Haiti

I’ve tried to sit down and write something about the trip several times, but always seemed to get overwhelmed. When this opportunity first presented itself, I became totally worthless…more so than normal!! My heart and mind were consumed with the pain and need in Haiti. The previous 2 posts by Amanda tell you how this came to be. God could have stopped with the miracle of just getting me there and I would’ve been blessed, but He didn’t. This was just the beginning of the wildest ride I’ve ever been on and I believe it will be difficult to top. I want to lay a little foundation before I get into the meat of the experience. Most people have a hard time believing that I’m a shy person and being pushed out of my comfort zone to fly to Fort Lauderdale and meet with a group of people that I’ve never met and then fly to Haiti to work with more people that I’ve never met, was a step of faith for me, to put it mildly. I usually tend to withdraw somewhat when pushed into situations similar to this, but this time was different. I’ve experienced the peace of God before, but this was unbelievable. Not one time did I ever experience any anxiety that was not totally covered by His peace…from the beginning to the end. It was that supernatural peace that surpasses all understanding that His word speaks about. This doesn’t mean that I was void of emotion…quite the opposite. I had to keep my thoughts and conversation in check, because if I discussed the support I was getting from people I didn’t know or the orphan situation, I started getting pretty emotional, no, real emotional. It’s hard to try and be manly while your standing there crying like a baby…get the picture.!!LOL
Saturday morning I boarded a flight to Ft. Lauderdale, with a brief connection in Memphis. This is where God started blowing me away. I was waiting to board my connection to Florida and was talking to a friend of mine on my cell. I was telling him about the situation in Haiti and what we were supposed to be doing, when this lady sitting next to me, with tears in her eyes, handed me a wad of cash. I said thank you and stuck it in my pocket and finished my phone call. When I hung up she proceeded to tell me that she over heard the conversation and wanted to help and asked my name so she could keep me lifted up in prayer. I thanked her again and had to walk off and have another tear session. I can’t begin to tell you how humbling this entire event was for me…from the beginning until even now! When I landed in Ft. Lauderdale, I met up with a young lady from Michigan named Betsy. Betsy is a friend of Brian. I guess at this point I should run through some quick genealogy so I don’t get you confused. Betsy is a friend of Brian who is a friend of Kelly. Kelly is the director of Love Beyond Borders adoption agency. Brian is a Guatadad (Dad who adopted from Guatemala) who met Kelly while on a trip to Guatemala. When the need for people to go on this endeavor was discovered, Kelly of course was totally swamped, she’s in Colorado BTW, so Brian steps up to help coordinate things (Brian is in Michigan…don’t hold it against him). I’ve never met Brian face to face, but I will tell you from our phone conversations and what he personally gave up to make this happen, this dude is the real deal. I can’t say that I’ve met anyone as genuine and giving as this man…hats off to ya, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again…YOU ARE THE MAN!!!! Betsy made contact with our ride and we were off to the executive airport. We met with several folks of the LBB board and 2 more volunteers that were friends of Brian’s, Tod and his father. I believe that Brian and these 2 guys come from a very similar mold. They would be handling the operations needed in Florida while Betsy and I would head down to Haiti. When God does something, He does it right. I have NEVER worked with a finer group of people than this…ever!!

Even though I didn’t get to spend much time with them, the time we were connected was amazing. The job they did was incredible and without THEM, I don’t believe this would have been a success. After we had laid out our plans and the plans were to bring home, I believe it was, 42 children, we scheduled our flight down to Haiti for 10:00am the following morning, which was Sunday. BTW, did I mention that I didn’t have hardly any money and things are SUPER tight for us right now, so I only had a little cash on me…after all, I really didn’t think I was going to need any in Haiti. This meant I was going to need to get a room for the night. Guess how much the room was??? It was $99.85. Guess how much money that God-sent lady in Memphis gave me??? $100.00…15 cents to spare. Ain’t God Good!! We flew on a donated corporate jet belonging to Owens Illinois, a glass manufacturing company. This thing was laid out. I kind of felt guilty flying into Haiti in such a luxurious plane…OK, maybe not too guilty. Once we landed in PAP, Becky and I made contact with an adoptive dad named Rob. Rob and his wife Lisa have been in process for 2 years to bring home a precious 6 year old boy named Morelson. We hung out next to the MAF hanger at the far east end of the runway for around 5 hours before we got a text message from our crew in Florida to get to the embassy ASAP. Here comes another plug for God. You can’t just hale a cab and say “take us to the embassy”. We were walking towards the tarmac to see what we could find, when all of a sudden the missionary that Rob was telling us about comes driving up and there was our lift to the embassy. I know this sounds trivial, but understand 1. where we are and 2. what’s going on. The ride to the embassy was like driving in most 3rd world countries (NASCAR race @ Talladega) , but this was like driving in 3 races at once with zero rules. The embassy is probably about 5 miles from the airport, as the crow flies, but took us ~ an hour to an hour and a half. You get the idea. Finally get to the embassy. Give them our passports and they tell us that they can’t get anyone on the phone to verify why we’re there and they won’t let us in. Yep, OUR embassy and sorry, go away. After 15 minutes of trying to explain the situation, a couple of federal agents (DOS Diplomatic Security) lots of weapons and attitude, ask if they can help and of course we let them…I mean, why argue, the dude had more guns than I did!! The agent that waited with us outside happened to be a Nawlin’s (New Orleans for the yankees reading this) boy and that really aided in breaking through his wall. Not to mention the Saints were playing in the championship shortly, so there was plenty to talk about. After about 45 minutes we were escorted to the area of the embassy were the children were being processed. After seeing this area a couple of days after tonight, really shed some light on the chaos that must have been present that day. There were soiled diapers, trash, mattresses and stuff I didn’t really recognize everywhere. Like, I mean everywhere. Once we were in there Stephanie, adoption coordinator, shoves a kid into my arms and says, “Here, you take this one, now get these kids out of here and on a plane, NOW!!” I said, “Nice to meet you too!” …kidding! I said “Yes, ma’am” and ran outta there as fast as I could. I didn’t want her to be able to catch me, I’ll take my chances with the Federal Agents and Marines!! Seriously, Steph is an amazing person that doesn’t get the credit due her…more on that later. Once we were outside, we were escorted to the airport by these agents and military people to the consular section, where we were processed and manifested to get on a plane and escort these children home to their forever families, something I had really been looking forward to having the honor of doing.

Well, Betsy, or God, still haven’t decided which yet, had other plans.LOL You see, we brought 7 children out, but there was one more coming and the plane wouldn’t wait. Betsy gave me the option of staying or staying…so I stayed. There were 2 things that I really wanted to do and it looked like I wasn’t going to be able to do either, 1. place one of these precious babies in their families arms forever and 2. fly out on an Air Force C-17. Honestly, I was pretty bummed, but I knew that if it meant me missing out on these things that God had something better in mind. I got to find out that my team was going to the Super Bowl!!! After all of the craziness, Betsy left and I found out after the flight left, that the child I was waiting on, made it on that flight. I know Betsy was amazing at escorting these children through customs and to their forever families. She hung in there for over 20 more hours and saw it through to the end…way to go!!!!
I called Rob and we went back down to our original meeting spot and climbed in a tent on the side of the runway. Got a couple of hours sleep and I woke up around 5:30 and went outside and began praying. Even in a place that has just been decimated by one of the deadliest earthquakes in history, there was a strange calm about it. Rob and I were picked up by Stephanie and brought to the embassy where we spent the next 2 days lobbying for the release of these innocent children. Which brings up my favorite charity…UNICEF. The more I see of them, the more I firmly believe they were birthed in hell!! I equate them to Al Qaeda because they have terrorized the adoption process and community. UNICEF believes that a child should remain in his/her culture and should not be available for adoption. Adoption is an option only before institutionalizing. I understand trying to stop child trafficking, but get your stuff together before you approach an adoptive father with 2 kids in his arms accusing him of this horrible crime. Adoptive parents that have been through a horrible process would not be your best choice for someone to pick on in this fashion. It almost got real ugly at the airport with this very situation. Stephanie and I were walking down the street to get to the embassy when we passed a brand new SUV with 4 smug, snotty looking people, dressed nicely sitting in it in traffic. We looked down at the door and , yep, you guessed it…Our friends from UNICEF. I’ve never wanted to commit a violent crime more in my life than right there. I won’t go into any more details, but those of you that know me, know exactly what I’m talking about.
I want to talk about a person that is way under appreciated. Her name is Stephanie Thoet. She is the adoption coordinator for LBB. Being an adoptive parent myself, gives me a different perspective on what she actually does. Now I don’t know what she does with a normal adoption, if that really exists. This girl worked 9, 10, 11 days in a row for 12-14 hours a day. She did this with limited food (protein bars mostly with an occasional peanut butter cracker), warm water to drink and hardly any sleep. Not too many hotels to check into! This is not the normal duties of someone in this role, but then again Stephanie isn’t a normal person. She has an undying love for these children, she knows each one by name and they know her. She really has relationships with all of these children. I watched her fight, get mad and cry, a lot, for these children. If your in process and she is your coordinator, think twice before you get upset about your case…she fights like a marine for these/your children. This is only a rough outline of the trip. The stories I heard about the tragedy of death and destruction are many…I’ve shed a many a tear and I’ll never be the same. I know looking at this storyline that it is easy to say that it might have been fairly boring.

Trust me, it wasn’t even close to boring. God did a work in me that I can’t begin to describe and through it all He showed me that he really does care about the details.
Remember earlier I said there were 2 things I wanted to be able to do. One of them was to fly on a C-17. When we got to the airport to leave late Tuesday night, there was a group of people boarding a C-17. We were next in line, 3 of us, but the plane was full. So we waited for the next available plane, no guarantee of what it would be. I kept watching for another C-17 to land, but none did. The Federal Agents came and got us and said it’s time to go and started leading us down the tarmac. I was bummed because the only planes I saw land and go down there were chartered commercial planes, but at least I would get to my family soon. Well, much to my surprise, hiding in the shadows was a C-17 with my name on it. The Nawlin’s agent said, “Well Jeff, it looks like you’re gonna get your wish.” It’s just like God to play a trick on you, like having that plane sitting down there out of site just to surprise you with such a small detail. I love you, My Jesus…you always amaze me!!!

I want to share more about the burden God seems to have birthed in me and Amanda for that matter, for Haiti and its people, but that will be the next post within the next few days. Stay tuned…. I hope you will be back….