Clean, Close Water

We recently placed bio-sand water filters in twenty Haitian family's homes. These simple, inexpensive systems provide great tasting, safe, clean water and will continue to do so for 10 years with very little maintenance. You can tell by the smiles that they're really happy to have good water.

The last time I was in Haiti I ventured up to a little village where there was no water. There was no well and no nearby springs. Villagers had to walk several miles (each way) to get water out of a ground spring which, I have since learned, is contaminated. The only source of water is any rainwater they can catch off their tin roofs.

More than 90,000 people on La Gonave have no clean water to drink. The most common cause of death here is not TB or AIDS or even malaria. It's diarrhea... from bad water. Friends, this is just wrong.

We cannot stand idly by.

Call me crazy, but I think we can do something about this, with God's help. There are many levels of how we will address the problem (well-drilling, public filtration systems, in-home filters, etc.). This year we will do it for one village, next year... two.

History All Over the Place

My family had the awesome opportunity to take a private tour of the West Wing of the White House a few weeks ago. I remember standing in the doorway of the Oval Office and trying to imagine all the history that went on in the very spot I stood... the decisions, the dramas. I stood in front of priceless paintings and famous furniture, the Resolute Desk behind which nearly every president since Taft has agonized over weighty matters. I stood outside the door of the Situation Room and stuck my head in the Cabinet Room.

History all over the place.

Crocs for Haiti

A colleague of mine stopped by the house the other evening, along with his ten-year-old, Ellie. I had never met Ellie. They had in their hands two very large plastic bags full of Crocs.

Ellie's heart, it turns out, had been touched by the post-earthquake images of the kids in Haiti who had no shoes to wear, and she decided to do something about it. She went to her school principal and asked if she could make a all-school announcement. "Crocs for Haiti" was her project and she boldly asked her friends to help. Within a few days she had more Crocs than she could carry. Gotta love Ellie! Because of her perceptive eye and sensitive heart, about a hundred kids will have shoes to wear.

"When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them..." Mark 6:34a

... Reminds me of Ellie.

Test blog

Test blog
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Test blog

Test blog entry. Trying to configure my blackberry to allow me to blog from remote areas in Haiti.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Old Friends, New Friends

I attended the Midwest Haiti Partners Conference in Grand Rapids today and had the privilege of having Dr. Jean C. Alexandre stop by our booth. Dr. Alexandre is Haiti's former ambassador to the United Nations who also served as vice president of the UN General Assembly. These days Dr. Alexandre is a practicing OB/GYN physician. He is an extremely accomplished, smart and nice man.

He was excited to hear about Starfysh's focused and holistic approach to addressing poverty on the island of La Gonave.

I met a lot of other interesting folks today, too, including an old friend from a mission trip to Haiti back in 1998.

A Good Noogie

Right after the public launch of Starfysh (November 18th) one of my partners was deployed to Iraq for four months of overseeing the medical operations at the US base in Mosul. (This was his third deployment since 2001, one to Afghanistan, two to Iraq). He returns in a couple of weeks, so my schedule at the office should no longer own me. (Frank, I love you man, but I'm gonna give you a good noogie when I see you). Just kidding. He is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves. He is also a veteran of the Viet Nam war. The picture to the left is Frank standing in front of a bunch of valentines that Sue's Young Five's class sent him. That pic landed on the front page of our newspaper.

Needless to say, I've had to "mind the store" back home, and I've not been able to get to Haiti since launch. I had a brief (long weekend) visit planned, but we had a blizzard on the day I would have left. (The weather people were calling it "a storm of historic proportions." It indeed was historic... I've never not left my house for three days straight). I've also not blogged much. (I've heard about that plenty too. Even my wife has told me I needed to get on the ball and start writing again). I have been writing, just not blogging.

Starfysh is now a year young. There is much to share...