This post will go online sometime in the early hours EST of February 14th—Valentine’s Day; also Pam’s due date. No baby yet! In Haiti, our midwife said 2/19 and the ultrasound showed 2/14. So, any time now. While in Miami we are assessing the long-term opportunities that have emerged from our role in the relief & recovery effort. Although Haiti has been on everyone’s heart for the past month, the devastation and onslaught of aid is only the tip of the iceberg. We are encouraged by how many people have expressed a commitment not only to the relief, but to the recovery and rebuilding as well.

Earlier this week we debriefed with the Miami crew along with the guys from New Orleans, and started reading through e-mail conversations between our team and the ministries we have been serving. From all accounts, the rapid-response “operation” was highlysuccessful. As we compared notes, it’s tough trying to explain precisely who we are and what we did—yet that’s the beauty of it. Our non-traditional approach (no organization, no stated mission) enabled us to be quick and nimble, networked and relevant. Through this effort alone, dozens of people put their lives on hold to volunteer; thousands committed funds and prayed. In other words: those who love God are serving those who God loves. It’s bread-and-butter Gospel (Philippians 2). Since there is no organization to describe who we are, and no mission statement to detail what we did, let me defer to stories and pictures to illustrate how God is using us for such a time as this.

Within days of the earthquake we scraped up $10K and sent 2000 gallons of diesel fuel to a PAP hospital. Due to security concerns (hijacking), we lined the floors of city buses with fuel in 30-liter containers (pictured above) and made runs to PAP during the night. From the outside looking in, you would never guess this bus was carrying 800 gallons of fuel. At the peak, we were sending a convoy of three buses every other night. We worked in cooperation with the director of public transportation in Fort-Liberte. Each bus had two drivers, two mechanics, and two police officers on board. Only Haitians were allowed to ride so we wouldn’t blow our cover. On the return trip, the buses evacuated hundreds of refugees.

These folks oversee the hospital at the Baptist Haiti Mission—where we sent a lot of the fuel. Chris Lieb (pictured left) wrote us, “I just wanted to thank you for your hard work in getting us out of a fuel crisis here at Baptist Haiti Mission. You literally saved lives at our hospital and it allowed us to be able to distribute much needed relief. May God continue to bless your efforts. It is great to see the body of Christ working together.” Chris, Kyrk, and Rob told us that when they got the first shipment of fuel they split it among several other ministries including orphanages and MAF.

In 2001, Jeff Fogle and I played collegiate soccer together. Jeff was key to us winning a national championship—the man can flat out play. Now, Jeff is the chaplain for the 82nd Airborne, 173rd Cavalry. Jeff’s squadron was the first to arrive in PAP. Although the phones had been down, he found a way to get a call through. I remember it well, “We’re staying at some sort of country club. We have helicopters—a lot people are critically injured. Do you know of any hospitals?” At the time we didn’t know which hospitals had been destroyed, so we gave him a few names. It turned out that he met Chris, Kyrk and Rob (previous picture) and the army began airlifting patients there.

It didn’t take long for our supply line to earn credibility. Although ground transport was the most risky means of moving supplies into PAP, it was effective early on. We avoided bottlenecks and delivered supplies to PAP ministries quickly. Pictured are: Cameron, Francisco, Jay and Kyle.

Our Miami central command office began fielding hundreds of e-mails and calls. Requests came in for everything imaginable. One hospital asked for vinyl mattresses to handle the patient surge. Within hours, our guys in Santiago found a mattress factory (above) that could make anything we wanted overnight! From Miami, our team hunted down and delivered things like bone saws and cauterization equipment for PAP clinics.

To streamline the movement of supplies, we used a transshipment point just north of PAP. Since it was a remote location, drop-off and pick-up was safe and easy. Dennis and Jarod are loading sacks of rice and beans for a school and orphanage. This location also happened to be where Samaritan’s Purse set up their base.

News from the frontline was encouraging. I spoke with people fromChristianville Mission as we loaded food into their truck—they were feeding 5000-6000 each day. Julie Scott from Haiti Child Sponsorshipwrote, “Please extend our gratitude to all who helped Jenn-Vi (Young Life) and the Good Shepherd School receive supplies! Your ministry was really the only open door for us as we struggled to get supplies to them. Thanks for all you do and will continue to do in Haiti! May God continue to bless your efforts!” What wasn’t mentioned is that Good Shepherd School is in Cite Soleil. Google it.

Samaritan’s Purse hand delivered 1.5 million pesos (36 to the dollar) to the hotel where we were staying in Santiago. They needed helicopter fuel urgently—plus a semi-truck full of rice. No problem. Santiago immediately dispatched a truck with ten 55-gallon drums of fuel. However, the border closed at 5:00 PM and we snapped this picture…oh, 90-minutes later. Adam and Mike (pictured) and I asked officials on both sides if we could pay everyone overtime to keep the border open. The picture above was taken on the bridge over the River Massacre, the divide between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Gerald, Jacques and James are rolling the drums from a Dominican truck to a Haitian truck. The truck drove through the night to deliver the fuel by morning.

For many of the “big” loads, MINUSTAH, the peacekeeping arm of the UN, offered our trucks armed escort. The Uruguayan battalion was great, from the commanders to the soldiers! It was a pleasure serving with them.

Besides transporting supplies to PAP, we worked directly with the mayor’s office in the city where we live. At last count, Fort-Liberte took in almost 2500 refugees. Here, Luis is pumping 1500 gallons of fuel into the city’s tanks to help keep utilities and public services (like the police) operational.

For more pictures, click here.

All of us still struggle to comprehend the earthquake. I remember staring at the headlines of the DrudgeReport on January 13th: “Hell Came Up”. If that’s what happened, then this is God at work.

Soli Deo Gloria

Because we were able to answer the call for supplies within days of the earthquake, and to strategically target orgs we knew were both legitimate and capable of in turn providing care through their long established networks; our efforts were focused on an intense but short term bridging effort. This means we were bridging part of the gap between when the large NGO’s could get on the ground and get organized and start distribution of the mass quantities necessary to help the mass population of Haiti. That is thankfully now happening. The huge NGO’s and others have gotten massive distribution points set up and are now giving out approximately 42 metric tons of supplies each day at each site!! Due to this we are now looking to stage 2 of our effort.  For more on this stage of our  please visit the link to the right  www.highwaytohaiti.com

In all, we serviced about 25 organizations, partnered with several others, and shipped tons of supplies from DR to PaP over the last few weeks. Our efforts to support those ministries will continue but in a different way by networking resources and others working in PaP to them. We always new our first stage would only last until our services were no longer vitally needed in PaP and then we’d shift to other long term development. This effort is far from over and the funds many of you have given and will continue to give will continue to be used 100% for the Haiti relief efforts of Urban Resurrection/InnerChange/CRM, Fellowship International Mission, and Kids Alive International. This partnership is not over and we are excited to see what God has in store for us in stage 2 and the many years it will take to help Haiti recover. Please stay tuned and engaged with Haiti and the people of Haiti. This is a long term process and will need long term commitment both from a support standpoint and from the on the ground hands on ministry. Thank you for your support and desire to serve God by serving the people of Haiti with us.

As you saw in our last report from the field God has allowed us to get tons (literally) and tens of thousands of dollars worth of supplies across the border and into the hands of those who are helping heal the wounds of the country of Haiti. We have received many emails from missionaries and orgs on the ground stating how our efforts have helped them to help others and kept their doors open to serve those whom they have grown to love over their years in Haiti.

Up to now your generous donations have allowed us to provide the supply line and the transport or supplies as a service practically free of charge to the orgs that are using it. However, we are finding we are beginning to run low on funds and that giving has slowed a bit. I am writing this update now to ask you all to give yet again, not for us but for the people of Haiti and for the missionaries we are supplying and even more importantly for the glory of God.

If you would like to support this ongoing effort financially please either click the GIVE tab to the right of this page and follow the directions there for giving to Urban Resurrection – TEAM (make sure you put a notation that it is for Haiti Relief) OR you can send a check to 3158 Carter Street, Miami, FL 33133 OR you can go to www.FIM.org and give online to the Haiti Relief there OR you can go to http://www.crmleaders.org/home and give online there. SO you can see there are many ways to give to this ministry to Haiti. Please pray about supporting this effort.

Thank you.

Phase 1: Urgent aid to PAP. Our usefulness in this regard is limited. Once commodities reenter the PAP marketplace; we’re done.

Phase 2: Refugees. We are starting to deliver aid to communities taking in refugees. This will become an even greater need than Phase 1. We are targeting communities that we have existing relationships with—and most importantly, the one we live in. This will rollover into Phase 3.

Phase 3: Long-term relief/development/discipleship. More to come

We have delivered supplies (or will be delivering supplies in the next 3-5 days) to the following ministries:

Baptist Haiti Mission
Christian Horizons Global
Christian Light Foundation
Christian Veterinary Mission
Christianville Mission
CrossWorld / UEBH
Global Outreach
God’s Littlest Angels Orphanage
Fellowship International Mission
Heartline Ministries
Haiti Health Ministries
Haiti Home of Hope
Haitian American Friendship Foundation
House of Bread
HIS Home for Children
Kids Alive
Many Hands of Haiti
Master’s Hands
New Mission Systems International
OMS
Open Door Baptist Mission
Samaritan’s Purse
World Wide Village

Many have asked about flying in to help. Depending on how long our supply line services are needed, we will need several waves of helpers. The skills most needed on our end are: native Spanish and Creole speakers, accountants, computer “geeks”, scroungers and couriers—most importantly, flexible people who work well in extreme and unusual circumstances. E-mail Elaina Vazquez at urez.haiti@gmail.com for more details. If you, or your church, is interested in being involved in long-term discipleship and sustainable development, please contact us so we can dialog further when the time becomes appropriate. This will be a critical aspect of Haiti’s future.

As alluded to above, one of the many ripple-effects is refugees leaving PAP by the tens-of-thousands. This past week, while at my house in Fort-Liberte, I met with the mayor and city council on several occasions. The mayor told me that the town has taken in 1400 refugees, and this is expected to surge to possibly 5000. Fort-Liberte needs help. Neighbors have told me that family and friends are showing up at their doors with nowhere else to go. I feel this is a critical juncture in which how we respond now will open up opportunities for the rest of our life in Haiti. Our mayor, Ing. Moise Charles-Pierre, came to my house and gave me a list of food that is needed immediately. The list includes staple items: flour, rice, beans, oil, spaghetti, dried fish, oatmeal, sugar, milk, bedding and soap. Based on our estimates, his request will cost around US$50,000. We would love to provide a significant amount of assistance (we don’t have to provide all of it) by next week if possible. Consider giving toward this second-wave of need at www.fim.org. For donations of over $5000, please contact Dick Albright at dalbright@fim.org and he can assist you in wiring money directly to our ECCU account and notate it correctly.

Thanks again! It’s far from over.

30 liter fuel tanks for discreet deliveryand easy distribution in PAP. We’ve sent 500-600 already

One of our “scroungers” in Santiago. That’s 5 tons of rice

Medical supplier in Santiago

Pricesmart—kind of like Costco or Sam’s Club

UN military escort of 5000 gallons of diesel into Haiti

More fuel tanks and water

One of our suppliers of rice and beans, etc.

Transshipment point in NE Haiti at MINUSTAH (United Nations) Uruguay base. The entire Uruguayan batallion has been awesome to work with!

Santiago, Dominican Republic command center

“I just wanted to thank you for your hard work in getting us out of a fuel crisis here at Baptist Haiti Mission. You literally saved lives at our hospital and it allowed us to be able to distribute much needed relief. May God continue to bless your efforts. It is great to see the body of Christ working together.
In Christ,
Chris

- Please pray for our team as we go into the next week, that we will have the strength to sustain this effort as we have seen and continue to see that God is clearly at work and using our efforts to answer the prayers of His people as evidenced above.

- Things are slowly changing on the ground as far as the big orgs getting the supplies out of the PaP airport and port into the city. PRAY THAT THE POLITICS AND THE HOLD UPS WILL CEASE AND THAT THE MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF AID SITTING ON THE TARMAC WILL MAKE IT TO THE PEOPLE ASAP!!!

- We are now working with the UN a bit and they have provided us a safe staging area in Haiti where we can store some fuel for easier distribution.

- Also pray that people in the US would not slow their fervor for the cause of the Haitian people. Our media saturation cuts both ways, when the networks lose interest so does the coverage and the focus of the country goes back toward apathy. Prayer can change that, so hit it hard!!

- Signing off, as you can tell from the order of this update and its brevity I am very tired so excuse any typos. Goodnight!

On another note we have seen our friend Julie united with her two new little ones from Haiti and she brought them here to stay in our office for a couple days while she recuperates from the adventure she went on to find and retrieve them. Praise God for He restores the orphan and places them into families!!!

Sent another guy Derek Sandberg to DR to help with the logistics team and the supply line today and we also received a reinforcement from InnerChange, Diane Moss, to help us get our Miami hub more organized and to help us get a break. 11 days straight of 14-18 hour work has left us weary but content knowing that we are being poured out as an offering for Christ and His Body.

Tomorrow is another day so I need to sleep, pray for sustenance and strength to continue on for His glory.

Though it has been intense and nearly non-stop for the last 10 days we have seen God open amazing doors every step of the way! From seeing our good friend Julie go to Haiti after her two adopted children find them and returning all within 3 days, to putting a solid team of 7 very skilled guys on the ground in DR to run our logistics practically overnight, to seeing tens of thousands of dollars come in and go right back out for Haiti Relief, to seeing us deliver 2000 gallons of diesel fuel already when others said it couldn’t be done. To having everyone from Samaritan’s Purse, to the UN, to the Army, wanting to get involved in what we have put together. To having Matt & Jarod and our team in Miami perfectly placed  for such a time as this and SO MUCH MORE!

God has indeed shown His favor on our efforts and every ounce of energy and focus and the small sacrifices we have given over the last days have been rewarded 100 fold. The fruit on this tree is evidently very good and God is at work! Make no mistake it is GOD, not us, doing this. I was just telling people today that it is actually like we are just running as fast as we can to just keep up with what God is doing. All we have to do is connect the dots! As soon as we realize we need something within hours and sometimes even minutes of asking it is there in our hands.

We are extremely excited to see these things happen. Who would have thought that 10 days ago we were just getting ramped up for a new year of ministry in Miami and then wham millions of lives are changed in an instant…including ours. I never thought we at U Rez would be a part of a relief effort of this magnitude. I mean just today we purchased 5 tons of rice, 5000 gallons of diesel fuel, sent off 4 more guys to DR, dealt with thousands of dollars in money transfers, saw our friend Julie walk into our house this evening with her precious little Haitian children…. the list goes on and on and we look toward tomorrow when we will see God do even more amazing things. I can’t stop praising God tonight, HE HAS DONE GREAT THINGS!!!

For all of you who have given support to this effort I say thank you, your gifts of food to sustain our team as we work, time that you have taken to volunteer, to sort stuff, answer phones and emails, to send funds to our ministry, to pack supplies up for our guys going down, for the guys who did go down at some significant sacrifice, for the countless people who have listened to the Spirit leading them to help our efforts on so many fronts we say thank you and the people of Haiti say thank you.

If you have not yet joined our efforts or taken action to serve and sustain our neighbors to the south on the island of Hispanola I challenge you to take a stand and a step of faith. It doesn’t have to be a Herculean effort just a simple step of faith and God will use it to move mountains as we have seen him do quite literally in these last days. Above all PRAY for us and for our work in Haiti, for the team, for the supply line, for the people of Haiti who are suffering so much and for those who are joining them in their suffering by going and aiding them. Please pray for strength and for God to continue to move moutains with our mustard seeds.