As for those two bags at home, one is filled with my personal belongings for the week away and the other bag is filled with items to be left behind for the locals we run across. This “other bag of stuff” is filled with deflated soccer balls, stuffed teddy bears, musical instruments and a variety of gum, candy, cookies plus more edible treats.
I am eager to invest time this evening and Saturday with family and then awake very early Sunday morning for my drive to IAH to join Ben Neikirk for the 7AM flight to Miami. There we will connect with our entire Convergint team of travelers for an afternoon flight towards Port au Prince, Haiti.
Saturday, April 28, 2012 – Today was spent with my youngest of two daughters and taking in one of my favorite past times...we went to a sanctioned NHRA event for exhilarating speed, noise and display of horsepower. We enjoyed the carnival food, fast cars and great father/daughter conversations.
Returning home to pack those last minute items, my daughter and I stopped for pizza thinking this would be my last great meal prior to arriving in Haiti. Returning home around 9PM, my best friend and girlfriend came over for a root beer float, a relaxing evening on the big comfy couch and a movie. In bed by 10:30PM, sleep was short as I had to awake at 4:30AM to shower and shave prior to placing my oversized bags into Sandi’s car for a chauffeured drive to the Houston Airport.
Sunday, April 29, 2012 – Awaking and gathering all items for this well planned journey, I phoned my dear mother in route to the airport and said goodbye for the week. Once at the airport, I said the same to Sandi. Checking in for the flight, I was quickly reminded of Ben’s upgrade of my seat into 1st class towards Miami. How cool is that? Gotta love the fact that Ben goes out of his way to live his life purpose and help many in his midst. Thanks Ben!
Once in Miami, we met our sponsors from Poured Out and began to learn of each day’s agenda. Per the itinerary that was voiced of our daily activities, we looked forward to the hard work and bonding we will accomplish as a team. I state that I am eager to meet the locals and also interested in getting to know a bit about them. I prayed that our short week will promote change in many hearts of those traveling plus allow for insight and growth in many ways.
Now some 30,000 feet in the air and soon touching down in Miami, I will be greeted by 30 other Convergint colleagues who will also be eager to continue our journey into Haiti. Many of us had read the stories, gleaned pictures, swapped stories and visited a variety of web sites learning all we could about this country we would soon be arriving. We all were quite prepared to confirm our emotions about this extremely poor and devastated country.
Arriving in Miami as planned, many of the Convergint colleagues I knew, yet there were a few I had met for the first time. Approximately 1/3 of us were a little hungry so us hungry folks went to locate what could be considered our last good meal for the week. Locating food and now armed with full bellies, we boarded the seemingly full 757, pushed off and were Haiti bound at 2:50PM EST. While in the air, the pilot advised that the flight would be 2 hours gate to gate and the weather in Haiti is forecasted for rain upon arrival. Gleaning the week’s forecast for Haiti prior to leaving Houston, I was surprised to see rain in nearly every day while we would be in country. The percentage of rain was 70%-90% each day. Not knowing if this meant a little rain each day or rain all day, our spirits were not minimized at all. Rain or shine, we are ready to tackle the 47 Bio Sand Filters plus larger water
filtration projects within local communities and the small school construction project we will tackle tomorrow.
While meeting/greeting the Poured Out team, I was impressed with this rather grass roots team that will be accompanying us on this mission. Many of the Poured Out folks had made one initial trip and decided to return as often as possible. Truly feeling as this trip will not only be fun, educational, and beneficial to us Convergint folks, we are pumped that we have been provided this opportunity to provide aide to many families we will be serving. Per the Poured Out sponsors, the itinerary was set many months ago with local leaders in each community. These local leaders are typically Directors in a local church community and the locations of our week’s work had been pre-selected due to a large number of factors.
When asking the Poured Out Sponsors of the typical group size, I was surprised to hear an answer of 12-15 people. Our 31 Convergint colleagues were applauded by our sponsors for being their largest group to date. Oh, I was also advised that should we get all 47 Bio Sand Filters installed this week, all previous records will be shattered.
Now that we were airborne, all passengers on Flight AA803 are of many walks of life. Although few looked missions minded, many looked business oriented and traveling for commerce purposes. I am curious to see how everyone disburses upon deplaning. Better sign off for the moment, as I need to get those Customs Forms completed and watch this in-flight movie. Quick question? I wonder if my bags are below? What about the bags of all others on our team?
Landing in Port au Prince was quite uneventful and
clearing customs took very little time. With 60+
bags belonging to all of us Convergint colleagues,
we managed to only have one bag as a no show.
Although this missing bag could have been a loss, it
was one of the extra bags packed with items to be
left behind and this bag was promised to be
delivered to us the very next day. So glad to have heard this so the locals would receive some goodies...
Loading all of us and our bags for the trip to Petit Guave, some of us rode inside of trucks, some in full size vans and most rode in the open beds of pickup trucks. While in route to Petit Guave from Port au Prince, the 37 mile drive took over three hours. Road conditions and people on the move make this short distance a very long drive. Driving through many smaller cities of villages was quite visual. We saw devastation and wide spread chaos everywhere. The devastation we saw does not begin to explain the hundreds of tent cities we passed. 
Seeing all styles of homes and buildings along this interesting road, I was shocked to see the low quality of home structures and overall living conditions. Piles of trash were everywhere (often littering the streets) and the large quantity of “tents” or structures comprised of tarp material were everywhere. So many people and many appeared to be jobless.
Our initial glimpse took us back emotionally, yet we
began to see that these people were beautiful in so
many ways. Most were well dressed and some were
in suits, dresses, etc. And most clothing worn by the
people were very white plus clean. At this point we
had not seen people who looked sick and we
assumed that there had to be many who were sick or injured but were being cared for by the families/communities inside of those thousands of tents we passed.
It is now 11:30PM local time and we arrived safely at the compound. We met a few families on the compound and they were friendly plus helpful. Once we scoped out the compound in the dark, we all set out to set up our beds with the required bed bug coverings for mattresses, nets for thwarting off mosquitoes and then set out for our 1st debrief as a group in the compound’s dining hall. Teams were assigned for the next day’s activities. At this 1st debrief we were formally introduced to the many Poured Out personnel who were local, as we had flown with the US based persons from Miami. These personnel pertained to Construction, Medical, Security, Translators, Team Leads, etc. All appear to have been very experienced and round out a qualified team.
Michael V. Reynold
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