Receiving the check from a friend of Dr. Tom Lee.
The Ohio State area team and the amount they
raised to buy a new vehicle.
Several weeks back we had a team here from the Columbus ,Ohio area mostly and Ohio State University. To date they had been our most culturally diverse team representing nationalities from the Philippines, China, Korea, Viet Nam and white America. One of the surgeons Dr. Tom Lee a Korean approached me about raising funds for a new vehicle. I was excited about this as one of the situations I have been dealing with at PH-H is the lack of road worthy transportation. The vehicles we have been using actually are from my GAP Ministry organization.
Whatever the reason raising funds for vehicles is not always easy for mission organizations, so I wasn't sure how successful Tom would be in this endeavor. To be effective missions need good vehicles and a wide variety to fill the different aspects of ministry work. With the high cost of fuel they need to be diesel and fuel efficient. With the rainy season approaching you need passenger vans to haul the teams the 60-90 miles to Pierre Payen or Borel, not open trucks. In the dry season they need to be air conditioned to keep out dust . To transport baggage, cargo and team supplies you need a cargo van or heavy duty truck. To go pick up building supplies for team projects you need a heavy duty dual wheel stake truck. To take teams into the mountains to visit and work at our churches you need 4X4 vehicles. There is no one vehicle that will serve all the needs of any mission especially one as large and diverse as PH-H.
Dr. Tom is a great promoter and fund raiser he raised an astounding $26,276.00 in one evenings event, that is amazing. One of my responsibilities is overseeing the management and maintenance of the PH-H vehicles which is evidently not easy by looking at the non running vehicles we now have. Yet I'm committed to enforcing strict policies overseeing vehicle use and maintenance because from my GAP ministry experience I know it can be done. We have several older vehicles that are worth repairing and we are in the process of doing that now. The money that Dr. Tom Lee raised is enough to buy one new vehicle by using our Franchise papers to avoid paying taxes.
Possibly after seeing how successful he was maybe someone else out there would like to pick up the challenge and surpass his one event record. It is my goal to purchase two new vehicles this year a 4x4 diesel 4 door pickup as well as a 15 passenger diesel mini van. My calculations show that we have by month end already had over 150 medical and work/ministry visitors for the first quarter. With medical teams going to a one week a month schedule starting in April we will easily see another 50-75 medical team visitors. We will be restarting our stm's short term missions visits in May which will probably add at least another 100-150 visitors over the last 7 months of 2010. Several of these teams will overlap and be 30 miles apart so it is easy to see the needs are not over stated when I ask for someone to step forward and help us with that second vehicle. Thanks Dr.Tom and all those who helped make this possible. It is a Haitian custom to also thank in advance when you ask someone to consider helping you, so thanks in advance for that person or persons who help us with securing that second vehicle. In God's love , Steve
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