Haiti

Last year, Jake came home from school and said, "Mom, we need to go to Children of the Promise and help there.  It's in Haiti."

Children of the Promise is an orphanage; their stateside director had been at the kids' school and talked about what it was like there and the school organized a diaper drive.  Jake was really inspired to do more, so we had a garage sale and sent the money to the orphanage.  But that wasn't enough, so we started planning.

We originally had hoped to go during Christmas break last year, but Scott couldn't get enough time off work, so it got pushed to summer.  When we were telling some friends about it, they said, "We want to come, too."  So, they are.  They have two kids - a boy in Jake's class and a girl a few years younger than Maggie.  Jon is an ENT, so he and Scott are taking antibiotics, etc. and will do whatever needs doing.  The rest of us will help out where we are needed.  I am excited and terrified all at the same time.

I think the terror comes from bringing my children along.  I do not relish the thought of being in the city with them when we fly in - I am not worried about things at the orphanage.

I have a couple of prayer requests, if you have a moment.  We are all less than healthy right now and we leave on Friday.  I have been sick for a week - sore throat, fluid in my ears, sinus pressure, and now a bad head cold and cough.  It will not go away.  Please pray the kids don't get this; although both of them are complaining about not feeling well already.  I think Scott is also in the middle of it.  Blech.  And just pray that we would be useful to the people there - we don't want to be a burden.

I feel very unprepared to go right now; we ended up listing our house and had a showing yesterday. I will explain all of that later - we are still not moving to AZ. We also had company all weekend and have a realtor open house on Tuesday, so pray that I would get it together and not forget anything vital (like our passports...)