So this is us, the 2010 Bolivia Team to Haiti! Made up of Patty, Lilian, Yovana, Karen, Cinthia, Analia, Carla; (back row L to R): Larry, Enrique, Edwin, Abdel & Jorge - we finished up as a nice biblical group of 12!
Our final Thursday night meeting was pretty solemn. We were leaving in 2 days. There were reports of a serious Cholera outbreak in Haiti & we still needed over $5,000 US yet to raise. We had managed to pay off our airfare, but didn't have a dime towards our housing, transportation or food costs once we got to Haiti . . . AHHHH!
We had everyone ring out thier pockets & hadn't come up w/ much and our plane left in a little over 1 day. What to do? There had been several friends from the States who'd commented they're going to give, but we hadn't received their offerings as of yet.
Friday was another day. We made our last to-do list. Patty set off in the a.m. I stayed behind to finish up some last minute street kids' ministry stuff at home. Trying to remain cool & collected was tough, but we finally got our last report of donations from our U.S. church. . .
That same morning, donations of over $4,000 were set to be deposited into our acct.! I couldn't believe it, but then again why do we ever doubt? We were sure that God had told us to go, He IS faithful & He was going to provide. Relief. . . the stress level just dropped like 40 decibels.
The day before, I'd written our contacts in Haiti sort of casually asking if we could pay 4 our stay by online donation to them either after we arrived or after we left Haiti. They quickly replied, um . . . no this is Haiti & everyone's tight on $, responding that they require all teams to have 100% of their fees (for housing, food & transportation) upon arrival.
Anyway, we had managed to come up w/ what was a boat load for us, and now only needed a little over $1000 to be totally covered; but even that was going to require ANOTHER step of faith as we were set to go to the airport that same night. There was no other way to go about it. I had to go cash a check for more than what was in our acct., believing (a) that the money was going to come in & (b) as I had been told, the check cashing service takes at least a week to withdraw the amount from the acct. It was a safe bet, but obviously not 100%, they could cash the check at anytime. We went for it, got our things together & didn't look back.
At the airport, several folks from the church, including Pastor Dilmar came out to give us a really nice send off. Everyone made it on time, except for Analia who was running late, & come to find out had forgotten her Yellow Fever card! They weren't going to let her go, we were scrambling for what to do. No one answered at her house, where she'd left the card. Finally, one of the airport attendants told us there was a doctor who comes to the airport, injects the vaccine & signs the yellow fever. So, that's what she did, & Analia got her boarding pass in the nick of time & all 12 of us were off!
THANKS FOR YOUR HELP & PRAYERS, & FOR COMING ALONG WITH US ON THIS LATEST MISSIONS VENTURE! AS ALWAYS, THIS TRIP DOESN'T HAPPEN W/O A LOT OF SUPPORT & PRAYER COVERING! THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR PART IN THIS & WE WILL HONOR GOD & DO OUR BEST TO EXTEND HIS KINGDOM IN HAITI!!!
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