Utahn replacing Haiti orphanage

SALT

LAKE CITY — Brandt Andersen came back from his relief trip to Haiti

with two things that will always remind him of his week in

Port-au-Prince: the deed to a gorgeous, three-acre plot of land where

he plans to rebuild an orphanage, and an indelible vision of the

smiling children who soon will live there.

Less

than a week after the magnitude-7.0 earthquake rattled the Caribbean

country Jan. 12, the Utah County entrepreneur and owner of the Utah

Flash was on a plane to Haiti with a group of doctors assembled by The

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His job was to help

coordinate travel and fuel for the group, but once he was there,

Andersen unexpectedly picked up a few "side projects."

Suddenly, he had new items on his to-do list: buy land, build shelter.

"I

definitely didn't go down there thinking I would commit myself to

something long term," Andersen said. "But things overtake you and there

are powers greater than us that I think ... when you feel that need to

do something, you have to follow it."

When

Andersen and his friend, Bill Betz, both in their early 30s, stumbled

upon the small, nameless orphanage, it was a wreck. The children,

overlooked by rescue teams delivering aid to more prominent parts of

the city, were sleeping on cots in front of the rented, crumbled

building where a pastor tended them. Most of the 50 children in the