Welcome to Edge Outreach’s story blog. So many people support us with prayer and financial aid but never hear the wonderful stories of our work. In he past we’ve been so busy doing our work that we haven’t taken the time to tell the stories.

Recent events in Haiti and miraculous responses to it have convinced us that we need to be telling our stories. This is where you will find them.

In July of 1999, Kelly Fleury was in Haiti attending the funeral of his brother, Dezman, who had worked for a rental care agency and had a passion for helping poor children in and around Leogane. At the funeral Kelly met a poor widow who was weeping because Dezman was the only person who had helped her and her children survive. Inspired by his brother, Kelly formed the Dezman Fleury Foundation that year. They began by building an orphanage. Slowly raising additional funds, they built a clinic and pharmacy, a school, and a bakery. The bakery was used as a business to teach a trade to the girls from the orphanage and to provide funds.

Pictures from their website taken before the earthquake tell the story. The facilities were modest by some standards, but the children were clean and well cared for. The orphanage, school, bakery, and clinic are like many social service ministries in Haiti. They are mostly run by small groups who do the best they can without a lot of resources. What you notice in the pre-earthquake photos is how clean everything was. You also notice the faces of the children. They looked happy.

The earthquake on January 12th decimated the Fleury Foundation buildings, as it did so many others. As usual, the poorest of the poor were the hardest hit.

By January 15th, Edge had 3 teams planned to go to Haiti. We began carefully planning where to locate them and the water treatment centers we were going to build. We had no idea of the existence of the Dezman Fleury orphans.

When you go to a place like Haiti to do relief work, you have to have some boundaries or the sheer size of the disaster will overwhelm you. For the sake of sanity and reality, you have to know your mission and keep your eye on the ball. And yet, for the sake of Christ, you have to be flexible enough to respond to the serendipitous opportunities that present themselves. Somehow you have to stick to the mission and respond to the moment. I don’t know how people find that delicate balance between mission and opportunity, but the place where well-laid plans meet the Holy Spirit seems to be where most of the miracles are found.

There are hundreds of ongoing relief efforts in Haiti. Buried within those larger missions are thousands of small stories where human beings connect and bring compassion into a terrible situation.

This is one of those stories.

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On February 16th, Mike Jones and other members of Edge’s relief team 3 were attending a meeting at the United Nations building near Leogone to discuss water needs with representatives from the U.N., UNICEF, and some other organizations. Through an interpreter, Mike found out that some people from an orphanage were living in a bakery next door to the U.N. Building and were without clean water.

The next day Mike went to investigate along with Bob Doligale and Stewart Haag. They discovered the children and staff from the Dezman Fleury Orphanage living around their decimated bakery. Their orphanage, clinic, and school were totally destroyed in the quake. The bakery had a caved-in roof, but at least it was near the U.N. building, so the children were safer there than out in open fields. They were living in tents and lean-to shelters. Twice a week, when a truck delivered water to the U.N., leftovers were given to the orphans. It was their only supply of water.

When Mike and the Edge team arrived, the Dezman Fleury Foundation staff was trying to repair an aging, hand-dug well. They had capped the well with concrete and were trying to put a hand pump on it. Unfortunately, a goat had fallen into the well and died before they could cap it. They had gotten the goat out of the well, but the water was obviously foul. To make matters worse, the mechanics of the pump, which are more complicated than most people know, were causing great difficulty. This was not a planned mission objective for the Edge team, but clearly they could not leave these people in need. The men on the team were familiar with the kind of pump system being used, so they went right to work. In short order they had the pump working. But the water was filthy. Mike and the others promised to come back the next day with purifying equipment. They gave the children and staff water enough to get them through the night and instructed them to use the well to fill an old tank that they had.

The kids worked all day and into the evening. By the next day they had filled a large tank by hand, one bucket at a time. The Edge team returned the following day and brought one of our chlorine gas purifiers and a filtering system. It took about 3 days to train them to use the system. When the Edge team left, the Dezman Fleury staff were able to use the system to provide themselves with clean, safe water.

The Dezmond Fleury Foundation staff and children are obviously still facing immense challenges. They will need to rebuild their orphanage and school. They are trying to put their lives back together. People can survive for periods of time with little food and temporary shelter. But clean water is an absolute necessity. As of February 20th, the orphans living in the ruins of the bakery do not have to worry about that.

Note: I wrote to Kelly Fleury, who confirmed that the Dezman Fleury orphans are still living around their ruined bakery, but that the clean water system is still working. They are safe for now.

It took us more than 10 years to build and all gone within less than a minute. It is hard to even think about it. Our desire is to rebuild. We need to collect money to start rebuilding. Please raise the awareness for us among friends and fanily members. I am confident that they will let their heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.

Indeed, they are still living by the bakery. Pray for funds so we may start building. The rainy season is around the corner.

Many blessings:

Kelly

If you are interested in helping the Dezman Fleury Foundation in their rebuilding efforts, visit their website.

Edge is currently funding ongoing operations in Haiti. Each water sanitizing unit and filtration system costs Edge about $2700. Your gifts might provide enough to allow us to bring extra purification units with us. Having margins and planning for unexpected blessings is our way of inviting the Holy Spirit to travel with us to Haiti.

Gordon Atkinson for Edge Outreach

Mark Hogg was in Haiti last week visiting the sites where Edge Water Relief teams have been working. Caleb Thomas and Stewart Haag, both relief team members, were with him. Mark has seen the great work done by our volunteer teams and met with our Haitian water partners and water specialists we’ve trained to continue the work.

"I’m meeting incredible people who are doing all they can to respond to a horrific situation. We all want to hope for the situation to become somehow manageable, but truthfully it’s hard to imagine. What can you do when you have neither the resources to tear down what’s left or build anything to replace it? Fear is high about more aftershocks and there have been three since I’ve been here. Tent communities are the new suburbia and this is the way it may be for a long time. Doing my best to encourage them, but the feeling of hopelessness is high."

Mark returned to Louisville on Sunday, February 28th.

March 6, next Saturday – "I Thirst" Gala at The Henry Clay!

The deadline to buy a ticket is Wednesday March 3. Click here to buy tickets.

This is the third year for our "I Thirst" Gala, and it’s become a major fundraising event for EDGE OUTREACH. It’ll be very special this year because we’re celebrating the tremendous support of the Louisville community which empowered EDGE to make a life saving difference in Haiti immediately after the earthquake. Hear the the stories, meet the volunteers who went to Haiti, and see the water technologies they used. It’s a fun and inspiring time for people who want to know more about EDGE. And for those who do, it’s a great occasion to enjoy being a part of the EDGE family. Don’t miss it!

Bob Browning, Kurtis Daniels, and Claudia Daniels were at Journey of Faith Church in Manhattan Beach, CA leading this water training conference. 51 highly motivated people registered for the training. Kurtis said it was the best training he’s ever had with a “group of total rookies.” The participants trained hard for a solid two days on the water purifier and health and hygiene. The church has ask EDGE to plan a water trip to Costa Rica for June 2010 and 24 people signed up during this training for the trip. Fantastic!

The Dezman Fleury Foundation is run by Kelly Fleury, a native of Haiti. Their mission is to care for forgotten children in and around Leogane, Haiti.

The Dezman Fleury Foundations mission is to enhance the lives of Haiti’s forgotten children and their families… The foundation pledges to care and protect abused and neglected children…  The foundation strives to provide a loving environment and basic education to all its children.

The pictures on the foundation website tell the story. Their facilities were certainly humble, but clean and well-tended. There was an orphanage, a school, a clinic, and a bakery, where kids from the orphanage could learn a trade and be prepared for life.

The earthquake destroyed all of this. The children were struggling to find shelter and without water. Edge Outreach had not planned on working with the orphanage. We didn’t even know it existed. Our team happened upon them. We couldn’t build them a new facility or erase the terrible damage. But we were able to work with their plumbing and get water to them.

The following is an email from Kelly Fleury:

Dear Mark,
Just a note to thank you for your help today. Your guys came and helped us to have purified water. Here at the orphanage, we have many issues that we are dealing with but good water is not one of them any more. Once again, I thank God for you. You make the children did their happy dance. Not only they installed the system, they assisted us in placing the handpump. We could not be happier. Please visit our website at:www.fleuryfoundation.org. If God puts in your heart to continue helping us, please don’t hesitate.
Blessings:
Kelly

Gordon Atkinson for Edge Outreach

Helicopter pilot Tom Eifler and dentist Patrick Keesee wanted to help in Haiti. The answer seemed simple enough. Why not fly down there together, let Patrick setup a dental clinic, while Tom flies supplies around for people providing aid and assistance?

So that’s what they did.

Patrick is staying in an orphanage, where he has setup a dental clinic. Tom’s primary mission is to help Edge Outreach in their various projects. With transportation in Haiti being difficult at best, you can imagine how wonderful it is to have a helicopter available!

If you are interested in Patrick and Tom’s story, check out their blog, which is updated frequently with lots of photos and videos of their work.

Louisville for Haiti Blog

Gordon Atkinson for Edge Outreach

Here are some wonderful photos from our time in Haiti.

View Full Album

Gordon Atkinson for Edge Outreach

Team two is safely back home, along with teams one and three. Our fourth team is on the ground in Haiti working right now. We thought you might like to see some photos from team two’s time in Haiti.

Gordon Atkinson for Edge Outreach

The problem in Haiti is so huge, so intimidating, and so beyond comprehension, that it would be easy just to give up. That’s a typical human reaction to an overwhelming problem. If the solution seems impossible, sometimes we do nothing at all.

Not Keegan and Avery, two little girls from Indiana. They are showing us that when a large problem hits the human family (and don’t we all want to think of people around the globe as being a kind of large family?), what’s needed is many small hands doing whatever they can. Because many small acts of kindness can add up to a solution in the end.

Keegan and Avery didn’t waste any time. They started taking orders for Valentine’s cookies. They said they were giving the money to Edge to bring water to people in Haiti. When all was said and done, they raised $6400 to help us do our work in Haiti.

Way to go girls!

Gordon Atkinson for Edge Outreach

Logistical concerns are always a big part of any large-scale operation. But logistical stories rarely make the news. The details of exactly how an organization like Edge gets equipment and personnel into Haiti are handled, for the most part, behind the scenes.

But we have found that some of the most interesting miracles happen behind the scenes. Logistical miracles, we might call them.

Such is the case with the Pelican cases. We discovered quickly that we needed a lot of cases to pack equipment in. Cases that would withstand rough transportation.

Listen to Kurtis Daniels tell the story of the Pelican Cases.