When you reach out long distance to touch the lives of others in need, you never know where the road will lead.

At the end of January, a group of people gathered in the Masonic Temple Building in downtown Portsmouth to load stored medical supplies to be sent to earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Lois Phillips, who, along with her husband Rick Phillips, serve the Bethel United Methodist Church in West Portsmouth, was heavily involved in that process.

“It was amazing how everything worked out,” Phillips said. “Thanks to your (Portsmouth Daily Times) article, a chain of events occurred. The article was in the paper, and then Bill Murray from WSAZ News read your article, and he called me. I met him where we had stored the boxes after we had moved them out of the Masonic Temple Building.”

Phillips said Murray did a story for WSAZ TV News, and got an immediate response from a man in Summersville, W. Va.

“He then e-mailed Bill and said, ‘I happen to know a group who will ship your items if you can get them to North Carolina.’”

So Phillips contacted the people in that group, the United Methodist Disaster Relief Center, in North Carolina.

“They were tickled to death, and they said, ‘bring your things down’, so we got everything loaded back up on a 26-foot rental truck and took it down,” Phillips said. “When we got there, we had to unload it. It was an awesome facility — well-organized — we had a forklift. They brought out pallets. We stacked everything. It took us about an-hour-and-a-half to get everything undone. They told us the items would be taken to a port in North Carolina where they would get into the cargo hold of the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, and that they volunteer and take the things down to a port in the Haiti area. Then, pilots volunteer and go get the things and deliver them to the town where they are to go.”

The Phillips have long been involved with Haitian Pastors Jean and Marese Romain, who operate a church, a school, and most recently, a major hospital in Thomazeau, Haiti, where the donated medical supplies were to be used.

“He (Jean Romain) lost everything,” Phillips said. “His hospital is still standing in the little town of Thomazeau. But he lost his home, his church, the school, everything. And they are just living outside right now, like everybody else in Port Au Prince, at the center of the earthquake.”

But the story does not end there.

“And then, from all of these connections, we have several other people connecting with us, wanting to do something similar,” Phillips said. “So we are helping some other people get their things to North Carolina … to be shipped.”

After the original story ran in the Times, the editorial department received an e-mail which also tied in with the Haiti mission.

“A man from a medical center in Boston, Massachusetts — his co-worker’s mother-in-law had broken her leg in the earthquake, and she lives in Thomazeau — and wanted to know if we could connect her with the Romaines to get her medical treatments.”

At the time the boxes were originally moved from the rooms in the Masonic Temple Building, the Times talked with several organizers of the project.

“Over the years people have heard that Dr. Pettit and I have these storage rooms donated by the Masonic Temple rent free, and we go and pick up supplies. Now we have the opportunity to ship it to Haiti, and we are so thankful that all of this is going to be able to go,” Rita Haider said at the time.

The group inventoried as they loaded the boxes, stacking things such as I.V. bags, Depends, Ensure, crutches, weight machines, sterilizers, oxygen tents and many other items.

Phillips was asked how it feels to complete the task of shipping medical supplies to Haiti.

“I e-mailed most of my friends, and the people involved — ‘mission accomplished,’ because it felt like once we got those boxes down there, we have really done almost everything we can do, except we did send Pastor Romaine money so he can hire trucks to go pick up the shipment,” Phillips said. “I told somebody, ‘I think I have touched every one of the boxes at least once. It’s almost like I’m packing my babies away to be shipped. But it’s a great feeling to know that you can help others.”

Phillips said she wished to thank everyone who helped with the project.

FRANK LEWIS can be reached at (740) 353-3101 Ext. 232 or flewis@heartlandpublications.com.