Correction to the List for Health Kits

I goofed! The list for the health kit should have included a bar of bath soap. It now is included in the list.

Thank you for being patient with me!

FOOD CONTAINER TO GO TO CARRENAGE AND PETIT GOAVE

Friends who are concerned about the Haitians have been bringing money constantly. We are so grateful for the generosity that the Hernando and Homosassa United Methodist Churches have shown in their giving.

I am sending a check for $5000 today to pay for beans, rice, sugar, water, charcoal, oil. If there is money and room, some bedding will be added to this list.

The container will go to either the port in Petit Goave or to the Dominican Republic to be moved over land to Petit Goave. Much if not most of the aid going to Haiti has gone to meet the tremendous need in Port au Prince. That's not bad, but the people in the damaged outlying areas may be overlooked. Montreuil Milord will go to Petit Goave to supervise giving the food to the needy in Petit Goave and Carrenage.

What can you do?

• Pray that the merchants will give us the best possible prices for the goods we need.
• Pray that Montreuil can time his arrival well to meet the ship or plane.
• Pray that the unloading will go smoothly so that our cargo will not be like others, sitting somewhere rotting while hungry people wait.
• Pray for Montreuil as he organizes the workers to give out the food.
• Thank God for each generous heart that has given so generously.

PERSONAL KITS FOR EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS

Many in our church want to do something besides send money. I think it is wonderful that they want to "put their hands on" something that is going to these suffering people. We devised a plan: to prepare personal kits for survivors, with necessities that may make their days a little less difficult. We will dedicate these gifts to the Lord, and take them to Homestead, Florida for shipment in a container to Petit Goave during the week of February 1, 2010.

Each one gallon, zip lock bag should contain the following:
1 hand towel (no kitchen towels, please)
1 bath cloth
1 comb (large and sturdy, not pocket sized)
1 large cake bath soap
1 nail file or fingernail clipper (no emery boards or toenail clippers)
1 toothbrush (single brushes in original wrapper, no child-size brushes)
6 adhesive plastic strip sterile bandages (Band Aids)
Toothpaste (6.4 oz., taken out of the box)

All items must be new. Strict government rules require that they be alike. DO NOT ADD ANYTHING NOT ON THE LIST.

Deadline for return: Sunday, January 31, 2010

We are preparing a card to be placed in each bag, telling the recipient that we haven't forgotten them and are praying for them. My Haitian friend, Montreuil Milord will translate our message into Haitian Creole so that the message can be in English on one side of the card and in Creole on the other.

Another team member and I will take the bags to Homestead for shipment in a container.

What's an "old lady" like me doing in Haiti?

Since this blog was begun, several people have asked me how I got involved in Haiti. Perhaps I should take a minute and tell you.

In 2008, the leader of a medical team from our church to Haiti asked me to go with them. I was unsure how I could be of help since I am not a "medical person." She felt sure that I should go, and I trusted her judgment and went.

At first I was so stunned by the magnitude of the need in that country that I felt almost paralyzed! Then I found a little community of a few hundred people with a tiny school of about 140 children, all of whom were in dire need. The poverty was beyond anything I could imagine, but I recognized immediately with help, I could do something about their need. Millions of people need help, and a small church like ours cannot take on that task. These few hundreds I thought we could at least help a little.

I came home and told the church about Carrenage, the community I had visited. As God seems to have a habit of doing, he used my testimony to awaken a lot of people to an outreach worthy of our efforts. We began to raise money for Carrenage. I have been astonished at how my wonderful church has loved a people whom they have not seen. I marvel at their efforts as they sew for the the children, buy school supplies for the school, send gifts to the teachers, and give so generously to feed the children of the school.

If I were not so old, I would go to Carrenage and stay for a time, working with the children and the faculty of the school. But I confess that the trips are grueling and after about ten days I come home pretty tired. I have decided that for me to stay for a long period would be more work for them than it would be help. So I go once a year to work, maybe a second time to plan, and stay in touch all during the year. I also encourage others to go and experience the joy of working with these people who have almost nothing but have a great love for and trust in the Lord! They also have a joy of life that we could learn from, though by our standards we can barely--if at all--understand their joy!

Our trip in March is postponed, but we will reschedule as soon as I get word from Haiti that the way is clear for our team to work with the school--whether in the classroom or on repairs for the buildings.

God touched my heart by these absolutely beautiful children and by the dedicated adults who work so faithfully to care for and teach them. He said to my heart, "Who will go?" And I answered, "I will go if you lead me. I will hold your children in my heart." (. . .words in the chorus of a song we often sing at church)

And so I go. Thank you for your continued prayers for these who seem so miraculously mine.

Good morning, everyone.

I am sending you some new pictures that I just got, showing the area in which we have worked in Haiti. Petit Gaove devastated by the earthquake that struck Haiti Many of these sites are so familiar, and I can barely believe what I am seeing!

Last night the team in our church that had planned to go to Haiti in six weeks met, primarily to allow us to talk about all that we are feeling and to pray together for this tragic people! We had a good and I hope encouraging meeting. We have postponed the trip indefinitely, with much reluctance, I might add. I believe that if I had said I had an airplane waiting, the entire team would have said, "Let's go." We know, however, that going would only satisfy our need to be there. We can do little right now to help.

We are, however, sending a large check to my friend in South Florida to fill a container and ship it to Petit Goave, for distribution to the people in that town, in Carrenage, and in Olivier. Those are the three places in which we have worked during the past two years. We are also going to send personal bags of things like soap, bath cloths, tooth brushes, etc. to be given to the people in those areas as well. With much faith that we are not promising more than we can accomplish, we are promising that we will send 1000 bags to these folks. Janet, Kim, and I will probably take the bags to Miami during the week of February 1, and the shipment will go during that week also. Montreuil, my Haitian friend in Homestead, will go to Petit Goave (SOMEHOW!) to see that these supplies get into the right hands!

Continue to pray for us as we work. We feel so far away, but I am encouraged as God keeps bringing people to me who have contacts who can help us reach the folks there or do the things that we need to do.

I am so encouraged as I realize how widespread is the love and concern for my precious Haitian friends. God bless you as you pray and as you help me and others do from a distance what we cannot do in person.

I have just viewed the most devastating video from Petit Goave. I am copying the site here for you. I must warn you before you look that the pictures are extremely graphic. This is taken after the quake this morning, as you will notice from the commentary of the Canadian man who is speaking.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1184614595?bctid=62185287001

With the help of one of my wonderful daughters, I have found some information about the earthquake this morning.

The geographic location of the epicenter of this morning's quake is directly over the geographic location of Petit Goave, the little town that where we have stayed on each trip to Haiti and to which we planned to return in March. The 6.1 quake has done significant damage to the already weakened and damaged buildings in Petit Goave. Carrenage, the little school where we have worked is only a few miles away from Petit Goave. I don't know what this means to Carrenage.

Someone asked me this morning, "Why is your heart so tender toward these people whom you barely know?" I told him that I don't know. When I went to Haiti in 2008 I was unsure why I was there. But when I stepped from the car on the mountain, into the muddy surroundings of the little school of Carrenage, I knew that God had brought me there. I'm still not sure why. Our teams have done things, but in the greater scheme of things, we have done little. However, for some reason God continues to cause me to work there, to want others to know about the tragic plight of these beautiful people who have suffered so quietly for so long, and to try to make a difference! Maybe all I am to do is raise awareness of their need. Maybe all I am to do is to love them. That I can do.

That thought brings me to this one. The title of this blog is "Here I am, Lord." I want to tell you why I chose it. We sing a hymn in our church by that title, and it has touched my life deeply, so deeply that I often wake singing that chorus in my mind. I want to share one verse and the chorus with you:

I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard my people cry,
All who dwell in dark and sin my hand will save.
I who made the stars of night,
I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear my light to them?
Whom shall I send?
CHORUS
Here I am, Lord.
Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night.
I will go, Lord, if you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart.

I have a new acquaintance in Citrus County, a ham radio operator, who is trying to get information for me from Petit Goave and Carrenage. Last night he called to say that he had some new info--not through his radio but through connections made as he searched. He found that Maude had to leave her home at the mission because of a fire. She is with "a superintendent," and I am assuming that is Ralph Denizard, the other D.S. in the area.

The mission house is damaged. (Possible project for our team when we get to go?)

No word about Carrenage except that there was damage there.

Please keep praying for these folks.

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! I just heard from my friend Montreuil Milord, a Haitian who lives in Homestead. One of his sisters got through to him on a cell phone, and finally I have some news for all of us who have been so anxious!

• Pastor Gesner Paul, the new bishop of the Haitian Methodist Church, is alive and unharmed!
• Pastor Maude Hyppolite, my dear friend in Petit Goave, is alive and well!
• Montreuil's family in Petit Goave is alive and unharmed!

These people have been the focus of my own concern, and this is the first news I have had from them. Montreuil was laughing in his joy at this good news this morning! We know that the road ahead for repairs and recovery of the area is going to be long and hard, but how we praise God that these folks have been spared.

Montreuil's sister had no news of Carrenage. Perhaps I can get it now, and as soon as I do, I'll tell you.

There is damage in Petit Goave. Montreuil's family's home collapsed but no one was harmed. Some damage also occurred on the property that his family owns, but again, the families are all right.

The need for supplies and help is huge, but we cannot send money yet because many of the banks collapsed. I'll find out as soon as I can if the bank that I can transfer money to for Maude is still in existence.

The sister told Montreuil that the damage in the area is extensive and that it will take weeks and weeks to return to some sense of normal; however, about 70% of the cell phone towers have been repaired, so we should be able to get through by phone now.

All the aid appears to be going to Port au Prince, and I guess that is understandable. My church is taking a love offering for our friends in the area in which we have been working, and we will hold that until I am told how to get it to them. Montreuil says that we should NOT mail money to Haiti right now because it will probably be intercepted. I am such an innocent that I think if the check is made out to a person only that person can cash it. He assures me that is not true in Haiti. I tell you this to let you know that I am being very careful about any money that I am given to be sure that it gets to the place the donors intended.

One other bit of good news that will not only be a help to Haiti but will give us some contact with the people there is this. Dale Evans is our custodian, a man I love very much. He has two sons, one a youth pastor in Covington, LA, and the other in the Coast Guard. Jonathan is taking fifteen men from his church to Haiti next week to work wherever they are needed. Andrew is being deployed this week to Haiti. Please pray for these men and their ministry there.

All our plans for a trip this year to Haiti have now been put on hold indefinitely. This is a terrible disappointment to all of us, but it is the only thing to do. As soon as we can regroup, we'll determine where we are needed and we will go.

Please pray for our friends in Petit Goave and Carrenage. I'm glad they are not having to cope with the media frenzy in Port au Prince, but I am praying that they will not be overlooked in their monumental need for help in recovery of their damage--even though it is considerably less than than in Port au Prince.

God bless you, each one who reads this. I am so grateful for your prayers. We think we are the ones who "do" things, but it is really God who is at work. Your prayers make huge differences in the lives of the people in Haiti. I'm still not sure how prayer works, but then I don't even understand electricity and I certainly don't understand radio waves! Prayer is many times more powerful than either of these two.

This "blog stuff" is so new to me, and I am finding my way as I send my messages to you. To say that I am "challenged" when it comes to technology is the gross understatement of the year! However, if you can bear with me, we'll find our way together.

I still have no direct news from Petit Goave or from Carrenage; however, my daughter suggested something that may help--a ham radio operator. I have found one and maybe another in Citrus County, and I am going to try to contact them this afternoon, asking that they try to find out from another operator in Haiti exactly what is going on in my two little areas of interest. I have read everything I can find on the internet, and have some second hand news from a couple of people who have heard from family. At this point this is all I know.

Damage in Petit Goave is somewhere between "considerable" and "devastating." One man said that any structure of more than one story has been damaged. That would include the mission house and the Methodist Church. I was also told that the people there are discouraged because all the focus is on the terrible damage in Port au Prince, and outlying areas are not being reached. That, by the way, is something that I had feared.

The little church at Olivier, where we have worshiped each time we have been to Haiti is just outside Petit Goave, and though it is only one story, it is vulnerable. It received damage in last year's hurricanes, and some of those things--like the destroyed wall that surrounds it--have not yet been repaired.

One of the blogs that I read on the internet mentioned Carrenage as an "area that received damage." That is where the school and little church are, on the mountain just behind the little community. The good thing is that the children leave the school early in the afternoon, and they should have been home when the earthquake occurred.

If you want to send financial help, I suggest that you not do so until I find out where to send it so that we can be sure it arrives! My church is setting up a Haiti emergency fund, completely separate from the working fund that we use to do our projects there. That money will be delivered to either Pastor Maude Hyppolite, the District Superintendent of the Miragoan District or to the Bishop. I will either take it, send it by someone going there, or electronically transfer it to Maude's account when she tells me that the account is secure. Right now, nothing can be guaranteed to be secure. I have absolute trust in both Bishop Paul and in Pastor Maude. I knwo them both, and I think I know their hearts! They are honest.

As to prayer, I suggest several specific things.

• Pray that I can find Maude. I am so troubled that I have not been able to get through to her on any of the numbers I have. Her email is a dial up, so I can't count on reaching her that way.
• Pray for the children. I watched their little faces on the TV the other night, and I made my heart ache! They have witnessed things we can only imagine. Pray for their emotional and mental recovery from the grief they are experiencing all around them.
• Pray for the adults. Family is so important to them, and they are watching as their loved ones are being left in the street to be picked up by front-end loaders and actually dumped in to trucks to be carted away for incineration or mass burial. Knowing how they respect the dead, I cannot conceive of how horrible this is for them to watch!

I thank you for your concern. I never dreamed when I went to Haiti two years ago that I could so quickly learn to love a people, but I did. Everyone is telling me not to go down there now even if I find a way to do so. My mind tells me they are right. My heart tells me, "Go!" Years ago, a young friend of my daughters--a black boy whom we loved very much--experienced a terrible trauma in his life. He hovered between life and death. I prayed for him all night, and on the morning I went to the hospital to see him, only to find he was in intensive care, and only the family was allowed entrance. I must have looked terrible in my disappointment, and the nurse looked around to see if anyone was watching and said, "Go in!" As soon as he saw me, he began to cry, and I just held him in my arms until he could talk. Finally, he said, "I think I would have died had I not seen someone who cared!" I keep seeing his face in my memory, and I wonder if those people there think I have forgotten them because I am not there.

I'll go as soon as I can.

Jumping in to Something New

I'm jumping into a blog sort of kicking and screaming. With the Face Book and social media frenzy out there I had made up my mind long ago that I was NOT going to get on board! But the devastating earthquake in Haiti this week has helped me see the possibilities of a blog actually being a blessing -- making much-needed information available to a wide circle of friends.

You cannot know how much I appreciate your prayers for my friends and colleagues in Haiti.
Please feel free to circulate my blog address to others who may be interested.

Here's an article that appeared on the Internet yesterday: http://www.umportal.org/article.asp?id=6333

I'm turning in for the night, but check back soon for more details.