Haiti Planning Continues

It is scary how fast it seems that January is going to be upon us. I have announced the mission trip on my Facebook account, but so far not too much traffic from that. I suspect no new donations have come in, but I will let it simmer for a while, before I go an check.

I have been attempting to learn Creole by tape. At points it is hard to believe that Creole has a common heritage with French. Someone made the comment to me that Creole is almost like a slang version of French. I can see that. The one thing that I like about it so far is it hasn't yet made me deal with the gender of nouns. Maybe that will come later, but it is always an aspect of language that I hated and could never get right.

I am also wondering about the best way to start spreading the word abou the mission trip at the Church. I suspect I will try to set up a small table in the coffee hour after church, but not sure yet what I would put on the table and not sure what questions I can actually answer about the trip. All I really know are the dates. I don't know where we will be staying or the location that the school will be built. I am going a bit on faith here and assume it will all work out in the end. I do wish I had some idea of what the school would look like so that maybe I could bring pictures or a mockup of some type.

Tonight I will have to spend some time praying on this. One thing that came up in last Monday's Bible study is that as Christians we are meant to pray before action. This is something I need to work on as I usually focus on the action.

Helping to Build a School in Haiti

In March 2010 I participated on a mission trip to Haiti that provided medical clinics and food distribution. This trip made quite an impact on me and I vowed to return to Haiti when I could. I had originally planned to go back to Haiti in October, then November, but as you might expect plans and Haiti sometimes do not always see eye to eye.

The trip is now firming up and it will be from January 8 to the 16th. The group will consist of 10 to 20 people and we will be helping build a school in the suburbs of Haiti. Within the Haitian culture a building, such as this, is far more than a school as it becomes a focal point for the community.

This January, it will be a year since the earthquake, but if you look at Port-au-Prince the signs of change are few. There is still rubble in the street, trash in the storm drains, and tent cities cover any open space. This is truly a people still in need.

Part of a mission trip is helping others; another part is learning to rely on others. On this mission trip I will be striving, with God's help, to help the Haitian community through friendship and construction. In order to participate on this missions trip I have to rely on others; not only while in Haiti, but while preparing to go to Haiti.

To this end, the cost of the mission trip is between $1,900 to $2,000, which is used to cover travel, housing, food, translators, cooks, drivers, vehicles, construction materials, and construction supervisors. The philosophy of the mission group with which I participate is to hire local people, so cooks, drivers, translators, and construction supervisors tend to be local Haitians so that we are not simply a group that comes in and leaves a void. The point is to start a project so that after we leave it can be continued both with future mission trips and local workers.

I would appreciate your help in funding this trip. If you would like to help you can send checks to:

Acton Congregational Church

c/o Haitian Mission Trip / David Bainbridge

12 Concord Road

Acton, MA 01720

If you have any questions please drop me an email at davidk.bainbridge@gmail.com or comment on this or any post and I will reply as best as I am able.

Haiti in January

I have not updated this blog as often as I had plan and I need to become more disciplined about that. But, I wanted to let everyone know that the mission trip to Haiti to work on construction of a school/clinic looks to be on track for January 8 to 16, 2011. The costs for this trip have greatly increased over what I expected and that of the trip to the Dominican Republic last year. The projected cost is about $1,900 to $2,000 v. the $1,400 the Dominican trip cost last year.

I have been prayerfully considering this mission trip as with a daughter now in college, another in a private high school, and our other commitments, expenses can be rather tight. An additional issues is that there is another mission trip to the Dominican in March as our church works to make the trip to the Dominican an annual event. Based on everything, I have to make a choice to participate in only a single trip as it does not seem possible to be able to afford both. Based on my prayer, I feel that I am being pulled toward Haiti and thus plan to go on this trip and not the Dominican trip. This is a hard choice because of the trip to the Dominican will have an aspect of a reunion as it will likely involve some of the same individuals that participated from last year.

Now the hard work begins. That hard work is the preparation for the mission trip. This includes the fund raising effort. In general I find fund raising hard as I have difficulty asking others for "personal" help, but that is required for the mission trip and is part of my training for mission work as it requires an individual to humble themselves and ask for and receive help.

Mahalo and God Bless,

/david

PS. The photo above is not of the actual school we will be working on, it is a photo I found on the internet, but felt a visual of some sort was needed.