Here to Haiti

It seems this summer has been a summer full of weekends on the road.  It also seems that when we go on the road for one reason, we end up with supplies for Haiti. 

In June we went to Omaha, Nebraska for our nephew’s wedding.  The next day we enjoyed the chance to meet up with Roberta Vander Zwaag, her husband Kris and their five wonderful children.  We had fun in Omaha and they blessed Real Hope For Haiti with a LOAD of medical supplies.

On Labor Day weekend, Dawn Scott made arrangements with our niece and nephew to get some school supplies, peanut butter, clothes and more to Real Hope For Haiti. She sent it on the Omaha-South Dakota express with our nephew and his wife (Nick and Emily Zachman) and our niece (Melissa Zachman).  We picked it up in South Dakota while visiting family.

Once we had all these supplies collected over the summer, they were sorted and packed by a wonderful woman named Debby Smith.

When we had everything sorted and packed, JESS (left) and her friend Kristin (Kay) pictured above came over and loaded our trailer.

My husband Paul and I spent most of Friday paying tolls as we drove down through Chicago.  Other than that, we had a nice drive to Anderson, Indiana.  We unloaded our trailer Friday night because rain was in the forecast for Saturday.  On Saturday morning we were able to meet many wonderful people who have been faithfully helping Real Hope For Haiti for many years.

Jeremy (pictured above) is another master packer.  Jeremy has been to Haiti seven times and has worked many times on the piping for the water supply in Cazale. He is also on the board of Real Hope For Haiti.

On Saturday, we spent time with Jeremy and his sons seperating the mending kits from packaging.  We had a couple of pick-up truck loads of cardboard to send to recycling when we were done.  Real Hope For Haiti minimizes the packaging in order to maximize what the people of Haiti will receive.

We had more help from Eli, Austin and Carson.  It was an amazing bunch of boys/young men.  Everyone stayed on task until the work was done.  They only stopped for me to take their picture.

Zach even gave me a short break to say hello to Deanna Pring (below).  Deanna and I have been e-mailing after the earthquake and I was really hoping to meet her.  Here she is with her husband and Zach.  Deanna is one of those people who really understands the importance of taking care of the missionaries as well as the mission.

I don’t have a picture of everybody who was working that day.  It was raining and we were in one semi-trailer working and others were in some of the storage units.
Maybe next year!

I want to give special thanks to my husband Paul for doing all the driving to Indiana and back in one short weekend.  Pictured above is Paul and Zach mapping out a different route home (Chicago/Illinois you cannot have any more toll money)!

It seems to be that time of year when it is time to actually start thinking about school supplies.  Since I don’t have a child to buy school supplies for anymore, I had kind of lost touch.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to see how reasonable it is to get school supplies this time of year.

This year Real Hope For Haiti will be getting sponsorships to help 100 children in the Cazale area go to school.  Since the earthquake, more people are struggling to rebuild their homes and are in need of help to let their children attend school.

There are a few different ways that you can help the people of Haiti send their children to school.  One is to be involved in a school sponsorship.  Go to www.haitirescuecenter.wordpress.com and scroll back a few days to see some of the boys who need a sponsorship.  The total cost is $250 per year.  Licia has done a wonderful job of sending sponsors information and photos about the child/children they are sponsoring.  If you think this is a possibility for you, please contact Licia Betor at licia@realhopeforhaiti.org

Another way that you can help is to send school supplies.  I just stopped by Target and was amazed at how affordable things are right now.  I was able to get some backpacks for $8.99 each.  Crayons are $.25, glue sticks (2/pk) are $.25 — you get the idea.  The following is a list of items that they need to get the children ready for school in September:

Backpacks
Tennis Shoes (assorted sizes)
Pencils
Pens
Glue (sticks or liquid)
Crayons
Scissors
Erasers
Pencil Sharpeners
Colored Pencils
Pencil Bags
Paper
Metric Sets

Please send items to:

Debbie Woodward
Northrup King Building - Main Office
1500 Jackson Street NE
Minneapolis, MN  55413
(612) 363-5612

Last and most important is to pray for the people of Haiti.  It has been a very traumatic year. Please pray that they will find comfort and that God, through his people, will provide for jobs, schooling, food, health and other needs they may have.  May you search your heart to see if you can give a hand up to people who so desperately want to provide for their families.

I don’t even know Brooke.  I’m not even sure how old she is.  However, I do know that she seems to be a very thoughtful girl.  For her birthday she asked that gifts be given to the children of Haiti and her friends responded generously.

This week at work, I received a large box of beautiful new clothing for the children at the Rescue Center and backpacks for the school children were part of the package.  With the box came a note wishing Brooke a Happy Birthday and another note to the children of Haiti.

Thanks Brooke for the wonderful shared experience and thanks to Grace, Lilly, Annie, Molly, Megan,Hope, Whitney, Payton, Emma, Kloey, Aubrey, Kate, Catie and Savannah who blessed the children of Haiti.

We are still getting shipments of supplies and that is good.  We are planning to ship another container and would love to have as many supplies as possible by mid-August.

Above are some of the most recent supplies sent by West Jones High School Student Council in Laurel, Mississippi.   These supplies will be greatly appreciated at the Real Hope For Haiti Rescue Center. 

THANK YOU to all the students at West Jones High School who helped to bless Real Hope For Haiti and the children at the Rescue Center.

Dakota and Alysha Haugen are two VERY cute individuals who worked hard at Art-A-Whirl last weekend making bracelets and bookmarks. 

Anybody who made a donation to Real Hope For Haiti was allowed to pick a bracelet or bookmark.  Alysha and Dakota made signs and did a real good job of merchandising the items they made.

On Saturday, they collected $100.  On Sunday, they came back with a “thermometer” to mark the progress toward their goal of $225.  They collected $214 and as they were coming to my office to take pictures and give me the money, someone donated another $11 making it a perfect $225.

THANK YOU Alysha and Dakota for blessing the children of Haiti!

God blesses each of us with gifts so that we may bless others.  There are so many ways that people can continue to help the people of Haiti.  Today, I’d like to mention two more ways that people can help bless the people of Haiti with their gifts of knowledge.

If you have the gift of medical knowledge, including physicians, nurses, physical therapists and dermatologists, I encourage you to read Lori’s blog.  Lori is a nurse (functioning much more like a doctor) who runs the Real Hope For Haiti clinic.  They see 1,000+ people a week.  Lori has begun to blog again and sometimes she is requesting help with a particular diagnosis or course of care. 

Lori also needs a list of people that she can call/contact directly to work through a particular medical need.  She recognizes the value of a doctor’s time and would like to develop a more comprehensive list of people so that she might be able to contact a person 2 or 3 times a year for help.  Someone who has worked in a low-tech environment, has worked in Haiti or another developing country could be very helpful.

Please consider keeping up with Lori  and offering ON-LINE assistance when your “gift of knowledge” would serve the Haitian people and encourage Lori in her work.
If you are willing to allow Lori to contact you directly, please let her know by e-mailing her at lori@realhopeforhaiti.org  

Speaking of Lori’s blog, she is passing along another opportunity to use your “gift of knowledge” to help students in Haiti learn English — ON-LINE!!!!  Check out Lori’s blog at:

www.haitinurse4life.xanga.com

Some people will never go to Haiti but can still offer their love, support, talents and knowledge.  Think about what “gift” you might have to share with the people of Haiti.

There will be more than supplies going to Haiti this month.  Jess Lehman will be heading into Haiti on May 25th if all goes according to plan.  She will be staying through August OR ???????????????????????????????? — only GOD knows.

Jess is a student at North Central University.  She contacted me early on to see if she could help and if she could bring friends too.  She was a consistent volunteer to the end.  She sorted supplies and packed numerous boxes.  She loaded the container and she worked with the student group at North Central University to acquire monetary donations for Real Hope For Haiti.

I’m so VERY happy for Jess.  She has been studying International Development and Biblical Studies.  She has been to Uganda and Algeria.  She had prayed to return to Uganda but the door kept closing.  Then the earthquake in Haiti happened and God opened the door for Jess.  I’m confident that she will be a huge blessing to Licia and Lori and will give them some relief from all the work they do.  I’m positive she will be a blessing to all the children.

If you want to support her mission work this summer, please chip in at www.likethenoonday.blogspot.com

Good luck Jess!

The 40-foot containers (from Minnesota and Indiana) are in Haiti.  Davis Zachary (Zach) of Real Hope For Haiti will be getting them out of customs and then they will have to unload TWO 40-foot containers and bring the supplies to Cazale.

Please pray for Zach and all those involved in getting the supplies into the hands of the Haitian people.  Please pray for the people of Haiti as they continue to heal.

Follow the progress at www.haitirescuecenter.wordpress.com

THANK YOU to all God’s faithful people.

When some people read the list of needs they had an “interesting” reaction to the inclusion of a bulldozer and backhoe.  After all, how many of us have a spare bulldozer in the backyard that isn’t a Tonka Toy?

The truth is before the earthquake occured, God had been laying a plan for the Zachary family to expand their services.  They have been in prayer about it for years.  Last fall, a donor appeared that wanted to bless the Real Hope For Haiti ministry with 22 acres of land.  The plans include a hospital, clinic, rescue center and depot.   The land has been purchased and surveyed.  See it here:  http://haitirescuecenter.wordpress.com/page/9/

Zach has located the backhoe shown above and you can see how excited he is to get it into Haiti and get to work.    He will also need a bulldozer and it is possible that someone out there will be able to help with this need.  We all have a different walk in life.  Some are hugely talented at sewing.  Others, are knowledgeable about heavy equipment.  We all have a way to participate in God’s work.

If you know someone that would be able to assist Real Hope For Haiti with their heavy equipment needs, please have them e-mail zach@realhopeforhaiti.org   The need is for Caterpillar Equipment as that is the availability for parts and repair in Haiti. 

This week I received an e-mail from Steve Hanson, Global Pastor at Church of the Open Door in Maple Grove, MN.  He had visited Mother Teresa Sisters of Charity where the mission teams from Church of the Open Door usually spend some of their time in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti.

Much like the Real Hope For Haiti Rescue Center in Cazale, Mother Teresa’s provides care for sick, abandoned and dying children in Port-Au-Prince.  They are still outside in tents.   Steve Hanson asked what they needed and they said DIAPERS.  Licia, from Real Hope For Haiti will try to get some of the cloth diapers to them when they receive the container. 

In the meantime, we would love if people would “sew, baby, sew”!!

I don’t sew, but I googled cloth diaper patterns and you can find them online.  The diapers with ties on the front or velcro are great.  You can find ways to recycle T-shirts as diaper soakers and you can also find some fabulous and fun fabrics at www.verybaby.com if you don’t have a fabric shop nearby. 

Both the Rescue Center and Mother Teresa Sisters of Charity care for about 60 children and go through about 250-300 diapers a day.  The children typically are thinner with large stomachs.

Diapers can be sent to:

Debbie Woodward
Northrup King Building, Main Office
1500 Jackson Street NE
Minneapolis, MN  55413

THANK YOU to all who are blessing the children and families of Haiti by sewing and providing this GREAT NEED!