Thursday, February 28, 2013


 "The Best Day Ever"



Last weekend, Brad Paisley and friends took some time off between finishing their new album and starting a busy tour schedule to come to Haiti with us.  

Brad and his wife Kim are providing clean water to all 200,000 residents of the impoverished area of Haiti in which we work.  Brad tirelessly distributed food to the hungry, checked out the water purification systems and played with the village children.  

Of all the touching moments we witnessed, one stood out.  Brad met Obed.  Obed is a quiet twelve year old boy with an amazing talent.   Obed is an artist; he's a natural.  

Brad spied the drawings that Obed had carefully done with worn out pencils and was immediately drawn to him.  An accomplished artist himself, Brad spent the afternoon with Obed drawing super heroes.  The Incredible Hulk, Spiderman and Batman were drawn and redrawn and at the end of the day Obed wrote Brad a letter.  

In it he said,"Thanks for the best day ever, I will pray for you everyday".  
        
There is no way that this little orphan boy in the poorest country in the world knew that one of the most famous country singers of all time was sitting beside him.  To him he was just Brad and Brad was his very own super hero.  
        
As we flew back home to Nashville, I saw Brad pull Obed's letter out of his shirt pocket and read and reread it over and over.  
        
Thanks Brad for giving a little Haitian orphan, "the best day ever".


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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Why Would Country Music's Biggest Star Go to Haiti?

Why would Country Music's biggest star go to Haiti with us?  

Perhaps, for Brad Paisley it was the fact that Haitians have no clean water to drink.  In fact, in the area in which we work, Thomazeau, Haiti, all but one of the water sources we tested were heavily contaminated with e. coli, salmonella and cholera bacteria.  

We routinely see mothers filling their baby's bottle with the brown smelly water because that's all they have.  For a nation an hour and a half from our border, it is intolerable that the people have no access to clean water.  Would anyone disagree that clean water is a basic human right? It is unbelievable that the main cause of illness in this Caribbean country stems from dirty water.  

But it doesn't have to be this way.  We can change this blight in the Haitian community. 

 Brad and Kim have decided to do just that.  They are supplying an entire area of Haiti with clean water filtration systems so that all 200,000 people in this area will have access to clean water.  

The Paisleys are transforming Haiti.  

Take the Paisley Challenge.  

Make a difference.

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