Three Puppies for Haiti

My brother Timothy had a Doberman named Samson.

He would sleep in Timothy’s rooftop bedroom over my parents’ house in Haiti, but Samson eventually passed. My father asked me to find another guard dog for the mission. I had plans to fly to Haiti on September 19, 1988, with Renee Ott—one of our missionaries who had come stateside to visit her doctor. The day before our departure, I replied to an ad for Rottweiler puppies. The seller had three male puppies left for $200 each. Seeing them, I decided to buy all three for $500 and named them Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in honor of the three brothers: George, Charlie, and Timothy. All I had to do was watch them for one night, as the next day I would fly them to Haiti. 

In the morning, American Airlines called to tell us all flights to Haiti were cancelled because the day before, a group of non-commissioned officers in the Haitian Presidential Guard orchestrated a coup d’état against General Henri Namphy that brought General Prosper Avril to power. When the news broke, the airline cancelled all flights to Port-au-Prince. Finally, on Thursday, our flight to Haiti was rescheduled. We arrived in Boston early with four 70-pound duffle bags filled with supplies and a dog crate with three puppies. Once again, the airline cancelled our flight. Eventually, the airlines flew us to Raleigh and put us on a flight to JFK, and then on a non-stop flight to Miami. When we arrived in Miami, we discovered the flight to Haiti was cancelled. We spent all day flying around just to get to Miami.

So, I was stuck in Miami with Renee, four bags of luggage, and three puppies in a crate. I rented a car and called my sister who lives in Miami. My sister loves dogs, so we left the puppies with her. The next morning, we got up early and went to the airport to see if we could get a flight.  

When we got to the ticket counter, we found out there was a flight on Suriname Airlines. They were making a stop in Haiti on their way to Suriname. We were able to switch tickets and get on that flight. We called my sister and she brought the puppies to the airport. At the ticket counter the agent said it was too late to check the puppies in for the flight, but we could take them on the plane. The flight was waiting for us, but when we got to the gate, the pilot said he would not take the puppies on the flight. 

Miraculously, there was a woman at the gate seeing her daughter off, who was my mother’s friend.  She loved dogs and said she’d take the puppies. I scribbled my sister’s name and phone number on a scrap of paper and asked her to call her...which she did. Renee and I collapsed in our seats—but we were on our way to Haiti. Arriving in Haiti, we called my sister and gave her a friend’s phone number whose parents had agreed to take the puppies on their flight to Haiti the following week. The following Sunday afternoon, after much travel and travail, the three puppies finally arrived at the mission in Léogâne, Haiti. ~George DeTellis, Jr.