Bill - Thursday, March 18

Got up early, after very humid night and rain that came 3 times last night. The group from Georgia was going to distribute some cold water (in the plastic pouches) at the homeless camp side. We decided that it is God calling us to be part of this venture and touch few people today. Off we went to search for Army escort and pick up water pouches directly from water bottler. First task turned out to be somewhat difficult, all army check points wanted to help, but they could not make the decision or could not leave a post. Went to several places, finally Eric who works for the State Department was able to get someone with authority. Sergeant/Major committed 40 to 50 troops to keep water distribution orderly. Went over by the bottling plant (or should I say a pouch filling plant) to purchase the water. Plant employs 175 employees at that location and another 200 employees in another location. At this time business is very slow due to all the foreign aid coming in and water is being distributed for free. We purchased 800 bags which equates to 43000 water pouches. So we drove in a convoy through town, Impact for Jesus guys with the 5 missionaries from Georgia on the back of a pickup truck, a refrigerated truck, and 4 buses of US Army troops. Went over to the Palace with a tent city is right across. Two lines were formed and we handed out ice cold water (it was 90 degrees plus today). Us troops enjoyed to be part of this process, handing out water and keeping everything orderly. Few people that spoke English, told us that they needed food, not water, we had no food. At this stop we’ve gave out 2 pouches per person. Next, we drove through narrow streets of the city to our next stop. Some streets, the devastation is totally incredible. Neighborhoods gone, collapsed. Some neighborhoods not as bad. In my opinion the downtown area was hit the hardest (tallest buildings in the city). Found the people supper friendly, all smiling and waving. Kids, as anyplace else in the world, always looking for a hand out, but smiling. There are a lot of people on the streets; it does not seem that anyone is inside any buildings. Once at the second camp, located close to American Embassy, however we lost out our military escort. We enlisted help from the camp “leader”. At this camp, everyone received a full bag of ice cold single serve water pouches (60 to a bag). Great feeling to make a difference in people’s life, even if it is only for few minutes. We’ve stopped at another camp by the airport, enlisted camp committee to help make a line, but their leadership was not as strong. Shoving and pushing, crowd started to be unruly, closed the truck and moved on since we did not want to get out of hand (without any military support). Returned back to bottling plant, unloaded almost 500 bags back in to refrigerated storage for future use (we are thinking about doing this next week at Marie’s sister church next week). There is some rebuilding activity in parts of the city, but when comparing with a need, it’s not much. Local government wants to get people out of downtown area, so not much aid is visible. But when you go on the outskirts of town, not much aid is visible as well. Came back to Marie’s quite exhausted, with Marie waiting for us with dinner.
Learning for the day: be ready for God to take you on unexpected journey, just let him lead you.
Do not try to impose your American thinking on local people, their culture and life is so much different from ours.
Learn from the people over here, they are so resilient and full of life (they are amazing).
Be ready for tomorrow, God might have a surprise for you.