Birth of the TENTS FOR HAITI Project- Pt. 1

The TENTS FOR HAITI Project was born out of the feeling of responsiblity Jim Frankenfield felt for the villagers of Cotes de Fer. You see, the morning of the earthquake, Jim and some from his group were in Cotes de Fer, preparing to drill a well near the town's elementary school. The hope was that this well could offer clean drinking water to the town. When they encountered sea water, they realized the well would not produce clean water, so they abandoned that well. A few hours later, the earthquake hit the island of Haiti.

Two days after the earthquake, at the nudging of their Haitian driver, Reynaud, the group returned to Cotes de Fer to see how the town had fared. The team found a town whose buildings had either been decimated, or were too structurally damaged to be inhabited. Most of the people had fled the town, but they did find one man, sitting on his porch, with a severely broken leg. The doctor that was with our group did what he could for this man- gave him some pain medication and some money so that someone could buy him some food, but beyond that, there was nothing more they could do. He needed to be at a hospital, but under the circumstances a ride to the nearest clinic would have killed him. So, very reluctantly, they left the man there, sure that the next time they passed by him, he would no longer be alive.

Leaving the town, the group headed up the mountain to find the remaining townspeople, who had fled to a higher elevation, due to the overwhelming fear of tsunami. The people had erected a make-shift tent village of blankets, sheets and sticks, where they huddled together in fear.

After seeing the living conditions of these people, the service team headed back to where they were staying, pooled their money and sent Jim off to buy whatever food he could find. He came back with 550 lbs. of rice,12 gallons of vegetable oil and some meat, canned by Mennonite Central Committee. Some of the team members set to work dividing the rice into smaller bags and pouring the vegetable oil into cleaned out soda bottles that someone had saved up. The women on the team got items together to make newborn kits for the babies that were up on the mountain. When all was completed, they headed back up the mountain to give the food and supplies to the leader of the village for distribution.

After leaving the folks up on the mountain top, they headed back to their camp but avoided the town, because they were afraid they would see the man with the broken leg had died, and none of them wanted to have to see that. They all went with very sad, very heavy hearts.

Days later, on the way to the airport, one of the team members was able to get word to the military about the town of Cotes de Fer and that they needed assistance as soon as possible...

The Saturday after the team had returned home, they gathered at Jim's house for a time of reflection and debriefing. Our pastor, Gerry Clemmer, was there and brought word that someone had sent him an email he wanted to share. When Jim opened the link in that email, he couldn't believe his eyes. There was a picture of the man from Cotes de Fer who had had the broken leg and who the team thought they had left there to die. He was propped up against a wall, with a clean white tee shirt on and a cast on his leg. Wow- what a gift from God for our group to see that the Marines had, in fact, landed on the south side of the island and brought aid to the people of Cotes de Fer and also that they were able to treat those injured, including the man that weighed so heavily on the hearts of those who had tried to treat him! Of all the 27 or so patients that were treated in the makeshift hospital, what are the odds that the one patient photographed would be "their man"?

God IS good- all the time!