Haiti Relief

There is a group from Mountains to Mississippi (the organization we work with in Pearlington) that is co-ordinating efforts to help with the relief in Haiti. The following is a message I received from one of the coordinators. If you are willing to help them, please go to this website: avmfaspen.org and click on the give a gift now button. Make sure to specify for Mountains to Mississippi--Haiti Relief.

Hello to All,

First, thank you all for sending your hearts, love and help to Mississippi when we were so desperately in need of support mentally, physically and financially. In case some of you do not know, Tom Dalesandri (Mountains to Miss. ) from the Carbondale Firefighters have stayed in touch with Pearlington and now the Stennis Rotarians will turn over a new Mobile Medical Clinic (MMC) January 22, 2010 for hurricane disaster response and community health clinics. Tom and I feel that P'Town is still in recovery mode and we are willing with our group of Katrina doctors (that most of you met) are willing to respond, if the community needs it.

However, the disaster in Haiti is so horrific; we have asked if we could take the MMC to Haiti or at least go in response to the medical need. At this time, we are pulling together a response team and ask you to call out to your community for help again mentally, physically, and financially.

Mountains to Mississippi is the 501C3 that the money will go to and Tom is organizing the work teams. I am helping coordinate the medical teams. We will need doctors, nurses, EMT's, meds, and money initially for our first team. After we go and assess, we will return and update all.

Dr. Bill Gossman is heading there tomorrow. He will assess and keep us posted. Please keep him in your prayers. There are thousands of lives lost and they need medical help desperately! There will lots of amputations because of lack of medical care and loss of blood.

Paula Buhr, RN

A letter

This is not the letter from Ms. Donna I've talked about in previous posts. This one just came this weekend. This is why we keep going back to Mississippi:

To my Wonderful Friends in California,

It is people like you that are willing to give to us who continue to struggle post-Katrina. People like you are few. It seems that Mississippi continues to be smothered out by the New Orleans shadow. I do know God will continue to work for us through you all and others like you.

I do know that God sent you all to me. I think Him for that everyday. The gift of hope, love and encouragement that you all gave me is priceless. Thank you!

One day, when God decides, my house will be restored. For now I take one day at a time.

I have many things to be thankful for--two fantastic children, Nicolas and Ashley, my son-in-law, Brent, a beautiful one year old granddaughter, Avery, another grandchild due in June, both parents--82 and 78 years old, four sibling, nieces, nephews, great nieces, great nephews and good friends. Most of all, I thank God for giving us His son so that we may have eternal life.

In closing I want to say I have heard many empty promises since Hurricane Katrina. You all have given me action behind your words. When my new found friends left, they assured me that I would not be forgotten. Thank you for everything. My love and prayers are with each of you.

Love,
Donna J.

Haiti

The images I've seen from Haiti remind me of what we saw, on a much smaller scale, that first trip to Mississippi. Tom, from Mountains to Mississippi, sent out an email yesterday saying that he is investigating the possibility of sending a team to Haiti to help with the recovery efforts. If more information comes from him, I will pass it along.

In the meantime here are a couple of links to places that are helping with the relief efforts. Please consider sending donations to these agencies.

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance

Compassion International

World Vision

The wash

There's an old saying that everything will come out in "the wash". So here's our wash for this last Mississippi trip. The numbers are almost final, so I feel very confident in saying WAY TO GO TEAM!!!!

We brought in a total of $18,648. If the receipts stay the way they are now we've spent $17,377. Do you see the difference? That's about $1200 that we brought in that we didn't spend...which means we can send it on to our friends in Pearlington who need the help. Woo-hoo!

I completely forgot, in the insanity that was the last day in Mississippi...our New Orleans day...to buy Ralphie/Jeffy his prize beignets for getting the most PayPal Donations. He came out ahead with 19 donations through PayPal, though Ellen got 6 and Debbie got a last minute two to add up to a whopping 4 online donations. Thanks to all who played!

And, I did a little math and figured out that about 130 households/people sponsored our team of 19 people. Thank you so much! We couldn't have made the trip without you.

The next post will be pictures from Ms. Donna's house, along with the letters she left for the team. Be prepared to get a little teary.

Captain John & Joel's House in Pictures

Ellen with Captain John

Joel sharing his Christmas present with Emily and Steven

Long delay

So sorry for the long delay between blogs. If you haven't heard...we're home! If you are in the general area of Felton at 9am or 11:15am on Sunday morning, then drop by Felton Presbyterian Church and hear about the trip in person! Pictures and stories will be prevalent in the worship service.

Keep watching this space as well. Some of the team members will be sharing their thoughts in the next few weeks. There is still a lot to mull over.

In other news, our fundraising has gone well, though we are still about $1000 behind our goal, our expenses were not as much as we had anticipated, which is fantastic. An announcement about that should be forthcoming within the week.

Thanks, again, for your support, encouragement, love and prayers. God is good.