January 28, 2011
Hi Everyone,
I’m writing from Haiti, and for all of you who are cold I can assure you that I’m not! Coming from 10 degree weather to 90 degree is pretty amazing. Today was blazing hot!
We’re getting ready to pour two of three footings for our medical clinic tomorrow. It’s great to have Steve Treson down here with me on this trip. He’s worked in construction in NYC, so he’s well acquainted with the stresses that the steel buildings we’re bringing down will put on these footings. They have to be really 
strong and built with precision. With his Indiana Jones hat on, Steve looks like he’s down here on an archaeological dig. Pictured left is him next to one of two cement mixers we’ve rented to speed up our project. You can see from the flat tire that it’s a little hard to get reliable equipment down here. Joseph had to rent a truck and drive about 30 miles round-trip to pick up this mixer and it’s twin. You can pray with us that they hold up until we finish pouring our clinic footings!
Every time I’m here in Haiti, I can see why God wants a medical clinic built first ~ before we see our other dreams for Aslan’s land in L’Acajou come true. Three days ago on our way home from our land, Joseph took a circuitous route that he normally doesn’t take. “Coincidentally” along the way, we passed by Diana, one of our Aslan kids from L’Acajou who Christy (a great lady from New Jersey) is sponsoring in school. Diana’s eyes were almost swollen shut with conjunctivitis. Her mom had taken her to a doctor, but the medicine he’d recommended hadn’t helped. I asked Joseph to explain to her mother that we’d take her to Dajabon (Dominican Republic) the next day.
With Joseph tied up helping ramrod our building project, I got elected to accompany Diana and her mom to the doctor. After a short-lived squabble at the border over whether or not we would be allowed to cross the bridge, the three of us took a motorcycle to an optometrist’s office. Well, actually we took a motorcycle to where he was supposed to be. Then we went across town to his new office where we waited for an hour for him to show up. Once he got there he quickly explained to me (in Spanish, of course) that she had conjunctivitis and we needed to go to Centro Medico (about 7 blocks away). After a long walk in the hot sun, we made our way to Centro Medico and waited for about 30 minutes for a doctor to arrive. She prescribed the correct medication, and we then walked the 10 blocks back to the border ~ stopping at a pharmacy along the way. I also picked up some water and cinnamon crisp crackers for Diana and her mom to give them a little boost of energy.
I am relatively sure that viral or bacterial conjunctivitis (pink eye) left untreated will eventually lead to blindness. Can you imagine living in a place where medical care is so abysmally bad that an easily treatable condition like this could permanently disable your child. Or even if the care was adequate, can you imagine not having the money to help your 
child? All in all, I spent a little less than $2,000.00 pesos to help Diana. That’s about $56.00 US dollars. As you look at these pictures and gaze into her eyes, I’m pretty sure you’ll agree it was worth it.
You cannot imagine how much our clinic will mean to the Haitian children and families we’ll be able to serve. If all goes on schedule, we’ll have the units on the ground by the end of February and open by early March. Please pray for each step to go smoothly. Every day so many children in Haiti die or are handicapped for life because of a lack of simple medical care or treatment. We cannot save them all, but we can save some. Without your continued giving, however, all these dreams cannot come true. Right now we think we have just barely enough to ship our clinic units to Haiti. At that point, all the emergency funding we received last year after the earthquake will be gone. Believe me, that’s a good thing! Unlike the behemoth organizations that still haven’t spent the millions given to them to help Haiti, Aslan is actually doing something.
What I’m trying to say is we can’t keep doing something unless you continue to partner with us in our efforts to make a difference in this country of such great need. You can easily designate a gift for Haiti through this blog or on our website. And remember when you give through Aslan, your gift won’t end up in some endless bureaucratic loop or telethon maze. It will go where you want it to go. It will be spent where you want it to be spent. And it will do the most good.
God’s blessings to you all,
Craig
