Friday, February 3, 2012

Team One has Landed!

Yesterday, at around 4:50 Mountain time, Team one from Minnesota and a member, Tim from California, arrived in Port au Prince. There, they will spend the night and this morning, travel to Maissade, water filters in tow! What a ride this past few months has been!

I would love to personally thank each and every one of you who has helped out in this project, but I don't think it is possible anymore! There are so many of you! I'll just go with the recent ones: Mike T. from New England, Jake and Chanelle L. from church, Pastor Dave and our new church family at the Rock, Pam P. from Florida who also takes such wonderful care of the child sponsorship program in Haiti, Amanda L. and her church in Hawaii, Malherbe D. for translating into creole some of our instruction sheets for the filters, Roger at Copies Plus in Nampa, Dr Patterson and the rest of the physicians at Saltzer Medical in Nampa for being so generous, and Stephanie M. sister of one of my week two teammates!

That said, I know that this project is bigger than me. It's taken a life of it own, for sure. A very special thanks to my wonderful family, my wife, Sherri, who is a rock. I'm not the easiest person to deal with when I am preparing for a trip. This one was not an exception. I was put in charge of both teams in terms of logistics for the filters, so more phone calls, video conferences, emails, texts were made than usual. Sherri has been unwavering in her support! May, my wonderful daughter, who is going with me on her first trip outside the U.S., has helped get the young people excited about the trip. We both want to be gone already! It will be fun for her to serve with her daddy and poppa. My dad will be there for his 5th trip as well! Sam, my son, will get to go next year. Laura, our roommate and 'sister', has helped in ways that can't be counted. I'll leave it at that! Thanks, Laura!

I can't believe that this time, next week we'll be waking up in our beds (inside our mosquito nets) and getting ready for our first full day of service to the wonderful people of Maissade, Haiti.

If you are a praying person, please remember us in your prayers! I will update as technology and time allow. Oh, and please be one of the first to "follow" this blog. Just scroll down to the bottom of the blog and click the "follow" button. I would also love for you to share this as you would and leave some comments of encouragement. Thanks!

I love you all,
Steve Swihart

1 comment:

  1. I will continue to pray for you, your family, and all of your efforts. Clean water is essential, and a great need in haiti, and I believe that you are just the person to fill that need. Amy

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