Something on my heart...

Hello Everyone!

It is hard to believe, but there are only 6 weeks left until our team leaves for Haiti!

It has been amazing the past 4 months growing as a team and God has definitely cultivated a heart within each of us for one another and for the Haitian people (and is continuing to enlarge our hearts more and more!) Our Father's love is being revealed in mighty ways day after day and it is so great because His love NEVER grows old!

This past week we have been increasingly encouraged as the Lord continues to bring forth the provision of money, hygiene supplies, and encouragement!

As a reader/ subscriber to this blog I would like to challenge you to be praying for the Haitian football (a.k.a. soccer) team. Apparently, the under-17 team had to withdraw from the big tournament as some team members have contracted malaria. Though there are only a few team members who contracted malaria, once those individuals return home it is very possible that an outbreak of malaria may occur due to lack of vaccination (be thankful to live in the U.S. and receive the vaccinations we do!). The fact that the living conditions of Haiti are still very poor and lack proper sanitation practices means that the spread of malaria is likely if a mosquito (or other carrier) sucks the blood of one of the infected individuals and then goes on to suck more peoples blood. However, we know that our Lord has His eyes on the Haitians! He sees the situation and nothing is out of His range of control!

I feel extremely blessed to live in the U.S. You see, when we are young most people receive vaccinations against such viruses that cause measles, etc. That is why, with the recent case of measles in Portland, there is not a huge worry because the majority of individuals have been vaccinated and are therefore we are not at risk for contracting the disease. Isn't that funny? That a few shots we get before we can hardly even speak can save our lives?! We are so blessed to live in the place we do! Therefore, let us take this blessing that the Lord has placed on our lives (ya, that's right, He has put you where you are for a purpose!) and take action! Let us pray for the protection of His people that do not have the luxuries that we have (yes, shots are luxuries... crazy right?! Bet you never thought about that one... and if you did, very nice!) Let us pray for the children, for the adults, for the elderly, for the workers, for the tent cities. God is coming to redeem Haiti. His plan will be made complete in his timing. His will will be done, on earth as it is in heaven!

We thank you for your prayers and your support as we prepare to leave! You are as big of a part of this trip as we are! Please feel free to share anything on your heart about Haiti and/ or our team (or anything! We would love to hear from you!)

God Bless!

Hygeine Kits!

Well, things are getting pretty busy here at PLU's campus - spring semester started yesterday, and I speak for myself at least when I say it's going to be suuuuuuuuuper busy! But more importantly, things are also starting to really get rolling for the Haiti trip! WOOOOO!

Our team has been preparing ourselves in prayer these past couple weeks, asking God to hone our hearts and focus towards Haiti - hard to believe the trip is only two months away! Now that we've got our basic project plans solidified (as Dan detailed in the last post), we can get to figuring out the details, and one of the first things we're getting started with is the hygiene kits. We'll be taking a portion of our budget and putting those together ourselves and bringing them over to Haiti with us. 

But wait! Those of you looking for an easy way to get involved in the effort alongside us, you can help us out immensely by contributing supplies towards these kits. The more kits we can put together, the more people we can give access to these essential hygiene tools in order to stop the spread of disease.

Here's a list of the items we're collecting for each kit:

1. Wash Cloth
2. Hand Towel
3. Shampoo bottle
4. Anti-bacterial Soap bottle
5. Toothbrush
6. Toothpaste tube
7. Comb
8. Neosporin tube
9. Nail Clipper
10. Nail File

11. Bandaids

For those of you who are somewhat near Tacoma, you can drop the items off with one of us or at PSCC (services 8:30, 10, and 11:35 AM on Sundays). Otherwise, if you can't get supplies to us but still want to help with the hygiene kits specifically, you can use the online form on the blog's main page and specify that your donation is to go towards the hygiene kits in the comments section. Just so you know, that part doesn't appear until the third page of the form, and this is what the it looks like:

There's a lot more going on in our prep work right now in addition to this. For instance, we're going to be spending time soon learning how to lead worship so that we can get the most out of the seminar we're leading - I'm excited for that! But I just wanted to highlight the hygiene kit thing so as to give a concrete example of exactly what we're doing this April!

Thanks for all your prayers and support so far! We've had some amazing instances of God providing financial support for our team - just in case we needed any more proof that God moves in mysterious ways!

Thanks for reading! 

In Christ,

 - David