This morning, we sent our first load of fuel to the DR at 1:20AM.  I “slept” in a little cot, in a little room with six other men, wheels constantly spinning, and shivering without my Jen there to keep me warm.  I knew this would be crazy, but it isn’t near as crazy as what is going on in Port.

So, we then departed at 7:30AM for the Dominican border.  It took about an hour to get through all of the paperwork, but everyone promised to be very helpful upon the return trip.  That was nice to hear, anyways. but the problem was going to be availability of funds. The guys with me had access to lots of money, but were told that they could not use them for the relief effort in Port-au-Prince.  One of my supporting churches was direct depositing money to my account, but it hadn’t cleared yet.  It was clear that we weren’t going to be able to make a quick turn-around to load another bus, as the funds just weren’t available.

We ran into a couple snags in Dajabon, anyways.  My telephone took about an hour to reactivate. The guys ran into problems at the gas station, too, where they said we shorted them $70 yesterday, so the guys gave them $70.  Then, they said we shorted them an additional $214.  Hmmm… sounds like something fishy.  Anyways, we got ahold of Vic and Eladio, and they were able to negotiate with them to wait until Monday to discuss this situation and let us do what we had to do today.  However, our efforts were further slowed.

Therefore, we went straight to Santiago.  Once there, Vic and Eladio met with us and helped me by both giving me funds that were wired for the relief effort and bringing 110 nine-gallon tanks.  As Eladio was able to find a vendor of these tanks, we were able to talk to him and find out that he has 1500+ tanks available.  I am lining up 220 more tanks for Thursday afternoon, but have to find a place to ship them to by the end of the day tomorrow.  If you know of any Dominican ministries in the Santiago area that could help serve as a staging ground, please let me know. We also found out that the two trucks that have been vital to the first two fuel shipments are not going to be available to us anymore.  God will provide.  Please pray.

Tonight, we met and figured out the logistics for tomorrow.  Basically, everyone is leaving me with fuel and medical supplies, and I’m going to be here lining up the next shipments.  The money is in the bank, so I will get it in the morning, and right away put money into my teams’ hands to buy fuel and to pay for the shipment to go to Port-au-Prince with two armed guards.  We need to increase volume.  Money is pouring in, so that will help.  It’s just getting the money that slows us down (MLK day, a Dominican holiday on Thursday, etc).  If we get a place to serve as a depot, the trucks we need to get the fuel to Fort Liberty, and the containers starting to come back to us so we can refill them instead of purchasing them each time, we will be all set.  We’re still waiting to hear from Samaritan’s purse as to a final decision for whether or not they will help in this operation by sending personnel.

Basically, we’re doing something good.  Chris from the Baptist Haiti Mission just wrote me an e-mail, saying, “This is the life blood of a lot of relief efforts.  We will be looking forward to the next shipments.”  We will do all we can to keep them going.  Our friend Nick is helping, too, leaving a good word for us with the border officials so that they won’t slow us down.  He’s with USAID and is fluent in both Spanish and Creole, so his words mean a lot to them.  They want to help, anyways, so it’s just a matter of having the personnel, the transportation, and the stockpile location on the DR side.

Please tell individuals you know with ministries in the Santiago area or between Santiago and the border that we need a command center where our stockpile will be safe.  We really want partnership with a Dominican ministry that we can trust for this.