Looking back on 2009 - Looking ahead to 2010

Here we are at the start of 2010 and it seems appropriate to look back on 2009, not to bring any praise on ourselves but to marvel at the incredible provision of God. The brief synopsis of the activities of His Hands for Haiti for 2009 looks like this -

Total number of team trips to Haiti - 2

Total number of team members on those trips - 35

Total number of children "processed" on those trips - 1301

Total number of children sponsored for the 2008-2009 school year - 1029

Total number of sponsors - 500

In 2009 we continued with our ongoing support of His House - the home for orphaned and abandoned children with Mme. Christian as housemother. There were 11 children in residence for most of the year after 1 child relocated and another child went to live with an older sister, making room for another little girl to take her place.

We also continued with our ongoing support of Marie Noel's Saturday Feeding program which has grown to over 100 children being fed each Saturday. We were able to contribute to a much-needed improvement of providing benches for the children to sit on while they eat, which has helped things to go much more smoothly.

We also helped with financial support for the medical needs of a young girl from the community of Danda who is still in the process of correcting a life-threatening birth defect. She has had several surgeries so far, the last one being late in 2009, with more to come. The end of 2009 saw her doing well and recouperating back in her home village, preparing for more surgery in a year.

We were also able to begin a program for the sponsorship of teachers and other staff members of the school in Terrier Rouge. This program will help provide the teachers' monthly salaries.

Lastly we were told about a program being run by one of our partner Pastors in the village of Danda which provides a goat for a child and their family. We were able to share this information with our sponsors who have responded to this opportunity to help in a tremendous way - enabling us to be able to send over $1,000 to Haiti to help provide goats for this program.

We are so thankful to God for allowing us to be His servants and for His incredible blessing on this ministry. None of these things would have been possible without His guidance and direction and without Him bringing in the increase. "Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory because of Your love and faithfulness." Psalm 115:1

Looking ahead to 2010, we're starting the year with 1023 children sponsored so we expect to bypass our total number of children sponsored for the previous school year. We have 2 team trips to Haiti planned for 2010. The dates for the first trip are March 10 - 24 and the dates for the second trip are September 27 - October 13. We already have quite a list of names of possible team members for both trips and we are looking forward to great team trips with many "veteran" team members as well as quite a few "newbies".

This month marks the 8th year anniversary of our first trip to Haiti. We never would have imagined what God had planned for us but we are so thankful that His ways are higher than ours. We will continue to walk in the good works He has planned for us until He closes the door or calls us home. Thank you so much for your continued prayer and support. We look forward in anticipation of the good works God has planned for us in 2010!

For Him and for the children,

Jamie