Craig Family Lands in Haiti

After two weeks of fruitlessly searching for seats on commercial flights, small missionary planes and even cruise ships, Peter and Sara Craig finally landed seats on a private personal jet and touched down safely in Haiti on Saturday.

Peter Craig and his son Abram pose during their flight to Haiti on Saturday on a private jet owned by the founder of The Wheelchair Foundation. “We might have been the only people flying into Haiti this weekend on a leather couch,” Peter wrote on the family’s blog.

The W.F. West graduates and their two young sons have now begun what they believe will be a years-long effort to bring safe, clean drinking water to the people of this ravaged country through a Christian group called Clean Water for Haiti.

“Our first job here will be learning Creole,” Peter Craig told The Chronicle by e-mail on Sunday. “Beyond that, we’ll be helping with projects and work around the base when we can and learning more about all of the things Clean Water for Haiti does.”

The Craigs were on their way to Florida for a connecting flight to the island nation when the Jan. 12 earthquake hit. They flew back to Portland and have been vainly looking for transportation ever since.

They found success on a plane connected with a charity called The Wheelchair Foundation, which has delivered nearly 1 million wheelchairs around the world.

After learning that they would be able to catch a ride to Haiti with the group, they were surprised to discover that they would be flying not on a cargo plane, but on the founder’s private jet.

In a blog post, Sara Craig credited divine help with connecting them with the group.

“After all of the time we spent making phone calls and sending e-mails to different organizations and getting nowhere, all I can say is I did not make this happen. It was definitely someone bigger than me coordinating all of this,” Sara wrote on the family’s blog,

ourordinaryjourney.blogspot.com.

As they drove from the airport, the Craigs were struck by how many people have been left homeless by the quake and its aftershocks.

Aid groups have been giving out tents, and citizens have been pitching them in any open space they can find.

“Look at the median the next time you are merging onto the freeway and imagine seeing hundreds of people camping there waiting for who knows what,” Peter wrote.

The Craigs are now at their new home in a town about 50 miles north of Port-au-Prince. While the country is struggling, the Craigs said they are blessed with enough food to eat, lodgings undamaged by the earthquake, and a compound electrified by solar and generator power 24 hours a day.

They hope to aid and expand the work of a group that employs Haitians in building and selling simple concrete devices that filter drinking water using bio-sand.

“As we begin this new chapter in our lives, we are overwhelmed by how many things we have to be thankful for,” Peter wrote, “and this is only the beginning.”

SOURCE: Chronline