Aug 26-Sept 2

Summitted by Rev Bubba Smith

Our recent trip to Pignon went without a hitch, which for my team
is a rare thing. For the first time I led a team
of 15 consisting of 3 ministers, two college students,
a high school senior, a retired math teacher, a nurse, a
wholesale plant nursery owner, two Air Force folks
(one of whom was along to write up an article for the
US Air Force Reserve Magazine, "Citizen Airman",
publication in about 3 months) a mail carrier, two
other retied folks and a hospital social worker.

We accomplished much in terms of hospital repair and
maintenance. We built and repaired door and window screens,
took in 8 new mattresses for the children's nursery,
worked on a number of plumbing projects, painted and painted
and painted the doctors dorm/area, built
several bathroom cabinets, cleaned and disinfected the
cribs in the nursery, replaced all the ceramic water
filters that were located throughout the
hospital and doctor's dorm areas. If my calculation
is correct our team put in around 600 hours of combined volunteer work.

I encourage future teams to take with them filters
and replace them as needed. These filters are the
Doulton DS-1000 Sterasyl Ceramic Filter Candles and
the Doulton UltraCarb Ceramic Filter Candles,
part number W9123053. I have long encouraged this
to ensure safe drinking water for the hospital staff at the
hospital and in the residences. These
are reliable and affordable. The filter component
has already been installed and all future teams need
to do is to replace the "candle" items.
Please I urge other teams to do this, as I am only down
there once a year.

Kudos to Jared ! ! ! ! Jared is an answer to prayer.
Can't say enough about his help and his patience with
our projects. I agree with Dr. Guy, that all projects
need to be coordinated through Jared and through Larry
Madole. Jared is our boots on the ground and our
eyes on the target when it comes to the accurate assessment
of what projects are the most urgent.

Kudos to the other hospital staff. They were, as always, extremely
accommodating and hospitable.

One of the highlights was a fish fry! Yep, you heard it
correctly. Prior to our trip with MDI, I made arrangements
for them to purchase for us two
cases of frozen catfish, French fries, and hushpuppy mix.
I knew this would please Dr. Guy, which it did.

Early one morning seven of us took a trip to
Dondon to visit a Methodist Church/School.
I had been in touch with the leader of this
church and had heard about their need for a water well.
We were able to do an assessment of the project,
obtain a bid from Haiti Outreach, and are now in the process
of securing funds for the well.

Having made a prior trip to Haiti in May to work in
the earthquake relief efforts, I chose to bring my
team through Port au Prince on our way back
home. This side trip allowed them to experience
the devastation and livingconditions first hand.
We flew into PAP on MAF, were met at the airport by
the staff of the Methodist Guest House, and spent
the night there at the Methodist Guest House.
They then took us to the airport the next morning
for our departure.

Bubba Smith