We need your Prayers!!!

I am putting a plea out for your prayers!! As the time gets closer and closer to our departure, we need all the prayers we can get!

- Please pray for God to prepare our Hearts to receive His graces while we are with the people in Haiti.
- Please pray for God to provide the necessary funds for us to accomplish our project.
- Please pray for Tom Braak and Jean Rony and Fr. Alexis - the people we will be working with in Haiti - that they can guide us down the right path while we are there.
- Please pray for our families that they will be able to experience the same graces through the experiences that we have and that God will calm their worries and give them the strength while we are away.

Thank you so much for all your prayers. They mean so much to all of us!!

Hands for Haiti "Team June"

Tax Exempt Status...

We have applied for tax exempt status and should be getting that number shortly. But... we had to change our name. We are now HANDS FOR HAITI !!!

Fundraisers!!!

We have 2 fundraisers scheduled!!

GARAGE SALE

to benefit Haiti Trip!

Memorial Weekend

7720 S. 47 Rd.

Cadillac (near Berry Lake)

SPAGHETTI DINNER

to raise $ for house materials

Tuesday, June 8th

5:00 pm - 8:00 pm

St. Ann School Gym

only 37 days left !!!

Wow, only 37 days until our 1st group leaves for Haiti !! We have our airline tickets and we had our planning meeting. Please check the blog regularly for updates! We will be adding every few days.

OK - this is where we need your help again!! Only $5000 US will build a home for a refugee family in the village of Verrettes! And we only have 37 days to raise the needed funds!

Luke 11:9 says, "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." The door has opened for us to help our brothers and sisters in Haiti. Now we are seeking assistance. Please consider helping us help others. You can send a donation to Hope for Haiti to the address on the side bar. We are also having a Spaghetti Dinner fundraiser. Please check back for the date.

Most of all, please pray for us! We are working for the Lord now and when you commit yourself to doing His works, many times satan comes in and makes it difficult. Please pray that we keep the armor of Christ close to us and remember to rely on Him when the going gets tough - because it will!!

The Hope for Haiti 'Team June'

1st Group Trip !!!!

This is exciting news!!! We are currently planning our first group mission trip!!!

Date: Wednesday, June 23 – Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Goal: To build a home while we are there. We estimate that we will need to raise approximately $5,000 for this.

Tentative Home Building Mission Itinerary:

Day 1 – Wednesday travel! Stay night in Port au Prince
Day 2 – Thursday am - volunteer Mother Theresa’s Home for Malnourished Babies
pm – drive to Verrettes where we will be staying and working
Day 3 – Friday work on house
Day 4 – Saturday work on house
Day 5 – Sunday Church and Children’s Tree Nursery
Day 6 – Monday work on house
Day 7 – Tuesday Hike into mountains
Day 8 – Wednesday Travel home

Need ASAP!!
 Your commitment and enthusiastic desire to serve the people of Haiti!!

** We can only take 10 people on this trip. Please let me know if you are interested!!
More details will follow. We are still working on those.

Planning Meeting with Tom from FIAI

Last week Thursday I had a meeting with Tom from Faith in Action International in Haiti. I got to meet his wife and 8 month old son for the first time. They are both beautiful! They were very excited to see my pictures and video from our trip because they were not able to be there when Jake and I were there.
Tom and I were able to discuss plans for another trip. I am very excited to be taking a group down to Haiti in the end of June. We will be building a house to be rented to a refugee family that needs help getting back on their feet. We also discussed long term plans. So many people have showed an interest in going to Haiti to help give the people there a chance for a better life. By coming up with this long term plan, we will be able to do just this. This is so exciting!!! Our immediate plans are to build a home this June and one also in November. We can take 10 people in June and hopefully 15 in November. I am hoping that we can send 4 groups next year and grow from there. I already have 5 people confirmed for the June trip. If you are interested in going on a trip, please let me know. Please keep checking the blog for more information to come. I will post the details as I get them. This first group trip in June will be our pilot mission. After this one, we should have a better idea of what we need to plan for. Please consider keeping us on your charitable donation list and as always, please keep us in your prayers.

Tentative Home Building Mission Itinerary:
Day 1 – Wednesday travel! Stay night in Port au Prince
Day 2 – Thursday am - Mother Theresa’s Home for Malnourished Babies
Thursday pm – drive to Verrettes where we will be staying and working
Day 3 – Friday work on house
Day 4 – Saturday work on house
Day 5 – Sunday Church and Children’s Tree Nursery
Day 6 – Monday work on house
Day 7 – Tuesday Hike into mountains
Day 8 – Wednesday Travel home

Yes, finally a new blog post!!!!

Sorry everyone. I totally apologize!! It's been almost 2 months since my last post. Life has been really crazy lately for us on the homefront - but back to reality! I just want to extend my utmost thanks to everyone who helped us make this mission trip possible. And just so you know, all of you who donated will be getting a letter and picture page - so watch your mail!

Well, God has been working overtime in our lives and opening doors for us! I am excited to announce that we will be making another trip to Haiti in June, but taking a group this time. I will write more on this later. KEEP WATCHING POSTS!!!

More pictures are also coming. I haven't quite figured out the video thing yet, but Jake will be home from college this week to help me.

I just want to recap what you helped us accomplish during our last trip:
These are the accomplishments that YOU made happen:

- talked to the director of civil affairs at the UN compound in St. Marc to better understand the needs of Haiti since the earthquake
- we supplied school supplies to over 700 PAP refugee students in Verrettes and 100 refugee students in Liancourt
- met a young man who followed his dream and recently started an English school but needs a small generator for lights so he can hold classes in the evening,
- built 5 shelters and funded 10 more in Port au Prince and started an ongoing project there
- saw first hand how Faith in Action International (FIAI) is helping the Haitian earthquake refugees-
- visited 3 groups doing soil conservation in the mountains and helped them make rock rows to prevent erosion,
- visited a tree nursery project that supplies mango and avocado trees to the poor in the mountains to plant,
- found a possible guest house to use for groups to come to Haiti in Verrettes.
- Began a relationship to send more groups in the future to help the Haitian people
- Encountered Christ everywhere we went!!!

Thank you again for your support!!!

Keep Watching Posts!!

Yes! We are in Miami. Our flight wasn't able to get out of Haiti on time so we missed our connecting flight. We did get booked on a new one and will be on our way. Just a note to please continue to check our blog throughout the next week also. We will be posting other pictures and videos about our trip and about what FIAI does in Haiti. A number of you have conveyed an interest in going down there. If you do, please let me know. A note to the St. Agnes/Sacred Heart group - I saw Vivian and Patrick at Matthew 25 this morning. I took some pictures for you. Fr. Joe - the room you stayed in is no longer there! They are fine though and say hi. Stay tuned!

Bonjours ami (good morning friends in Creole),
It's 5:15 am and we are on our way to the airport in PAP to start our journey home. Even though we had a wonderful time here, it will be good to be home. We were very busy for our short time here. We met so many wonderful people that we will miss very much, but I have a feeling we will see them soon. I don't think we'll be able to keep Jake away from here too long. He really connected with the people and made some really good friends. When we get back in the states, I will give account of all that we accomplished. Pray for our travel home and for now au revoir!

Day in Verrettes - Mountains

Hi again. It’s Thursday evening and we are relaxing at Fr. Alexis’ after another fantastic meal. Our plans changed a little today. We were supposed to go into the mountains to install a water filtration system, but it was raining in the mountains and unsafe for us to go. You have to hike up the mountain and there are many cliffs you can slide down when it is wet. We were disappointed as we were really looking forward to going, but we ended up going to another project instead that was just as interesting. Because of the number of refugees from PAP that need food and money, Faith in Action International (FIAI) has created jobs for them that benefit both the refugees and Haiti. Instead of giving them handouts, they are employed by FIAI to help with soil conservation. It is best if I can post the video explaining it. We also had to hike up a mountain for this, but not as far. After this, we visited a tree nursery. FIAI grows trees to be given to the poor in the mountains to replant so they can grow their own fruit – mangos and avocados. It was a very good day. I saw a lot of opportunities for the Haitian refugees from PAP.

Tomorrow we leave for home. Please pray for safe travel for us. On another note, please say an extra prayer for our family. We lost our beloved Boomer this morning. He was our faithful companion for 13 ½ years and he will be missed terribly. I don’t know who is having a harder time with this – me or the kids!!

Thank you everyone for all your support for our trip. Please be patient with the videos. It seems that they are scrolling between our Haiti videos and some other funky ones. You just have to go back and forth into the site and ours will pop up if they haven’t already.

Peace and hope to all of Haiti and all of you!

Day in Port au Prince

Good morning. Today is Thursday. Yesterday Jake and I went to Port au Prince for the day to help build shelters for the people affected by the earthquake that are living in tents. We didn't exactly know how it was going to go.

I didn't write anything last night because I really didn't know what to say and needed some time to process everything that happened during the day. I could give you all an account of where we went and what we did, but I don't think its all about that. So I'll skip the details for this post and tell you what we experienced.

There were so many people without proper homes. They were so hopeful that we would choose them to build a shelter. How do you choose? As Jake already said, "How do you help one and not the other?" There were so many, even in the smaller area we were in, that we began to feel overwhelmed. Their eyes looked at us like we were their saviours - but we're not. Only Christ is. What were we doing there? How could we begin to help them? What were we thinking? Who did we think we were? I struggled with this. Seeing their desperate faces, trusting us even though they didn't know us. I was getting discouraged. My heart felt very heavy. I didn't want it to be all about how it made ME feel.

God calls us to be servants. He calls us to remember those less fortunate than us. He himself humbly washed the feet of His own disciples. Jesus wants us to follow his example, so become His hands and His feet. He look into the eyes of the hopeful and give them all the hope we can. We are just each one person, but when we love as Christ loved, we become Christ to them.

What were we doing yesterday? Who did we think we were? We were giving as much hope and love as two regular people from northern Michigan could bring to a little spot in Haiti. We had the honor to be Christ's feet and hands to someone in need - if but only for a day.

You can visit our video feeds to see what we did :)

Li di se kèk bay, epi lòt moun pa...

It is hard to give to some, and not to others...

-Jake

Tuesday - School Supplies for Refugees

Wow, what a day today. It may seem like that's all we did today was pass out school supplies, but it was an unbelievable experience and we met some wonderful people!!

Unfortunately, the UN meeting we were to attend is tomorrow, not today. We discovered this when we showed up with a group of 5 people and were the only ones there. A miscommunication error. As it turned out, because of the confusion, the minister of civil affairs met with us personally and he spoke ENGLISH! I was able to chat with him a little about the immediate needs for relief for the victims of the earthquake and get his perspective on what help they would like. For me, it was probably more informational without the meeting.

This also gave us more time to devote to the purchase and distribution of school supplies. This is what we did the remainder of the day. A man by the name of Nixon who is part of a group called CLAV (translated in English it stands for Club of Friends in Verrettes.) They help with what is needed in their village. Nixon diligently helped us with our mission. Now let me tell you that this was "no small task!" It took us 2 whole hours to find notebooks, pencils and pens!! We went to a total of 4 stores and all through the market in Saint Marc to find supplies. Not like just going to Wal-mart. We purchased $800 American dollars ($6,240 in Haitian) in notebooks, pens and pencils. We literally loaded up the back of Jean Rony's pickup truck! Then off to Verrettes to visits schools and hand them all out! The village of Verrettes has received over 1000 school aged refugees from Port au Prince and these are the students that received the supplies. They arrived with not a single piece of paper or pencil. We only had time to visit 3 schools today. They will continue distributing them tomorrow. At each school we first had to speak with the principal or headmaster, then the principal would have us speak (with Jean Rony or Nixon translating) in front of each classroom. At the first school, there were 9 classrooms. This was the public high school in town. The girls really liked when Jake shook his hair - they giggled - it was cute! We did this at each school, then we passed out the supplies to the refugee students. It was a very exhausting day, but a very good one.

It was amazing to be with Jean Rony and with Nixon. They both just want to serve their people. We would talk to the students and tell them that we are from the same family. Brothers and sisters helping brothers and sisters. I saw Christ in both the dedicated teachers and the wide inquisitive eyes of the students and in the servanthood of our new friends.

Tomorrow...Port au Prince to build shelters. I will try to post pictures tomorrow night!!

First day in Haiti!!

We arrived in Port au Prince at about 9:30 am. It was a little crazy leaving the airport, but we finally located Fr. Alexis. We were able to view some of the devastation from the earthquake as we navigated our way through Port on our way to Liancourt. You can see many of the tent communities where people have set up sheets to live under. You also see rubble everywhere. They are beginning to clean up the debris, but it is still in piles. I took many pictures in Port, but I am having difficulty downloading them. My camera chip isn't fitting in Jake's laptop, so I may have to see if someone else has a computer I can download into. I will work on this as I really wanted to share the pictures with you.

It is good to see Fr. Alexis and his village again. We took a drive around to show Jake the surroundings. As always, it is amazing to see how people live in a 3rd world country. It makes me very thankful for all that we are blessed with. But the Haitian people are still happy. They have strong faith!!

Tomorrow we are leaving in the morning to attend a UN meeting in Saint Marc regarding relief services. Tom Braak from FIAI cannot attend this meeting and asked if I would go. Jean Rony will be there to translate if needed. After that we will stop at the YWAM office in Saint Marc to purchase school supplies for the refugee school children. We will be distributing these later in the afternoon.

Wednesday we are off to build shelters in Port au Prince and Thursday we will be hiking to the mountains to install a water filtration system.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers. We love you all!!
Debbi and Jake

We are finally boarding the plane to Haiti. There are many relief workers and medical teams on the plane with us. Everyone seems to have an interesting story about where they are going and where they've been. I won't be able to post again until we get to Liancourt later this evening. We are supposed to spend the day in Port...but then we'll have to see when we get there. Fr. Alexis will be at the airport to receive us. Jean Rony from FIAI will be with him. Au revoir for now.