"How can I help?"

Over the past few weeks I have gotten many variations of this question. At first the response was to help support me financially towards paying for my trip. God was incredibly faithful and filled that need in a two week span.

Next was to donate to purchase supplies. But now, at this point, our packing party is Tuesday and I have already filled one large suitcase with supplies to take because of donations.

Now with 4 days until I leave, the main way that you can help is to pray.

There are 15 of us going, a few who have never been to Haiti before, and a few of us who have.

Please pray for our flights:
We will be driving down to Pittsburgh Thursday evening and staying the night.
The next morning we will be flying out at 6:00 AM to JFK in New York City. We will leave JFK around 9:00 AM on our flight into Port au Prince. We will arrive in PAP in the afternoon, and then drive to Gressier. I am estimating that we will be at the mission between 3 and 4 PM Friday.

When we return, we will fly out of PAP at 2:00 PM and arrive at JFK at 6:00 PM on Friday March 1st.
We will then fly from JFK at 8:00 PM and arrive back in Pittsburgh at 10:00 PM.
We will drive back to Erie and arrive at Church of the Cross at around 1:00 AM Saturday March 2nd. I will be back in my house, in my bed, God willing, by 2:30 AM.

Please pray for our travels within Haiti. While I was never afraid of in country travels when I was there last year (with the exception of my first drive to the beach where to look of the edge of a mountain from a dirt road), driving can be frightful. When roads are poorly (or not) paved, it means pot holes. I don't even complain about Erie pot holes anymore because I drove through some in Cap that would probably get their own zip code if they were in the states. When these pot holes filled with water, had they been in Africa, they would cause territory disputes between wild life. HUGE. Just a couple of months ago there was a team who was in a very tragic bus accident. I won't go into specifics, but it brought to reality the potential danger that is present on the roads.

Please pray for our health. In Haiti there is the ever present risk of Travelers Diarrhea which is caused by the different bacterias that are present in the environment that our delicate American stomachs are not used to. One can contract TD by eating something cooked with water that has not been purified or eating fruits or vegetables that have not been properly cleaned in safe water. There is also the risk of Malaria, which is transmitted through mosquito bites. There are other possible diseases as well, but they are contracted through doing things like drinking unclean water, mostly. Also there is the possibility of catching any number of illnesses through the flights and airports. I prefer just not to think about these things.

For the Mercyhurst students and Professors, we have finals Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So, obviously, there is any number of stressors there in general, let alone planning to leave the country for the entirety of your school break (classes for the Spring Term start March 4th).

I have been completely overwhelmed by God's provision for this trip. The brief amount of time that I was funded within and the amount of donations of supplies and money I received blew me away. So far God has definitely done things that I would not have believed even if He had told me three months ago. Thank you all so much for your support!