Editor’s Note: John & Kathy Eichler (some great ROW people!) recently returned from a trip to Haiti to help after the earthquake. They shared with us their experiences and we thought you would appreciate hearing more of the progress going on there.

Dear Friends,

Thanks you so much for keeping us in your prayers last week. We have safely arrived home after a very exhausting week.

The mission trip began on Saturday very early morning of Feb 20^th. We got up at 2AM to get ready and finish packing to depart for our church by 3AM. We left the church via 2 church buses for the Atlanta airport at 3:45AM. Our initial plans were to fly into Port-au-Prince(PaP) airport; however, Spirit Airlines was not granted permission to fly into and out of PaP as of our departure. Consequently, we were headed to the Dominican Republic(DR) and then took a bus ride to Haiti.

However, there is no direct flight from Atlanta to the DR with Spirit Airlines. This meant we had to fly from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale, FL and then take a flight to the DR from there. Sounds OK, but our “connecting” flight left at 7PM on Saturday night. We had a 7AM flight out of Atlanta, arriving in Ft. Laud at 9AM. I think you can do the math…..  A very long day indeed, sitting in the airport.

Once we arrived in the DR at 9PM, we very thankfully had a very uneventful jaunt through customs. By 10PM our group of 25 had assembled outside of the airport awaiting our transportation to our hotel to spend the night. After waiting for an hour, our leader finally decided to call the guy who was supposed to meet us. He finally showed up about 11:30PM, having stated that the bus broke down en route to the airport. This bus was a 1950s vintage school bus, one I had ridden on in grade school!  We loaded the bus with all of the luggage, at least 50 pieces of luggage and then began our short trip to our hotel. This should have taken all of 20 minutes.

Unfortunately, en route to the hotel, the bus driver got lost. He headed down a one way street and realized this was incorrect. We tried to back up, however, the bus did not have reverse! The guys pushed the bus back up the hill into oncoming traffic. Now mind you, it is after midnight, closer to 1AM. We did have a guy in a pickup truck following us and who was with the group. So after unloading the luggage and putting it in the pickup truck along with the people on the trip, we all made it to the hotel which really was “right around the corner” from the bus breakdown. The pickup truck made about 6 trips to handle all of us. Naturally, as soon as the last of the luggage was unloaded from our bus, the bus magically started working. By 2AM we were all checked into our hotel and ready to get ready for bed.

The next morning we had a nice breakfast in the hotel courtyard and then proceeded to the garden for a brief worship service before loading “The Bus” for our journey to Haiti. We traveled for about 2 hours and stopped for lunch at a roadside place. Jeff and I decided not to eat, as we had a decent breakfast and we’re trying to lose weight.

Again, we boarded the bus and traveled another 2 hours. Once again the bus broke down. This was about 3PM. The guys worked on the bus for a number of hours, not quite sure what was wrong with it or what to do about it. We were stuck in this small town. Since we were there for so long, we made many new friends with the local town folks. They were very nice and accommodating, offering lawn chairs for us to sit on, using their restrooms, etc. We were within 2 hours of reaching the Haiti border.

Since we were in the DR, Jeff knew of a local pastor, having gone to his location on 2 previous mission trips with ROW(Rivers of the World). Jeff called Pastor Pedro and explained our dire situation. Within 15 minutes, Pastor Pedro showed up with an air conditioned bus and welcomed us to stay in his guesthouse for the night, and help us get our bus fixed in the morning so we could continue our journey to Haiti. Unfortunately, our leader(s) decided that we must continue on to Haiti that night. Again it is now past 6PM, the border closes at 7PM and we are still 4 hours from the border. One of the local guys that was traveling with us(in the infamous blue pickup truck) assured us that he had “connections” and could get us across the border that night. Hmmmm…  So our guys, once again, unloaded the luggage from our broken down bus and reloaded it into Pastor Pedro’s bus so that we could continue to Haiti. Before leaving this wonderful town, the guys pushed the broken down bus through the town to the police station. The locals have now declared this day a national holiday - when the crazy Americans arrived in town!!! 

When we got to the border, we sat, and sat, and sat while our select few negotiated for us. Of course, the military wanted us to sleep on the floor of their building for the night. While our guys were negotiating, the DR military surrounded our bus, coaxing the women to open the windows, staring at them, making us all feel uncomfortable. Finally, the DR let us out, and we continued our travels. We finally arrived at our campus, about 2AM.

The campus in Messailler had a huge building where we all stayed.  The room was divided into 3 sections - a dorm area for the guys, one for the girls and a meeting/commons area where we could gather for fellowship and lunch. Fortunately, there were enough bunk beds for all of us. We claimed our sleeping area then went to their dining area for a very late dinner. After dinner, we grabbed a quick cold shower and went to bed.

Monday arrived much too quickly. We awoke to the crowing of roosters, who were very, very loud. We had breakfast at 8AM that morning, since we had a very late night. Following breakfast we unpacked our own bags and then met in the commons room and unpacked the supplies. The dental group set up their supplies, the medical set up their areas, the construction team assessed their jobs for the week, the VBS team sorted through all the stuff that made it to Haiti, the sewing team sorted out their fabrics and trims, the eye glass lady set up her area and the projector and DVD player were setup to show the Jesus film. One of the ladies was assigned to help out in the Pastor’s office, and she left us to begin her duties.

The only groups who actually worked on Monday was the construction group whose duty was to lay tile floors in the orphanage and the medical group who attended to the sick who lived on the campus. Everyone else got ready for the rest of the week.

On Tuesday we began our day with breakfast at 7AM, followed by a discussion of a book that we were required to read. We actually began our discussion at the Ft. Laud airport on Saturday afternoon, and on Monday after breakfast. This was to be our daily time for this book discussion.  Following breakfast we all went about our assigned duties. Jeff was on the construction team, and did a mighty fine job laying tile. Kathy was on the VBS team, and somehow managed to “ramrod” most of the arts and craft activities.

Lunchtime was always at noon, and dinner was always at 6PM.  Everyone was supposed to stop working at 4PM, and then we were to gather at 4:30 to do our local visitations. This is where we take “gift bags” filled with soaps, lotions, washcloths, toys for children, toothbrushes and paste, etc., along with rice and beans that we gave to the villagers with whom we met. We were to discuss their reaction to the earthquake, whether or not they were Christians, ask for their favorite Bible verse and/or favorite hymn, etc.  The visits usually lasted about 20 minutes each and we visited 2 -3 families on each visit. We walked to these places leaving via the back gate of our campus and walking along the dirt roads behind the campus. There were definitely some very poor along these roads. Additionally, we saw some severe earthquake damage. 

This recapped our Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Thursday night we found out that Spirit Airlines still did not have permission to fly into PaP, so after breakfast on Friday, we packed up to head to the DR for our trip back to the states on Saturday. Since the old school bus was unreliable, having just made it back to Haiti from the DR on Wed night, they rented an air conditioned bus for us to travel to the DR. However, we had to pick up this bus outside the PaP airport. Once again, the guys loaded the suitcases (we were down to about 32 cases since we left tons of supplies with the ministry in Haiti) onto the school bus only to move them to the rental bus an hour and a half later.  We left the campus at about 10AM saying goodbye to the folks who lived there. The kids were the greatest - all smile, waving, etc. 

When the rental bus showed up (of course it was about thirty minutes late) the bus had 22 seats for 26 people and luggage. We were like sardines in a can. Once again, the pickup truck saved us for a while. Four members of our group went in the pickup truck to the DR border. Once we all rendezvous at the border, the other 4 boarded, standing in the aisle. We traveled this way until we got to the first town where we left 4 guys off to take public transportation to our hotel for the night. Of course, those left on the bus never thought we would ever see these guys again.  We decided to go straight to dinner at a nice restaurant in Santo Domingo before heading to our hotel. Within 10 minutes of us sitting down, in walk the four guys who took the public transportation/bus. Unbelievable!!!  God is good.

After dinner we went to the hotel for a quick night of rest before awakening at 4AM so that we could leave by 5AM for our 7AM flight to Ft Laud. Our flights were relatively on time and we arrived home in Atlanta at 5PM.

It was quite a trip. The hardest part was the bus transportation, as the roads in both the DR and Haiti are not very smooth and the buses’ shocks were completely gone. The people of Haiti were very appreciative of the work that we did. As always, there is never enough time to get everything done, but what was accomplished was a job well done.  And we were blessed having got to know some of the Haitian people.

Thank you all for your prayers while we were gone. As you can see, we really did need them.

God bless you all,

 Jeff and Kathy