PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Even as darkness fell, sticky heat smothered Port-au-Prince like an electric blanket turned all the way up. As I stepped from the cool sanctuary of the Land Cruiser, my glasses fogged up; so I took them off and slipped them into my shirt pocket.

Nancy and I walked into the camp past young men who were wearing Haitian Boy Scout uniforms and were serving as security guards. Dr. Joseline Marhone came out from under a tarp that was stretched like a flat roof over tables piled high with boxes of bandages and medicines.

I greeted my old friend, and kissed her on both shiny cheeks. The last time I had seen Joseline was in November under much happier circumstances. We were in the shady parking lot of the Montana Hotel, transferring 225,000 doses of anti-parasite medicine into her vehicle. She used those pills to kick off a nationwide anti-parasite program. That was a happy day under the trees at the Montana.

Now the trees are gone, the Montana is gone, and much of Haiti is only a memory, but my friend remains, still smiling and still strong. Kissing her cheeks, I tasted the salt in her perspiration and felt that I was in the presence of a hero.

Joseline invited us to sit with her in the cubbyhole behind the piles of supplies. I asked her to tell me about the quake and what had happened since. For the next hour, she told the stories—about how, in an instant of thunderous horror, her house crashed down around her; how she urged her terrified grandson to squirm through a narrow tunnel out of the rubble, and then waited for her own rescue more concerned with where her grandson was than with her own fate.

She pointed to the skirt she was wearing and said it was all that she was able to salvage from her earthly belongings. Then she told us about the camps, and how they are getting worse instead of better, and how she regularly serves 200 patients a day at her makeshift clinic.

The saddest story was about what women and young girls are experiencing in the camps. Far worse than hunger, thirst and disease is the sexual abuse. Hundreds of women and young girls have been attacked since the quake.

Joseline then showed us around the camp and asked me to take a water sample and test it for contaminants. She said that the last two times she drank camp water she got diarrhea. I filled a bottle and promised to return.

I asked Nancy to take a photo of Joseline and me. I wanted one to go with the happy photo from what seems like so long ago.

As long as I am breathing I will work with every fiber of my being to help Joseline and Nancy help the Haitian people.

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala – Because of the Mt. Pacaya eruption on May 27 and Tropical Storm Agatha’s landfall only a few days later, many people in Guatemala are struggling. According to the national disaster authority, CONRED, 152,488 people have been affected and 142,959 people displaced. In several villages, houses were seriously damaged and there is little access to channels of communication.

One village is still flooded, including 3 banana farms where hundreds of workers lived. The workers can’t return to their homes because the river completely covered their houses with mud. Many crops have been damaged, including corn, beans, cacao, banana, plantains and palms (to make oil). Most farmers lost at least half of their cattle. Two nearby schools were also destroyed. Even in areas that were not completely devastated, electricity is irregular and the water has been contaminated.

With the collapse of El Rico’s Bridge, 60% of the population has been left without access to clean water, food or medicine and health issues are becoming a serious concern. Four nearby health centers lost all of their medicine in the floods and people are in need of help.

There are 16 pregnant women in need living in 6 different shelters. Many men, women and children are having skin problems and becoming sick. A number of people suffering from diabetes lost their medications when they had to evacuate.

We are coordinating our efforts with local pastors and churches, such as Hope of Life, to distribute food donations. The health centers are also supplying these churches with medicine for distribution. We’re also coordinating with the mayor of La Estación. Yesterday, the OB team and volunteers were working in multiple shelters and in 2 disaster zones.

The first shelter is located at a Catholic church and is housing 100 people. During the day only the children and a few mothers are there because the men are still trying to save some of their belongings from flooded homes. We delivered food, medicine, and hygiene products.

Next we went to a second shelter where 118 families are staying at a school and in surrounding houses. Most of these families are from the 3 banana farms. The situation was similar with the men back in the disaster zones trying to clean their homes. Many of the children talked about their experiences and how they only had bananas to eat and unclean water to drink. We provided the shelter with food, shoes and hygiene items.

Our last visit was to a neighborhood called La Estación. These families didn’t go to a shelter, so their children were playing in the mud or sleeping in what was left of their houses. We visited several different houses, providing families with food, sheets and other aid.

OBI’s National Director for Guatemala, Mario Bucaro, shares the latest updates and relief efforts from the ground in Guatemala City.

The national disaster authority CONRED has reported that there are 21,465 people at risk; 29,245 in shelters; and 111,964 people have been evacuated. A state of emergency has been declared; the International airport is closed; main highways have been affected by landslides and rivers overflowing their banks; power outages are affecting many areas; and more than 15 main bridges have been destroyed.

In order to assure a one-month food supply for victims staying at shelters, we stocked an emergency warehouse with water, food rations, clothes and medicine, and are partnering with CONRED to distribute the supplies.

Today we were able to visit shelters in Chispan, Estanzuela and Teculutan, 3 places that have been affected by the overflow of the Motagua River, and where more than 2,000 people are living in shelters.

Our team is moving tomorrow to the OB Zacapa office in order to set up an emergency warehouse to reach the victims in the eastern region of Guatemala.

Day 3:
There was a second explosion from the Pacaya volcano yesterday afternoon, causing more fear among many of the people currently in shelters. The OB Guatemala team spent yesterday and today helping affected families. Our OB doctor has been examining them, including many children, to make sure they do not have any injuries. We are also providing them with nutritional shakes, partnering with local churches, and bringing in a truckload of clothes and shoes for distribution.

To make the situation more difficult, we have been having heavy rains. The government has confirmed that Tropical Storm Agatha has hit land. We are going to stay in the disaster zone and continue serving these displaced families.

Day 2:
The OB Guatemala teams have arrived at the disaster zone surrounding the Pacaya Volcano and have made a primary evaluation—the situation is very critical. This morning we went to the shelters to establish their needs. We found that the rivers and streams are polluted due to the massive amount of ash that fell on the ground.

Even though there are 8 shelters already established, they aren’t enough for the more than 100 displaced families. The shelters don’t have bathrooms or showers available. There aren’t very many organizations and volunteers in the disaster zone right now due to the warning of a second eruption.

We have already established a relief center at the National School near the volcano and are going to be providing water for this area. Water is very important for these families to survive, so we have coordinated efforts with our warehouse team and they are on their way to the shelter with 2,000 bottles of water. We are also working together with the army, national police and government organizations to obtain better results.

Day 1:
On the evening of May 27, Mt. Pacaya erupted, spewing forth a fountain of lava that reached a height of around 1 km, with an ash cloud reaching up to 4 km into the sky and began drifting northwest toward the capital.

At least 3 people were killed in the eruption. According to newspapers, at least 9 children were missing and more than 20 people injured. Thousands fled from their homes or were evacuated and many buildings were damaged.

The significant ash falling from the eruption caused traffic chaos in Guatemala City and closed the international airport. The intensity of the explosions declined later in the evening, but we are being warned that new violent phases could follow.

We are ready to assist the hundreds of homeless people living in the shelters that have been set up. Two OB Guatemala relief teams are en route to the disaster area to evaluate the most pressing needs.

QINGHAI, China – In the wake of the Qinghai Province earthquake, OB China launched an immediate relief response and began partnering with local churches to gather and distribute supplies to victims in the disaster area.

A truck with 10 tons of supplies was sent to Yushu on April 17. The supplies included tents, quilts, water, medicine and an electric generator. These items were sent to Jieguzhen (the center of the earthquake) and were distributed to victims with the help of the local Red Cross and volunteers.

Anny from the OB China team also traveled to that area and journaled about her experience:

“It started to snow early in the morning of April 21, in Xi’ning city.  When we arrived the snow stopped, but we could still feel the chilly wind.  The weather of the plateau changes so fast!

Operation Blessing China staff were concerned for victims in the disaster area and so we visited the victims in Xi’ning to help them with practical needs.

After we landed, we immediately went to the Women and Children Hospital of Qinghai Province, accompanied by several local volunteers. The volunteers helped us connect with this hospital, which had treated 107 children victims from Jieguzhen, the hardest-hit area.

Some children had been seriously injured and remained in the ICU. The injured children were accompanied by their parents or relatives, but some of the children lost their parents in the earthquake and they were being taken care of by volunteers.

Many volunteers from the university were in the wards and helped with Tibetan translation between the injured children, families and doctors. After speaking with some of the children’s parents, we learned that what was most needed was clothing and bedding.

OBI purchased and distributed blankets to 196 victims and clothing to 98 children in partnership with local churches and volunteers.

We then went to the Chinese Medical Hospital of Qinghai Province. The hospital had treated over 70 wounded. The needs of the wounded there have been met, but now the patients are concerned about starting a new life after going home.

Tomorrow we plan to go to the Red Cross Hospital and First People’s hospital and assess the needs of the wounded in those places. Our plan is to coordinate with volunteers of Xi’ning city to buy relief supplies and deliver them to those who have been injured.”

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – This tiny girl is Betty; she is about two years old. To my untrained eye, Betty seems alert and aware, but Loune, from Partners in Health, says she is “a bit slow.” Loune wheeled Betty over to meet me while I sat in a white plastic chair under a mango tree watching Eric and his team build a wooden cover over the dry swimming pool. Eventually we will use the pool for therapy and fun for the kids, but as we sort out more pressing issues, the pool presented a hazard and had to be covered.

Nobody knows where Betty came from or who her parents are. She turned up at the General Hospital about a year ago. Before the quake, there were 40 special needs children, many of them orphans, languishing in one large room at the general hospital in Port-au-Prince. They were, in effect, abandoned children who had been left in the charge of the hospital. Conditions were abysmal, but the children were being fed and cared for.

After the quake, Betty was evacuated, along with her 39 disabled buddies, to St. Damien Hospital. They stayed there until yesterday, when Loune and Nancy moved them to Zanmi Beni.

Zanmi Beni is the name for our newest project—a joint effort between Operation Blessing and Partners in Health (in Haiti, called Zanmi Lasante). It is a home and school for special needs orphans and abandoned children who have a range of physical and mental disabilities. Zanmi Beni, words in Haitian Creole, reflects DNA from both partners, and means “Blessed Friend” or “Blessed Partner.” I am thrilled to be working together with Dr. Farmer’s organization. It is, hands down, the finest and most effective NGO in Haiti.

Loune asked me to watch Betty for a few minutes and left her in her stroller facing the plastic chair I was seated in. I wanted to make friends with her, but since I don’t speak Creole, I limited my communication to tongue clicks, soft goofy noises and tickling the bottom of her tiny foot with the tip of my little finger. She seemed okay with all that until I started taking photos. She didn’t cry, but there were worry lines in her forehead and I sensed that she was about to protest, so I put the camera away. She resumed her curious stare, not quite smiling, but almost. Her beautiful eyes melted whatever hard shell I had left.

This morning, as I reflect on my new friend Betty and how precious and vulnerable she is, I am filled with an epiphany of responsibility. Since her father is nowhere to be found, I feel deeply compelled to stand in for him, and do all that I possibly can to protect her and her pals from all that is wrong with the world.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – This morning I joined a Haitian Pastor, Pastor Volner, on a helicopter flight to a remote community that we have been serving with food supplies. On the way we landed in a village called Pouille, home to a rural community of 1,800 people.

The pastor took us on a tour of a school he founded. The children were dressed in their red-and-white checkered uniform and looked amazingly neat considering the sparse environment outside the school walls.

This village is completely cut off by a snaking river, and the only way in is by air or boat. It was nice being in a place with no cars after several weeks of traffic in Port-au-Prince.

The Pastor showed me their primitive water system powered by an aging and difficult-to-run diesel pump. He also showed me an area he was hoping to turn into a vegetable farm for the school, but needed irrigation.

Our Pilot told me of a helicopter he could access to help us sling load one of our water purification systems in to Pouille. The solar pump could provide clean drinking water for the school of 300 students and feed a drip irrigation system for the vegetable farm. We’re working to make that happen.

We took off and climbed over some high mountains. Martin, our pilot with Samaritan Air, used patches of exposed white rock to generate lift as the morning sun heated up the air. After a short flight, we landed in a field in the village of Savanette.

Pastor Volner told me that the 2,500 villagers live from day to day on the crops they can grow. If the crops fail, they sometimes eat sugar cane all day long as their only meal. Before the quake, they would try to supplement their diets with food bought from Port-au-Prince, but that supply chain had ceased since the quake.

The pastor had collected a large kit form the OB warehouse the day before and had trucked it for 5 hours overnight to reach the village. We walked to the center of the village where the distribution was taking place.

A huge crowd was bustling to get a place in the distribution line. Today we were distributing MRE’s, rice and baby food and the distributions went on longer than we could stay.

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It was great to see how far reaching our partner network is. From our warehouse in Port-au-Prince, food is getting out to places of need in many parts of the country. On the way back to the city, Martin flew us over Lake Azuei where I was able to get some aerial photographs of our fish cages and our adopted village, Medan Belize.

We then followed the road back into the city and hovered over the fish farm where OBI will be helping to produce millions of tilapia, creating thousands of jobs.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – My day started with a distribution in downtown Port-au-Prince with The Salvation Army. OBI teamed up with them to hand out our collapsable water kits to 2,000 families. The Salvation Army has been working with a specific camp and do distributions twice a week, usually handing out food.

At today’s distribution the recipients snaked in a long line next to a drainage canal and the UN provided crowd control. One by one they filed through and first collected the OB water kits, then a box of high nutrition food from The Salvation Army. The water kits will help them collect and store clean water.

The next stop was the General Hospital on an assessment to see if we could place the Proctor & Gamble “Tide Loads of Hope” mobile laundry trailer.

I had visited the laundry facility at the hospital a few months back and only 2 washing machines were working. Now none are working and all laundry for the 700-bed hospital has to be done by hand.

The offer of the laundry trailer was of course a big hit and we will hopefully be able to proceed with that program and make it happen. While at the hospital I had a chance to check out the latest water system that Eric installed yesterday, right outside the pediatrics center.

The system was running great and lots of patients, staff and family have already been able to benefit from it. On the way to warehouse 1 we stopped into Dadadou to check on the school and the water unit, both of which were running great. The kids have started decorating the big tent with colorings and paper decorations.

Around lunch time, the first 6 of our medical containers arrived into Port-au-Prince, so it was all systems go getting them unloaded into warehouse 2. At 3 p.m. I had a meeting with the World Food Program and outlined our distribution network. We have been earmarked 20 tons of MREs for our distributions and I’m hoping to finalize the deal tomorrow.

By around 4 p.m. Larry Foltz had managed to unload all 6 40-foot containers into the warehouse–quite a feat! We locked the metal doors and our armed security guard started his patrol.

We will have armed guards on the door 24/7. Tati and our local staff will be back at the Dominican Republic border tomorrow morning to escort the next 6 containers to Port-au-Prince, and we should have all 12 in the nest by tomorrow afternoon.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – On January 12, I was in Jerusalem getting ready to fly to London that night and then on to Niger, West Africa.

I was due to spend a week working with the Niger team on various projects including an exciting new project using micro projector technology. The plan is to begin using videos to train people in remote areas in proper health and hygiene methods. This new battery powered projector that hooks up to an iPod has just opened the door to make that possible.

I had my tiny projector, my iPod and the portable sound system all packed and ready to go and then I received the message—earthquake in Haiti! I flew to London as planned, but then to Miami, Atlanta, Santo Domingo and (48 hours later) Port-au-Prince. The next weeks were spent running flat out on emergency relief projects; I didn’t have time to even spare a thought to my cancelled Niger trip.

At the height of the relief efforts in Haiti we planned to do a distribution in a remote village. On the day of the distribution I just happened to notice the portable PA system in my bag and put it in the truck just in case. It turned out to be a huge winner.

The local pastor doing crowd control was able to make announcements to the 2,000 people scrambling for the distribution. He was able to call each family by name to step forward for their relief kit. The PA system has been very useful in that same scenario several times during the relief efforts here.

Fast forward a few more weeks and Operation Blessing erected a huge tent in a camp of 3,000 people in Port-au-Prince. The tent is now a school building for hundreds of children who are back in class thanks to teachers that OBI is helping to support. OBI also coordinated with the US Navy SeaBees to build desks and benches for the kids.

We are even serving peanut butter sandwiches to around 450 students each day. The woman coordinating the school is a Haitian-American named Jounie. She has become good friends with the OBI staff, and we are constantly offering additional ways to support the camp. I knew this was the perfect opportunity to test drive the micro projector system, so I offered to set up a movie night for the kids in the camp. Jounie loved the idea, so we set about coordinating the best day and time to do it.

The weather forecast for last night looked good—no rain—so Jounie and I decided that it was time for movie night. She started sending the message out around the camp, and I realized I had better find a movie to show the kids!

My options were limited. I sifted through Eric’s (our national director) DVD collection and found a classic animation that the kids would love, and it even had a French language track. A little while later I had the movie formatted to my iPod.

Once it grew dark, a few from the OBI team headed over to the camp. When we arrived, we were greeted by an almighty roar and ear piercing screams, the kids were super excited. I set up the projector, plugged in my iPod and hooked up the sound system. The children filed into the tent and sat cross legged on tarps, boys on the right and girls on the left.

There was so much atmosphere, the kids were buzzing with anticipation and there was me, nervous to see if my system would last throughout the whole movie. I hoped the batteries were fully charged. I pressed play and the movie started and lit up the end of the tent. Immediately, there was silence; the kids were transfixed. Then, all of a sudden, one of the characters did something amusing and the whole tent erupted in laughter. And that was how it went for the next 90 minutes—silence then laughter, side-splitting laughter.

I stood outside the tent looking in. There were around 200 children packed in like sardines. It was hot in there, but they didn’t care. The children forgot about their tough circumstances and were having a blast. It was incredible for me to stand back and watch this huge tent bellow with joy thanks to a tiny LED projector and my iPod.

Jounie took movie night to the next level and handed out cups of popcorn to the kids. When the movie ended, the children applauded and cheered. The batteries lasted and probably could have kept going for another film. My first trial of the projector kit was a success. Jounie got on the microphone and asked the children if they wanted to do movie night again next week, no prizes for guessing what they said…

I have requested some CBN animations in French and a technician is already in the process of uploading a few films already formatted for my iPod. The kids will love it.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Operation Blessing’s relief operations in Haiti have become so huge that we have needed to rent a second warehouse. Now our original warehouse (warehouse 1) will be exclusively for food, water and hygiene supplies. Warehouse 2 will become a distribution hub for medicine and medical supplies.

At any given time at warehouse 1, our team of Haitian workers are tirelessly unloading shipping containers, preparing relief kits or loading the variety of smaller trucks and pickups our partners bring to collect supplies.

We have 17 approved partners in our network consisting of churches, local non-governmental organizations, and orphanages. Each group makes a pick-up appointment with the warehouse manager and arrives to collect pre-assembled kits. Each large palletized kit contains a variety of food such as rice, beans, oil, oats, peanut butter, and meals-ready-to-eat and can feed 250 people for one week.

Our partners are responsible for distribution to the camps or communities they serve. OBI team members have vetted the partners to ensure that the food is getting into the hands of those with the greatest need. Each partner also has access to hygiene supplies as needed and bottled water too.

It has been almost two months since the quake and food supplies in Port-au-Prince are beginning to become available. Markets are open and food is available to purchase. The big problem now is that so many people are out of work and they cannot afford to feed their families. Our relief supplies are targeting those families who have lost everything or, as in the case of orphans, had little to start with.

For many already struggling orphanages the increased price of food has made survival even more difficult for the children. Through our distribution network Operation Blessing is providing food to around 4,500 people on a weekly basis.

As news spreads about the Operation Blessing network, we have been receiving more and more requests each day from all sorts of groups hoping to access our supplies. A steady stream of brown manilla envelopes arrives in my hands each day—each one containing a letter from a group claiming to be an orphanage or a ministry in need of help.

It’s hard to know how many requests are scams and how many really do need assistance; it’s common knowledge among the NGO community here that there are groups posing as churches or orphanages which are really nothing more than a scam to tap into free supplies. The truth is that OBI can hardly take on any more partners, we’re already working at full capacity. So vetting the new applicants is not actually a problem as there are simply no more slots for additional partners.

But no matter how over-stretched we are however, there are some exceptions. Today I happened to be at our warehouse when a Haitian man came to the gate asking to see me. He reminded me that this was the second time he had asked for help, so I sat down with him to hear him out.

He told me that he and his wife run an orphanage for 57 children and were in urgent need of food for the children. There was something about his expression and the urgency in his voice that made me realize he was the real deal. I asked him where the orphanage was and if he would be like me to visit. He smiled and said he would be very happy if I would. So I asked our warehouse manager, Larry, to load up his SUV with some food supplies. We crammed it to the brim with rice, boxes of high nutrition individual meals, and water and set off into the tedious Port-au-Prince traffic.

Ten miles and 45 minutes later we bounced down a pothole-filled back road and through the metal gates of the orphanage. As is usually the case at orphanages, the children were very excited to see a visitor and I was immediately serving up high fives and belly pokes to the amusement of the beautiful little kids surrounding me.

The building itself had not been destroyed in the quake, but the entire group have been living outside under a big blue tarp ever since, too afraid to sleep inside. In one corner, near the collapsed perimeter wall, there is a fenced in area that looked like a chicken coup. I asked the director what it was for. “We had chickens, but some were killed by the wall, the others were eaten by some dogs,” he said.

Some of the boys were rustled up to help unload the SUV and the director shouted out a few names to the group. Four little boys stepped forward; they looked concerned and confused. “These four are new to the orphanage since the earthquake,” the director said as he did his best to tidy them up. I did my best to make them smile, but the offer of a high five and a friendly belly poke was not enough to help them see past their pain. I can’t imagine what those 4 boys have gone through. None of them smiled the whole time I was there.

The director took me inside to show me the house. The unfinished building was very sparse, it had very little color and hardly any furniture or toys. He called me into a small room and said it was the pantry. He reached down to the bottom shelf of an empty cupboard and pulled out three almost empty sacks of grain. “You see why we needed help,” he said as he reached into one of the sacks and pinched out a few kernels of dry corn.

It really shocked me, not to see how little they had, but to think that I was so close to telling him we had no more slots available at our warehouse. And we really don’t have any more slots available, but I told him that from now on he must come and collect food from OBI—we will find a way to make up the difference.

One of the hardest parts of this job is having to say, “Sorry, but no.” The truth is that right now in Haiti there is more need than all the aid agencies combined can meet and if OBI distributed to every group that asked for help, we would dilute our impact and never really help anyone. It’s vital to maintain a focus, and right now our supply chain is capable of serving and really making a difference to the lives of the 4,500 we are reaching with food.

TALCAHUANO, Chile – Talcahuano was hurt badly by the tsunami that hit Chile’s coast. The naval port was completely swept away and the water system collapsed. Those who lost their homes are being housed in schools and the Chilean government is helping to take care of their needs as well as providing water in the city.

But all the supermarkets are closed. Curfew is enforced from 6 p.m. to 12 p.m.; movements are restricted. Sometimes it looks like a ghost town here. Most of the people whose houses were flooded have left the city to live with their extended families. But embedded in the communities are pockets of very poor families who remain unnoticed and have nowhere else to go.

We met one of those families whose home had been destroyed. When the tsunami hit, they had escaped to a nearby hill for safety. But everything in their house was floating in water.

When they returned two days later, they found their house filled with mud. Everything was destroyed. There was no room to sleep, there was no food, and it was miserable.

They all began working together to remove the mud. The wooden floor was rotting, so they removed it. The beds and furniture had to be thrown away. All that remained were cooking pots and pans. Knowing their condition, their church provided some clothes and food, but when we met them they had nothing. Their neighbors have not returned; they have moved to other cities to live with family. But these children have no other place to go.

When a local pastor and I arrived to their home, the mother was in tears. She had no words to express her loss. The house was a mess and had a strong odor. These children and four adults were cramped in one home. There were no smiles, no hope, and no food for the day.

We brought in packages of food, which would last them for two weeks. The mother gave me a hug and said, “May God bless you.” Finally, they were able to smile and some hope returned. For the next hour the pastor and members of the church spent time encouraging the family. And the children were even smiling as I took their pictures.

In all, 250 needy families received food packages consisting of rice, flour, sugar, oil, milk powder, and pasta. Five churches with volunteers visited the homes, gave them food and encouraged the families. For these families, it was hope and help they so desperately needed.