Stephanie and I were discussing the email from Haiti, when Howard's response arrived, "I was reading it with tears in my eyes, thinking how humbling it is to be a part of such. It is so easy to touch lives around the world, or over the oceans, with so little effort. Why did I wait so long? "

We wanted to tell all of you who helped how things turned out. Once again, however, this will only be an update, as we see our mission is not over.

The treasure God has provided our ministry is partnering with people of like minds.  We do not give blindly. We target a need and God provides the conduit to meet that need.  In this situation, Children of the Promise was our conduit to Haiti.

We will update you, as our plans progress.

Donna, Stephanie, and Howard

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Hello Stephanie,

My name is Jamie Groen and I am the current field director at Children of the Promise in Haiti. I wanted to tell you how grateful we are for all your time and efforts, as well as the amazing donations. They were so needed here. Not only did you guys bless us with a little, you overwhelmed us with your generosity. Getting the amount we got of each thing is such a blessing because it gives us some breathing room for a several months. Prior to the earthquake, we would often go week to week wondering if we would have enough things like snacks. We rely mostly on them being donated through the mail, so there have been times we have had none at all. When we get a shipment like this, it is one less thing to worry about for a while. 

We were also able to distribute some of the cheerios to our nannies families. They have been greatly affected by the quake as well, with the large volume of people coming to this area. They haven't seen the aid that others have seen either. In Haiti, they refer to all cereal as Corn Flakes, if that tells you anything about the variety they have to choose from. They were excited to get the Cheerios.

We are still giving our kids the baby food you sent. We actually made it a regular part of their diet. It has been a blessing because it can be very difficult to get in regular servings of fruits and vegetables.

The crutches I would call a blessing in disguise. When they first arrived, we thought like everyone that we would be able to find plenty of need for them out of the quake injuries. We work with a nearby hospital in Milot, and we expected they would take a lot of them for their patients. When we talked to them, we realized that they were already overwhelmed with more than they could use, a couple containers full actually. So we held on to them and kept our eyes open for those who could use them. Our nannies started to hear that we had them on hand and they began telling us about people they knew who could really use them. There are a lot of elderly people in this area who have a lot of issues with walking. Crutches and walkers are not an option for them, there is not any organization here that distributes them to the elderly and they can't afford to buy them. So our nannies began to tell us stories of family members, neighbors, and people from their churches who could really use the crutches. We have already given away a large portion of them now. It is amazing how it all worked out though. Your gift allowed our nannies to be a conduit of blessing. They got the chance to do community work through your gifts.

One other quick story to tell. There is a little boy in our community who was born with a handicap that makes it difficult for him to walk. He is one of the most active little boys we have around, as he can still be seen walking several miles a day with something to assist him. If he has a crutch, he uses it. If not, it is a stick or a friend or he hops. We were able to give him a new set of crutches, just his size. He actually wore the first out in about a month and a half. We have given him another since. It is great to see how happy he is though. I've included a picture of him. We also took some pictures of our kids with some of your donations. It was difficult to get pictures on the day your stuff came in because it came in mixed with other donations.

We just want to say thanks again and let you know it was such a blessing down here. Please pass this along to anyone who was involved. We would love to meet some of you if you are ever interested in coming down and serving with us.

Thanks,
Jamie Groen
Field Director
Children of the Promise

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We had great news from Jan and Bud Bonnema, Children of the Promise Orphanage.

If you remember, Children of the Promise is in need of supplies, due to the earthquake in Haiti. The last weekend in January, we drove medical supplies and food to Agape Flights in Venice, Florida.

Unlike big groups, Agape Flights can fly into Haiti, landing their plane on a grass field. The lines of communications  are very difficult, due to all the needs at the orphanage, but they did call yesterday.

The orphanage staff met the plane in the open field to receive 1/2 of our shipment.  What a blessing to know all your generous gifts are already in the hands of the kids.

We can never say it enough, we are humbled by your gifts of love.  May God bless each of you who helped us collect supplies, clean and pack crutches, prayed for our journey, people who just dropped by to give money to pay for gas to make the trip, and donated funds to help us purchase food.