zach pippin

So, I had some computer (iPod Touch) problems in Haiti. I’ll do my best to recall the events and put my updates here by day.

We woke up early with the intention of travelling to two orphanages. We went to the first one which was about 20 minutes outside of PAP. The damage to the building didn’t appear too bad. The surrounding wall had partially collapsed, though. There I met two Mexican relief workers. It was a a nice respite to be able to speak in a foreign language that I know better than my limited French & Creole.

After accessing the damage we headed out to the second orphanage. It was in the mountains, a few hours by truck (very long hours sitting on the corner of the bed). On the way there we got into an accident in one of the villages. The driver dropped us off at the second orphanage and took the truck to a shop to be fixed. This left us staying at the orphanage far longer than we expected to, but it worked out great. We ended up seeing many kids (surprisingly, because the orphanage was shut down, they came from the town). Hunter was able to tell them a Bible story and Wes helped them memorize a John 1:12, all the while Junot translated.

Before went to either orphanage we stopped to get gas. We saw a tent city across the street, and went over there to talk to the leaders. We asked some volunteers to survey the people there to find out who were the neediest families. They would then receive a voucher to get a tent from us the next day.

To be continued….

Tuesday afternoon at about 5:30 in the evening I left Columbia with 7 other men. We are part of The Foundation First Response Team. Our plan is to deliver and assemble more than 75 tents to earthquake victims in Haiti.  After a long drive, we arrived in Ft. Pierce, FL around 3am. Since our flight was not scheduled to leave until 6, I pulled out my sleeping bag and caught a few short hours of sleep in the grass by the hangar. We left Florida a little after 7:30 and arrived in Port au Prince, Haiti 3 hours later. Our first stop was to the Gheskio Clinic (oldest AIDS clinic in the world) and tent city. The plan was to help relocate the people here to higher ground before the rainy season comes. They are waiting on approval from the President of Haiti for use of some federal land, which likely won’t happen while we’re here.  Flexibility being key, we are now planning on teaching locals how to construct the tents and deliver them to another tent city in need. Other events of today have included some deep instant immersion in Creole.  With my limited French and worse Creole, as well as some Spanish and English with the few that speak those, I’ve been pretty succesful in communicating with most of the people. We were able to give away some candy and shirts to kids in the Gheskio tent city. One miracle has apparently happened. We had to leave the airport before the cargo plane with the tents arrived. In between two stops we checked in to see if they were there yet. Most were, but some of them were missing. We weren’t shocked at this. What did shock us was after transporting them to our current location, we mysteriously have all of the ones that left Columbia.   Thank you to everyone back home that is praying for us, we’ll keep you updated as much as we can. There are so many more things to tell but I don’t have time. You can get the latest updates by following me on Twitter: twiter.com/Zachpippin. Or check status updates on facebook from Wes Church. Also, I can make phone calls via Skype, bur they will appear as random numbers on your caller ID, and of course since I have Google Voice if you text 8433219224 then I will be able to read it and respond. Soli Deo Gloria

I know it’s nothing new, but I just wanted to share something awesome about a recent prayer.

Sunday- Prayed for God to get me to Haiti.
Monday- Got informed of a trip down there
Tuesday- Applied for the trip
Wednesday- Funding started pouring in
Thursday- Got officially approved for my trip
Tuesday- 100% of funding was in

Never underestimate it.

As many of you know I am travelling to Nicaragua this May with Carolina BCM for our first international missions trip. I’d like to reach out to you, my readers, in my efforts to raise support. The total cost of the trip is $2,000. I’m asking people to make a simple donation of $1. You can do this by clicking the link to zachpippin.com/donate and clicking the donate button. This will allow you to make a donation via paypal, it will be listed under Nica2010.

Please don’t underestimate the significance of a $1 donation. When I reached out to yall to support Project TwentyTwo for just $2, we came together to raise over $600. 

Please consider dropping $1 in the digital hat and asking your friends to do the same.

Soli Deo Gloria

The next decade is fast approaching. Things here will be pretty much the same. There are a few new things however that you can expect:

Guest Writers: I’ve asked several friends from different walks of life to guest blog here. They will hopefully bring topics as diverse as they are

More content: I’m done with school, and I’m hoping to use some of my free time to be more consistent in writing

En Español: I’ll be doing a Bible study in Spanish this semester in preparation for the Nicaragua trip. Expect to hear about that in bilingual posts

Music of the Month: I’ll be resetting my iTunes play count every month and reporting what my top 10 songs are for each month

So, thank you to everyone that has been reading my posts this past year. I hope with the advent of 2010 things will only get better

So, I’ve been away from here for a while. I’ve been devoting a lot of time to the launch and promotion of PROJECT TwentyTwo. If you haven’t checked it out already do it! If you don’t want to then I’ll give you a reason. I’m using this return to my blog to announce my first ever giveaway.

The item: a special edition Carolina BCM Blackout shirt designed by our own Marcus Williamson.

How to participate: Click here to visit the PROJECT TwentyTwo website. Make a donation, and after two weeks the names of everyone will be put into a hat and one lucky person will be drawn. I’ll contact the winner immediately to get your size and arrange delivery.

If you haven’t noticed them yet, take a look at the sidebar. One of the things over there is a “categories” section. Every blog post I put up is assigned to one or more of those. If you are one of my faithful readers from back in the days I as on BlogSpot you will recognize two of them. Mon Cèilidh and Why I Won’t Get Elected, formerly separate blogs, now two categories under a single blog.

“Mon Cèilidh” is where it all started. Scots Gaelic for “My Visit” it is a collection of thougts and observations during my visit in this life. I will try to find the hand of God in everyday events and recount them to you. I hope that this category is an encouragement and reminder of the love of God.

“Why I’ll Never Get Elected” is my political blog. Being fairly private about my political views, I seldom post anything here. But on the rare occasion that I get the urge to share my opinion on something, it’ll be here.

Finally there is the “Random Thoughts” category. This is just for things I wish to share about everyday life. Sometimes it will be about a trip I’m taking, an interesting website or book I’ve read, or a cool new gadget I’ve found.

I hope you continue to enjoy my posts, and be on the lookout for a new category. It’s in the works and should be coming out in the next week or so. I’m pretty excited to get started on it, and hope that yall will enjoy it and get involved. That’s all I’m going to say for now.