much to get the Supply Tent up and running.

Speaking of getting the Supply Tent up and running, we just heard today from one of the big bosses that someone has donated 8 acres of land and they are going to start within the next week or two of building a new compound and the start building metal building, etc. to house the hospital in. They will even have air-conditioning for the Supply Tent! Of course we have no clue how long down the road all that will be. We have heard that where we’re located is in the flooding area of the airport and there can be up to 2 feet of water once the rainy season begins.

Once again the US Airforce sent over about ½ dozen men to help us sort and stock shelving today. They work about 3 hours, but any free labor we get is appreciated. We have knocked a big hole in what needed to be put up for now. Of course there are still tons of supplies outside covered over, but many of them are now duplicates of what we have inside.

Ken and his local Hatian carpenter put plywood doors on our 4 showers today! That will be a luxury for all of us old timers, but all those new ones moving in today won’t even know it or be impressed. It may not sound like a big deal just to hear that he did it, but if you had to take a shower with the curtains flopping in the wind exposing you one minute and then slapping your body the next with the old wet nasty curtain, you would know why we’re going to appreciate it for the next couple of nights. For some reason the wind was cool last night and it made the cold water feel warm to us as we showered and we really wanted to extend our 2 minute shower time...which several people did, but we try not to abuse their water shortage request of short showers.

- Jack

Saturday Photos from Haiti

There is no written report to post today, however, Jack did send some photos that can be viewed below. This group's time in Haiti is quickly drawing to a close, but please continue to keep them in your prayers as they finish up their duties, prepare to leave, and travel back to TN. Please know that they have felt and greatly appreciated your prayers for them during these past 2 weeks.

Part of the hardest hit area on the mountain side

Our Temporary Interpreter spends most of the time getting out of work!


Open air fruit market

Ooops!! Closed Road!

Nurse signs out supplies as guard watches

Normal street scene

Clothing "store"

Friday Report from Haiti

We woke up this morning with a new meaning to “Good Friday” as we realized it was our last Friday down here!

Once again we’ve spent the day sorting and more sorting of boxes of supplies. It really takes a long time to go through a big box of supplies, especially when the box may have 200 different items in it! If people only realized that it would be better to send cases of one item instead of a tiny bit of a lot of items it would sure help supplies to operate smoother. Our team of professionals have really worked hard to help us re-catagorize the supplies into categories that makes it easier for them to retrieve what they need. They thought it might offend us if they started moving things, we kept assuring them that we were happy for them to move it if it helped them. It doesn’t take all that long for us to change it on the Master Inventory list. Did I tell you we are now up to 21 pages (single spaced) of different types of supplies...and that doesn’t identify all of them seperately as we do put a lot of them into catagories.

I think David, Ken and Charley felt about like Jim and I did about their tour yesterday afternoon. It is an interesting experience, but something you can’t explain or write home about very well. It is so graphic and close to us as we ride through the streets and see all the pitiful sites and realize these people are trying to just simply exist. I can’t imagine what some of them will do when it starts the rainy season as some of their homes are simply cardboard boxes cut open and made into a shelter.

I’m proud that our Tennessee Baptist have collected so many buckets of food to send over and only the Lord knows how many lives it may help save, but I can see a desperate need for tents, blankets, clothes, etc. too. Many come to the hospital with only the clothes on their back. We helped deliver a truck load of used clothes to a local orphan’s shelter last night.

I’ll attach a few pictures from David Acres’ camera tonight. Some are of their tour yesterday and some from around the hospital compound. The one of the hospital entrance with no patients around it must be a miracle because the patients are usually in a long line trying to get in.

Our 12 hour day is almost up, so I’ll close for now and hope I can find a bite of food to eat and go take a nice (but short) 2-minute cold shower. Brrrr, I hated cold showers when I got here, but now I can’t wait to get the dust and grime off me, so I must be getting used to it. I think Jim had the hardest time getting used to it! We had to keep assuring him how good it felt! Ha.

Thanks for your prayers and support and know that we have you in our prayers too.

- Jack

Charley & Ken make bed recliners for patients out of cardboard

David, Charley, & Sarge making a baby bed

Happy Jack, sorting & sorting!

A roadside store

Where we shower & brush our teeth

Thursday Report from Haiti

Today has been a very different day as it relates to work. We have had 15-25 people helping us in the Supply Tent. Most are doctors, pharmacists, our Haitian crew and some US Airforce soldiers. It is totally hectic as they are now reorganizing all the supplies into subject and/or alphabetically on the shelves which was our next step now that the shelves are up and the products are on them. They have the help to do it and know the technical and medical terms so we have just backed off, told them to do their things and let us know where they move it to and we’ll have it right back on the Master Sheet for everyone to use. I’ve pretty well taught them to look on it when we aren’t here to show or tell them.

David, Charley and Ken took off at 1 p.m. for an afternoon tour of the city. We hope they make it back! I know they will see the scenes that Jim and I saw the other day of which it’s hard to describe or take pictures because of how personal it is to the Hatian people as they watch us tour their devestated city.

Jim and I have held the fort down. I slipped off and did 3 loads of laundry, two for me and one for Jim. It is so hot and dry with a light breeze today so everything is drying quickly. It is so hot I’m glad we are not doing a lot of physical work today.

I took a moment to go by the nursery to get a picture of the US Airforce guys tenderly caring for the preemies. One young man was holding one when it died and he left crying. Another one with a little more experience in there took the baby and washed it and dressed it after it had died. I couldn’t do that very easily, so I’ll stick with the supply tent. I did slip into the children’s play tent where parents can drop off their kids while they are in the hospital. It’s neat and the kids love it. It made me think of Tim Thompson’s dream of using our newly wrapped bus on Disaster Relief trips for the children.

I got a picture of Jim trying to give away all our free food that another lady had left us when she left last week. I tell you, Jim makes more friends that all the rest of us put together. This lady came by this morning and saw us in the tent trying to scrounge up some breakfast and said something to Jim about food, so he invited her right on in and started pulling all the food our of the storage bag. He’s our TN Disaster Relief Ambassador!

Ken is feeling much better today. He was really dragging yesterday but I didn’t say much about it as he was working through it. I had a rough day yesterday with an upset stomach but that seems to cleared itself up too, so God is good to us and keeps us up and going no matter how rough it seems to get. You might not think having an upset stomach is a big deal...but as Jim says , when it’s over two blocks to the toilet, it can become a big deal! Ha ha!

I hope you enjoy today’s pictures that were taken around the hospital. We may have more from down town when the other three get back later this evening or tonight.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers and know we appreciate every one of them.

- Jack

Workers bring in more & more!

US Airforce helps out in the tent


Laundry day for Jack & Jim

Keep smiling Charley!

Jim gives doll away!


Children playing in the tent

Jack is HOT!

Happy Jim sorting & sorting!

David & Charley cooling off

Wednesday Report from Haiti

Let me start with the ending of yesterday's blog. I think I shared that we would be working late as we had to do a rush job for an inventory of major meds, etc. We didn’t actully do the count as we had pharmacy personnel who knew the meds do it, but we were asked to stay in the tent with them until they finished, so we did and also worked while we waited. We stopped about 6:30 for hamburgers and a drink. We then finished up work about 11 pm and were in bed about 11:30 last night.

It was a wee tad hard getting out of bed this morning and some dragged a little bit, but all made it up and out by 7:30 am. I thought I would be typing the medical report from the night before, so I had gotten up at 6 am and lugged all communication devices to the tent. Luckily the young pharmacist in charge got up early to come see if I was having trouble reading their technical/medical writing and I defintely was, so he volunteered to type it. That suited me just fine.

Today has been one of the hottest days we’ve had and with it coming on a late night the night before it has very much taken a toll on all of us and I don’t know of a one of us that isn’t really dragging tonight. There really isn’t anything new to report today except that we had a lot more volunteer help and they are now already getting busy tweeking the shelves to where what is on the shelf is in some kind of order. Of course that will mean we have to go behind them and re-identify the locations, but that’s OK as that isn’t too hard or time consuming to do and if it helps them find their supplies easier, that’s what we want.

We heard from Allison Young today that we are really getting a LOT of hits on our Blog and also all kinds of indications of people praying for us. We really appreciate that and thank you all for your interest and prayers. I just pray you don’t think all I say is complaining because I’m just trying to tell it like it is and let the facts speak for themselves.

I purposely didn’t say much about the hospital yesterday and don’t really know what to say today. I’ve been in the tiny baby’s ward area a couple of times and I have to get out rather quickly as it is heart breaking to see the babies and the shape they are in. Many are born pre-mature and several have deformaties and medical problems. We go out of our way to save baby blankets, caps, etc. as the nurses are always begging us for things to keep the new babies warm. You should see some of the baby beds we make for them! Hey, we gotta do what we gotta do, so we do! Charley even made a basket ball goal for the older kids in their playground tent. Just to walk by all the hospital action, hearing the screams, seeing the patients in all forms and fashions of physical condition is really hard to take, so most of us stay out of those areas as much as we can. However we do know that it makes our work more meaningful by seeing some of the patients. We are smart enough to know what has happened when they come asking for body bags too. Well, enough on that part of the Haiti experience. We’re just thankful to be in the Supply Tent if you compare it to what goes on in the hospital area.

I didn’t take any new pictures today but have a few I can share from the last day or two. I hope you enjoy them. Once again, thanks for your prayers and support!

- Jack

People look for food or valuables.

Rehab shares our TN Baptist Disaster Relief Office (see crutches, walkers, etc.)

Bathrooms are a block or two away from supplies

Hospital main walkway

My helper on break (in white shirt)


Helpers take a break!