Helping Hands for Haiti

Reprinted from my friend Emily's blog.
Stepping Stones:a path to healing after the loss of a child

Healing Hands for Haiti

I have been following the news from Haiti but haven't been sure what to do to help. The stories of loss and tragedy are terrible. And then like a light in the darkness, I found out about this project: Healing Hands for Haiti, and in particular, the Utah Hospital Task Force.

A friend of mine from church is friends with the girl, Erin, who walked in to offer her services in 'social network marketing' and then 6 hours later left the offices finding herself appointed as the new press secretary and scheduled to leave on Friday on a plane to Haiti.

They have organized a team to fly down Friday with the anticipation to send future teams as resources allow. The team is comprised of volunteer medical and construction personnel, including previous LDS missionaries to Haiti to act as translators. It is not an LDS (Mormon) organized group although a great number of them are members of the LDS church.

I've been obsessed with following her activity as she gets ready to leave. Her personal blog can be found here

I know many of you have already donated in other ways to Haiti. Thank you. Let me just do my little part and pass along this request from Erin: (I particularly love the fact that the airplane will be filled with orphans on the return trip.)

The Utah Hospital Task Force will deploy Thursday to Haiti to help the victims of the devastating earthquake just a few weeks ago. The team of 150 volunteers of doctors, nurses, translators and other professionals are going to Haiti to help rescue the displaced, homeless, and sick children. Many orphanages were destroyed in the earthquake on January 13, 2010. Another after shock this past week has created an even more desperate situation. Stories of toddlers wandering alone in the streets, children found sleeping alone in abandoned and dangerous buildings, and more heartbreaking, horrible tales continue to come out of Haiti daily. The Utah Hospital Task Force, along with Healing Hands for Haiti (an existing charitable organization) will be working to quickly provide medical care for the children, rebuild their orphanages, and when possible, bring them safely to the United States.

The Utah Hospital Task Force airplane will deliver the volunteers to Haiti on Thursday night, and will quickly be filled with orphans who will fly to Utah to meet their waiting adoptive families. Please help us bring more children back to safety and to loving homes with your donation today.

The Utah Hospital Task Force volunteers will be living within the Healing Hands for Haiti medical compound in tents during their stay. (The medical compound buildings were destroyed in the earthquake.) The volunteers will also be living with and helping serve the children from two nearby destroyed orphanages. Living conditions will be primitive and resources scarce, but the volunteers are happy to serve. But donations are desperately needed to help keep the operations safe and effective.

Please visit http://HealingHandsforHaiti.org and click on the donate PayPal button. To ensure that your donation is used for this mission, please click “special instructions to seller” on PayPal and write “Utah Hospital Task Force” in the box.

To follow the experiences of the task force in Haiti please visit http://utahhospitaltaskforce.org. You can also follow them on Twitter at http://twitter.com/uhtf and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/UtahHospitalTaskForce.

Thank you for your support and donations!

Happy Heavenly Birthday

Mommy, Please don't cry...
We have lots of parties here.
With Streamers and hats,
And the best chocolate cake ever!

What a great day yesterday. Normally we celebrate Ryan's birthday with just Doug, the kids and myself but we decide to open it up since it would have been a milestone birthday.Doug and I decided back on what would have been his first birthday to make that day a happy day. We celebrate the time we had with him. There are plenty of other days in the year to be sad and think about his passing. We decided to do a balloon release on his birthday this year when we usually do that in April. In the throws of grief it is hard to appreciate what you had and not dwell on what is lost. As time goes by the heartache gets replaced with joy just a little at a time. I am not saying the heartache will ever disappear but it lessens with allowing the love we felt and still feel to overtake our hearts. Like the quote from Mommy Please Don't Cry states above I bet that Ryan and his buddies Parker and Gabriel are having a great party. I have a feeling Grandpa Bill and Opa are letting them get away with way too much fun. May your hearts always be filled with the love you share or have shared and not the grief you have experienced.
((hugs)),
Raye