New Blog Added - Real Hope for Haiti

My friend at World Wide Village shared this blog with me today and it's haunted me since I read through it. It's why Haiti needs your aid and your prayers. Pray for the children of Haiti and pray that more eyes are opened to the fact that just 700 miles off the coast of our country, children are dying due to lack of food. How wealthy are we? I read today that only 4% of the entire world makes more than $37,000 per year. As a nation, we are incredibly wealthy.

Here's a link to the blog - It's also on the right hand side of the page for future use. http://haitirescuecenter.wordpress.com/

I promise one day soon that I will start blogging on the Haiti Trip from September!

Also, be sure to visit the World Wide Village website - Link on the right. They are having a fundraising dinner on November 1st. If you can get to Minneapolis it would be great to see you there! I'll be there and they would sure love to have additional support. Check it out!

Haiti 2008 Slideshow

Serpent and the Rainbow

I know, I know......I'll be getting to the mission trip story shortly. I just keep coming up with little items I want to post.

Wade Davis wrote the Serpent and the Rainbow back in 1985 and it tells quite a story. Unfortunately, Hollywood got a hold of it a few years later and ruined it. Nonetheless, the book is excellent. I wanted to share one of my favorite quotes regarding Haiti. Having just returned, it sums up (and confirms) some of the emotion I feel.

"The nation baffled me. Stunned by her multitudes

awed by her mysteries, dumb founded by

her contradictions..........I paced."

- Wade Davis, The Serpent and the Rainbow

I love and miss Haiti already. Please pray for Haiti. - Dave

For Haiti and Her People

In pleasure's dream, or sorrow's hour,

In crowded hall, or lonely bower,

The business of my soul shall be

Forever to remember thee!

Benjamin Franklin

A Little Background Information

It'll be helpful if I provide a little bit of background information before I start detailing the journey. Most importantly the who's who. First of all - there are eight of us on the team. Four have been to Haiti before and four will be coming along for their first trip. That said - here's our team:

• Me, Steve, Barbara, Susan, Sarah, Christy, Nicole and Ralph
  

We also met up with six others in Miami who we did not know (yet). That completed our team and made it a nice 14 altogether. They are:

• Richard, Iva, Joseph, Eddie, Christy and Molly
  

There were many veteran Haiti Missionaries on this team. Richard, Iva and Joseph had all been coming for as many as eight years and Eddie was on his fourth trip this year! I knew as soon as we met up with these folks in the Miami airport that we were in for a great week. I was very excited.

As God does He put many different skill sets together on this team and the combination was perfect for the mission. Take a look at these skills:

Richard and Iva - Married couple who run an organization called Hope for Caribbean Kids Inc.

Molly - An ER nurse

Christy - A singer with a beautiful voice

Eddie - All around great guy who exudes joy; handyman and Mr. Fix It

Joseph - Photographer

Steve - Auto Repair, Small Engine Repair, everything repair, musician and a true servant

Nicole, Christy, Sarah, Ralph and Myself - Lovers of kids, uniform fabric cutters and distributors, picture takers, horse puncher (it's a long story - I'll share in another post) and lizard catchers.

Barbara and Susan - Worker bees, organizers, worshippers, bubble blowers, game players, lovers of kids, picture takers, gigglers and maternal figures for the rest of us.

These are not the complete list of skills within the team by any means but as you can tell we had quite the make up and were ready for action.

Disclaimer: Along the way I may skip a detail or not tell a story exactly right. Therefore I encourage comments from team members. If you're one of the 14 above and your reading along - please add comments and details. Get involved and make this blog come alive so we can share our experiences with more than just our loved ones. Sharing will help Haiti as others can be made aware of the great needs in this country we've all come to love so much.

Also, if you're not one of the 14 above and would like to comment - please do. It's how I know your out there and it makes it all the more exciting to know that someone is following along with our story. I'd love to hear from you.