Starfysh: Year One in Review

Seems strange. Barely one year ago a few friends gathered for coffee. Over eggs and omelets, I shared my heart about a desperately poor, yet beautiful and precious people that I had grown to love over the past couple of decades of working in Haiti. And how I had decided to “go public,” with my intentions to make a difference in their lives. My early plans for setting out along the non-profit path were motivated out of a need for a structure with which I could leverage and organize the relationships and connections from the various areas of my life into a network of folks who might be able to help me do some very cool things for a broken-down people.

Starfysh was born that morning: we would help a village. Admittedly not much, especially when you look around at what these gigunga organizations were doing all around the world. But we figured we could make a big difference for this one place if the few of us concentrated our time and resources here, and only here. But the script changed.

It was during those early sessions of brainstorming and prayer when we first received the awful news of Haitiʼs devastating earthquake. We watched the news in horror and disbelief, and wondered what we could possibly do. As people in Haiti wailed and died and wandered and questioned, something remarkable happened back up here in Michigan where just hours earlier we had been complaining about our weather and the price of gas. The reverberations of Haitiʼs quake reached all of us. In sympathetic response... we too shook. And it felt good. Friends and strangers, small stores and large corporations, Sunday schools and elementary schools... all came together in this rapid, unrehearsed, wonderful demonstration of what it really means that, at the end of the day, weʼre all just neighbors, cohabiting this ball.

Within the week, more than thirty doctors, nurses, translators and pastors set down on Haitiʼs only functioning runway... at a heavily-damaged airport closed to all commercial traffic. Within a week we were boots-on-the-ground, having established one of the first fully-functioning civilian field hospitals in post-earthquake Haiti.

Days later, folks within earshot of my voice, responded in immediate, knee-jerk fashion to the awful sights of people cowering under their clothes up on a Haitian hillside and sent enough tarps to keep 500 families dry. We delivered those tarps right to that hillside.

These were Starfyshʼs first stories... right out of the chute. There were many others, too. Most, of course, were not as sensational, but each one (each starfish) was significant. We conducted formal water testing at various sites, discovering contamination at several of those sites. We installing water filters at schools and in homes. We purchased, delivered, and installed an xray machine to replace the broken one at the islandʼs only hospital. We provided the funds to erect a cholera clinic. We conducted classroom instruction for hospital nurses. We distributed garden seeds. We delivered balls, toys, and games to little kids. We clothed a few people and to some we gave shoes.

Starfyshʼs story, the overarching, one story that will eventually be told, will be a mosaic of stories and projects like these... some large, some small... that compose a beautiful picture of what it means to be the body of Christ in this world. Iʼm pretty sure this composite picture of love in action will look a lot like Jesus.

Stories are the best, of course. Most fun to tell, most fun to hear. In the background, though, of all these

stories there has been a tremendous amount work in putting together the “structure” of Starfysh. Definitions and values. Policies, bylaws, mission statements. Non-profit designation, mailing permits, licenses. Networking and research. We have invested much time and energy into a structure that will hold, and will accommodate the rapid growth we are experiencing. At the core of this “structuring” process has been a wise, capable, and experienced board of directors. I am also thankful for the host of professionals that have captured the vision for bringing transformation to an island, and have given of their time and expertise toward this structuring process. Legal services, web design, artistic/graphic design, print design, promotional materials, communications and database management (all donated services!) have given us the firm base upon which we now can, moving forward, get to the business of implementing projects that will affect lives on the island of La Gonave.

With all this going on, we decided that it was important that we “go public.” “You can only launch once,” I remember someone saying. So, in November nearly 400 people gathered (in the very hangar at Gerald Ford International Airport where months earlier we had staged our response to the earthquake) to officially and publicly launch this grassroots movement called Starfysh.

Of course, much work has been done this year in Haiti, building the network of relationships we need to be effective in doing our work. The most critical next step was identifying the person who would be able to assemble this network, and we are excited that we have found the perfect person for the job. A former missionary in Haiti, he has captured the vision of Starfysh and will bring a cultural understanding and experience to our organization that few others could bring. With him, we can hit the ground running. Already, he has done an enormous amount of in-country work for us (donated time) and has laid a great amount of groundwork for us.

On the island, we have established a temporary base of operations, at least for the first couple of years. We have secured a medium-sized storage facility where we will stage our arriving supplies, and have also leased a medium sized house which is currently being readied for use as a guesthouse for visiting teams. Starfyshʼs first vision/work team is scheduled for the last week of May, 2011. Several other teams are also on the books to visit and to work.

It is amazing: in its first twelve months of existence, Starfysh received over $93,000 in cash donations, nearly all of it coming from individual gifts. This, during a year when we spent more time on structuring and defining than we did on fundraising! To be honest, we did not anticipate this kind of rapid buy-in and it has become clear to us that God has had greater things in mind than we knew in the beginning.

We look forward. With the structure and foundation in place we can devote our energies more fully to our efforts on the island of La Gonave which is, of course, our primary desire and purpose. A website is nice but, friends, let me tell you, giving someone clean water is where itʼs at. We now ready to do such significant things.

The future will be exciting, yet difficult. Haiti is a troubled land and we can carry no illusions that all will be smooth sailing. We expect bumps in the road of delivering hope. The degree to which Starfysh will be successful in bringing transformative change to La Gonave will depend on our humble willingness to adapt. We will maintain a learnerʼs attitude and a servantʼs heart. After all, itʼs not about us.

We have established our strategic plan for the next three years, with timelines and prioritizations. Our immediate need is to hire a full-time projects coordinator and teams host. We have identified that person, but cannot move on hiring him until we have the funding. Also, we need rugged island transportation. In the immediate term we need a 1/4 ton heavy suspension diesel truck, as well as one or two a heavy-duty, hauling capacity ATVʼs. There are many more needs, of course, but these we need now in order to maintain our momentum on the island.

We look forward to the next year with great excitement, knowing now that something very special is in the works. Our baby steps of faith this past year have certainly been rewarded with Godʼs favor, as He has worked through you as agents of His blessing. On to year two!

May God continue His transformative work on both ends... in the lives of people on a out-of-the-way little island, and among those whose hearts are moved to action back home.

Steve Edmondson