Message from Wadler in haiti

For those of you wanting to know more info about the trouble in haiti, here is a message from Wadler gaston, one of the interpreters and a person that I consider as one of my brothers. You obviously don't have to help but if you would like let me konw.

Hi My dear friend,

It's very sad for me to tell you how I'm in graet sorrow ,cause there is earthquake in Haiti,I'm ok but My parents was traveleling at Port au prince I never Know If they are alive or not, cause no communication.

Let me tell you in this moment I'm living a hard life cause ,I don't know if my parents die or not.I know that your are praying for me.please Try to help me If it possible ,cause I need some money for surviving.if you able to help send it for me by this transfer company:C.A.M transfert,The phone of the company is:#1-800-9340440,or contact them on https://camtransfer.com/

Please understand My pain ,I'm waiting for your help.Khaki is already write me.
YOu can give the company my phone:50936521483


WAdler

School collapse in Port au Prince

More sad news. Again, it is the children who are suffering most.

Cut and paste:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hHOomf3U8hUR7ep44gyz4xKgtuOQD94AARDG1

Jim

The citadel video

Hey everyone here is the video Jerry was talking about. It's really cool!


Haiti Citadel

Possible project for Haiti

One of the big problems for Haitian families is obtaining charcoal for cooking. Here's a link to a solution found for families in Darfur:

https://shop.therainforestsite.com/store/item.do?itemId=31012&siteId=221&sourceId=211&sourceClass=Category&index=1

It's possible that we might obtain more information about the construction of these stoves and create materials to take with us.

Let me know what you think.

Jim

Generous Donation

Hi Team!
So.....my grandfather (mom's dad) has recently been moved into an assisted living home. As part of the whole moving and everything my mom and her sisters have had to take over his finances. There was/is a sum of money with which they planned on splitting up between various charities. Well after discussing it, they decided to give all $1000 to the Haiti trip!! I was really excited when I heard this and I wanted to to share it with all of you. I thanked them so much and said it was too much, I didn't want them do donate it all to Haiti, I felt bad but they insisted. I am so grateful and thank God for allowing them to come to that decision. So, you can imagine I have been in a wonderful mood since then :-)

Also, check your e-mails because I am going to send out a copy of the donation request letter I wrote. Feel free to change it to fit your specific needs. See you all on Sunday!

Thanksgiving Blessings

Well, I'm here at the hospital putting in a night shift in the operating room (it's my holiday rotation). Luckily, we've had no emergency surgeries so far tonight. Anyway, I was trying to find a way to keep myself awake (since I'm not a night owl) and decided to check out the latest updates on this blog. As I view the pictures and videos that Joe has posted, I can't help but feel thankful for all we have here in the U.S. As I looked at the picture of the little girl sitting in the street, I felt a sense of sadness for her, and yet, at the same time, it makes me thankful that my children are all safe with a roof over their heads. Numerous people have asked me why I want to go to Haiti, and sometimes I find my reasons hard to put into words. But I guess one of the reasons is because I feel so blessed in my life that I want to do all I can to share those blessings with others, even if it means doing something as simple as picking up a little girl out of the street and giving her a hug.
I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving, and don't forget to count your blessings. See you in a couple of weeks.
Pam

hey guys- just wanted to say i had a really great time yesterday at the retreat (sorry again for being so late) and at jim's. it was really nice getting to know everyone and being at jim's awesome house. see you tonight :)

More pictures and some thoughts for the day.

Here are some more pictures of Haiti, I hope you enjoy.



Thought for the day:

I was looking through my photos from Haiti and noticed this picture that is probably the most amazing picture I have ever seen. It is of a girl sitting all by herself in the middle of the road in Cap 'Haitian. There is nobody around that seems to care that this girl is in the street. (Click on it to see a bigger version of it)

To give you some background, this was about 1 hour after we started driving from the airport...one hour! There was no easing into Haiti, once you are there you are hit by this overwhelming since of poverty. However, what you will see by the week's end is the underlying sense of faith and hope that these people have, because in reality they don't have much else. I felt so much that first day, fear, hatred, anxiety, but yet through all the negatives it opened my eyes and I can say I am a better person for it and I really wouldn't want it to be any different. I ask you to take a look at this picture and reflect on it. I think it's powerful and I would love to hear your comments on this.

Haiti Pictures and Videos

Hey everyone, with this week focus being on the mass at St. Micheals I'd thought I would post a video of the mass that I went to when I was in Haiti. Notice the beautifully clean clothes!



Here's another video of all the kids of the school singing Haiti's national anthem.

Soccer Season

So as you all know I am on the Ball State Soccer team and we lost our semi-final match on Friday to Bowling Green in Penalty kicks :-( It was sad, we deserved to win but I guess it just wasn't our day. So now my soccer season is officially over and my soccer career at Ball State is also over since I am a senior. It is sad....a few tears were shed but there are a lot of positives too.
Well I just really wanted to blog something on here so this was what I came up with. See you all tomorrow :-)
- Laura

Jim's Blog address

I started my Blog simply as a way to make a diary that begins with my application to be on the team. With just a little trepidation I share the address with you. Please feel free to add your own post or comments at any time. Or email me at jjkirkwood.bsu.edu if you don't want to share your comment with the rest of the group.

http://bsuearlystart.blogspot.com
Jim

Hey everyone!

Jim-- you asked me to put up a more detailed description of what I mean by dress down days. I went to a Catholic High School and we had to wear uniforms. Once a month or so we were allowed to wear anything we wanted if we payed a dollar. The money we made from the dress down day would go to some worthy organization. I was able to convince my high school to donate the funds from one dress down day to our trip to Haiti last year. I know I explained this all at the meeting but this is just a reminder I guess. If anyone has access to something like this it would be a great fundraiser that, again, we don't really have to do anything for. Hope everyone had a great weekend! See you at the meeting tonight :)

Andrea

Pictures from Haiti

Here is a a little taste of Haiti. I put pictures here that have to do with the beauty that is Haiti. To show you, out of all the awful things going on, they have so much promise. Be patient for this to load, it may take a minute.


Also, here is a direct link to the thumbnail pictures if you don't want to wait for this slideshow to run its course.

Haiti Pictures.

How was everyones Halloween?

I wanted to see how everyone's Halloween went. Mine was full of driving to the grandparent's houses to show Eli's awesome costume off....check out his nice costume!

As you can tell, he went as the main penguin from the movie Happy Feet. All in all it was a good night and his costume was a hit!

I wanted to also let you know that I am working on the Haiti Meeting minutes right now and you should have them by tomorrow. I did want to get feedback about the dates that I think will be best for Jim's bonfire/heck of a good time. I looked at my calendar and the two best saturdays coming up would be November 10th or November 17th. Let me know which one is best for you.

One more important note is that Laura is having a BSU soccer Match this Sunday at 1:00-3:30. I will put this in the email as well but if any of you can come that would be great to support our team member.

In the Haiti news realm, I thought the article from Jim was very thought provoking, I would like to see what you guys thought about the article. So I would love to see your comments to get your thoughts. For me though, I haven't done much research about this topic but to me it seems very tough to accept. This could very well be true, and it's definitely sparked me to learn more about Haiti's history. It's hard to know what's the truth here, I guess I have to trust the U.S.'s judgement in that situation. However, their new president Preval seems to have the rights of the people in mind and even though Haiti's environment seems hopeless, I think there is a lot of hope among Haitians.

Now if they could stop getting hit by Hurricanes and Tropical Storms they could see a brighter future must faster.

An interview with Robinson

I mentioned the book about Haiti in the meeting two weeks ago. An interview was conducted with Robinson, the author. Here's a link to the article. I changed it to a .doc file and put it on my web site at:

http://jjkirkwood.iweb.bsu.edu/HEADLINE.doc

I have yet to receive the book, but Amazon said today that they had shipped it.

Jim

The face of Christ

Our mission, and the prayer that continued through our meeting today (Sunday, October 28, 2007) is reflected in Daily Meditation for October 28, 2007
Henri Nouwen Society [email_lists@henrinouwen.org] Here it is:

The Church as the body of Christ has many faces. The Church prays and worships. It speaks words of instruction and healing, cleanses us from our sins, invites us to the table of the Lord, binds us together in a covenant of love, sends us out to minister, anoints us when we are sick or dying, and accompanies us in our search for meaning and our daily need for support. All these faces might not come to us from those we look up to as our leaders. But when we live our lives with a simple trust that Jesus comes to us in our Church, we will see the Church's ministry in places and in faces where we least expect it.

If we truly love Jesus, Jesus will send us the people to give us what we most need. And they are our spiritual leaders.

Pretty cool, eh? The people that Jesus has sent us are those in Pam’s living room AND the people we will meet in Haiti.

Jim

Welcome to the Haiti Service Team Blog!!!!

Hey everyone! Thanks for joining this blog. Jim had a great idea to start this, and I know that he already has created one, but I thought it would be great to have a group one. Our goal for this is to have a forum for us to get to know each other, learn together about Haiti and to better prepare everyone for what we are going to experience when we are down there. So feel free to post anything, from pictures of your friends and family, to what you did last weekend, to your feelings on anything about this journey that is the service trip to Haiti.

Enjoy!!!! And start posting! If you have trouble we can talk more about it Sunday.

To get things started, I made a video about my trip to Haiti last time I went. This might give you a better idea about what it's like. Just click on it once and then push the play button and it should play.




See you Sunday!

Joe