Doug Hull: Have tools, will travel

Like many people, Doug Hull, 43, dreams of doing some traveling in his retirement. But his dream doesn't involve a cruise ship, a swimsuit or golf cleats. Instead, Hull would prefer to be en route to an impoverished nation, carrying a suitcase packed with work boots, a toolbelt and malaria pills. And he'd like to see you go, too.

Hull, a Sisters area general contractor, just returned from Haiti where he helped construct footings and a foundation for a new building in the disaster-torn capital of Port-au-Prince.

His four-man team from Westside Church in Bend had an allowance of 34 yards of concrete to do their job.

Most nights it poured rain; one morning the crew arrived to find the holes they had dug and prepared with steel were filled up with two-and-a-half feet of water, and many of the sides had caved in. Fixing them meant digging larger holes, and they worried there wouldn't be enough concrete to fill them. In the end, the project took precisely 34 yards of concrete.

Hull's no stranger to mission trips abroad. In his 20s, he spent a week in Mexico constructing roof trusses for a pastor's home. In 1999, following a hurricane in the Dominican Republic, he showed up to help pour a concrete slab and repair a church building.

Once, Hull helped put a new roof on a school house in a rural village in the Yucatan Peninsula. And three times he has traveled to Biloxi, Mississippi, to lend a hand to relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina.

"I enjoy getting out there, learning how people do things, sharing my faith and helping some people who need the help," says Hull. "It's physical help but we're giving them encouragement that way, too."

Two winters ago he grabbed his whole family - wife Sandi and kids Trevor, Luke, Justin and Ashonte - for a three-week assignment working with a missionary among the Zulu tribe in the African bush. A highlight of that trip was pouring a concrete slab for an old Zulu grandma.

"It was amazing and enlightening for the kids because they were able to really see all the things they do have, all the things they take for granted," he said. "It's a totally different world when you live among a people who don't even have electricity."

Hull and his family moved here 10 years ago from San Jose. After working as project manager for Laredo Construction for over four years, he launched his own firm, Hull's Construction, in 2005. He specializes in home remodels, "everything from little stuff to whole-house remodels," he says.

Hull's company stayed fairly busy up until about four months ago, when the poor economy caught up with him and he had to lay off his last guy.

He hopes that he won't have to forego his volunteer work altogether.

"It's because we stayed busy that I had the ability

to do some of these things and bless some people," he said. "I've always had solid guys to lean on. Now I'm just going to have to schedule it around the work. My first concern is that it doesn't affect my productivity as a GC in Sisters."

Hull also hopes to encourage others to try mission work.

"Anyone who has any desire ... they need to go," he says firmly. "You put people in a different place and all of a sudden they learn so much about themselves."

Do you need to have construction skills like his to be of service out in the mission field?

Hull responds, adamantly, "No.

"I tell you, I would rather work any day with a team of people who just really want to help. We got so much work done in the Yucatan with a team of 18 and only two field workers."

Hull's assessment of the current situation in Port-au-Prince: widespread homelessness, looting and lack of potable water are top concerns. Makeshift tents in the city have dwindled as many have relocated to other areas on the island.

There were rumors that cholera had reached the city and even the Foursquare Missions International (FMI) camp where Hull's team would be staying, but he didn't see any evidence of that. However, Hull reports that the local water source flows brown with mud, tainted by garbage; he observed a dead animal carcass in the waterbed.

When he arrived at FMI, Hull was amazed to run into two other workers from Sisters. Jonathan Hillis and Rachael Tenneson, both 2008 graduates of Sisters High School, were also there on a separate assignment.

Now that the foundation has been prepared, a metal building shipped from the U.S. will be positioned on the site where Hull's crew labored.

"The cool thing about this project is that it's more than just a church building to meet their spiritual needs," says Hull.

The new facility will house a job training center for Haitians and include a kitchen and bakery.

"They already feed 400 people per week out of the existing church," he noted. "They meet in an open portico, like a carport, and call it good."

Pastor Guy, a Haitian who credits God with a series of miracles that spared his life in the earthquake, is leading the church efforts "so the people of his country can start putting their lives back together," Hull said.