Hey everyone! You can use this link so when you shop on Amazon you can also be donating to Safe!
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Good morning everyone! This is going to be a lengthy post packed with information.
- I wanted to update about the package that we sent down at Christmas. I am sure that there are several of you that have wondered why I never followed up with pictures, well because they NEVER received it. Pastor and I both followed the delivery of the package very closely and it was never delivered to him as I had been told it would. He was never notified and then they deemed the package abandoned. At this point after dealing with UPS many, many times, we are just out of luck. Our new plan has been to continue to climb up corporate so that I can get back the $485 that I personally paid, it did not come out of the Safe account, thank goodness. I will most likely NEVER send anything again and just fly down to deliver the gifts personally. What a mess. We have been working on the package since the end of January and last week we finally learned it was just a loss. I am very sorry to those that donated. But it will not happen again. - Kervens will be returning to the orphanage this week and he is healing wonderfully. Everything is going well with his arm. - Everything is going well with the children and school. They are looking forward to summer break I am sure! I know my daughter is since we will be traveling down to visit again this summer. My daughter, Lillian, has fallen in love with all these kiddos too! - A couple weeks ago a group from Canada came and put a well in at the orphanage. This well is used for everything except drinking. So we will only be purchasing drinking water and no longer water for everything else that they used it for previously. We are praying that in the future that we can purchase a purification system so that we will no longer have to purchase drinking water also. Thank you so much to the team from Canada for helping us out! - There is a certain policy that the orphanages in Haiti have to follow and they are now requiring that there be a worker for every 7 children that are there. We currently have 4 staff members and Pastor will be hiring another 2 soon. It will be $540/month (USD) to have the 6 staff members. That is $90 per staff member per month. Now I have only been able to send down $1,000-$1,100 every month. The kids food bill costs roughly $900 for a month. Pastor had been stretching the money I send down for sure! The staff members are paid and the kids are getting meals. Most of the time the clothes and toiletries are donated but there is an occasion when we have to purchase them. We really could use help. The kids are getting bigger and requiring more food. Not to mention the fact that inflation is crazy in Haiti and everything is costing so much more. Now we are required to hire 2 more staff members, which takes away from the food money. Pastor has done a wonderful job of making things work but we need to help more. Safe in the Arms is funded from individual donations. We do not receive any consistent funding from any companies or anything like that. As well as the orphanage does not receive any other funding on a consistent basis from anywhere other than Safe. He does receive random donations here and there but they are very few and far between. I understand that you do not physically receive anything from us for donating, however you really truly are making a difference in these children's lives. I have proof! People who have followed our journey from the beginning have seen it with their own eyes, WE ARE CHANGING LIVES! Please help us continue our vision of raising these children with love and support! Thank you so much for following and supporting us! WE HAVE A BUS!!!! We were able to raise the $7,000 with some help from one of Pastors friends and get these kids a bus. What an amazing blessing this is. Pastor will not have to pay for transportation which lowers our amount we have to raise for schooling. And he will be able to use it as a way to bring in more money for the orphanage by driving people around when its not in use and charge them. Thank you all who donated! Great things are happening in the orphanage. These kids are truly blessed!
It has been a while since I have updated the website, my apologies! I have been updating the Facebook page much more frequently so if you haven't get like us on Facebook please do so, it is more up to date.
Well since my last update we were able to pay the tuition off for this 2015-2016 school year. That included the actual tuition, uniforms and books! How amazing is that? Roughly $6,000! We also were able to take shoebox sized tupperware bins and fill them with toys and other random items such as candy, dental stuff, cups, wash clothes, soaps and all other fun things. It was the first time for the kiddos to have a Christmas! How wonderful is that??? Thank you to all of those who helped make that a possibility. We were able to send down the 32 boxes for each kid, 4 boxes for the staff members and a large box of extra stuff that was donated. Go check out our Facebook page to see the videos, it will make you so happy! I have had such an awesome year with this. I only began this dream, idea, journey....whatever you want to call it, in February of 2015 and in that short amount of time we were able to send just about $17,000! That makes my heart so happy! Can you believe that?!?!?! With that money we were able to provide food, water, medical needs, schooling and the orphanage was able to stay open most importantly! A huge burden has been lifted off of Pastor Placide. We have a long way to go but it has been a blessing to those children. I am lucky enough to be going again in a couple weeks, on my own not with the church, down to Haiti. I will be leaving on February 12th and returning February 16th. It will be myself, my husband (his first time!) and our missions director from church. I will be going over future plans for the orphanage and our organization. What an exciting time for those wonderful kids. Thank you to all of you who have been such a huge help! There are always needs to be met so please contact me and let me know you are interested! This is the kind of food your donations are purchasing!!! This is amazing to say the least. I spent 10 days down in Haiti (7/31-8/9) and it was such an amazing experience once again. This is a picture of what they are eating now. Although they are not getting 3 meals a day still, their food has really improved. They are eating more nutrient dense food and look at their portion size!!!! It is truly amazing. There are no other words to describe it. Last year they were lucky to get one meal and if they did it was rice and beans or noodles. They were really underfed and looked it. This year they looked really good. Not as good as they could or should but much, much better. The women who work there told me, through a translator, that they have been eating better. They were so grateful for all that you have done. Your donations are really working and helping. Several people on our mission team are sponsors and they were so pleased to see their donations hard at work. A couple of them stated that last year the kids outside in the village were healthier looking than the kids in the orphanage and how this year it is the complete opposite.
The part that really made me think was when Pastor Placide called me over one morning when we were getting out of the car and said that had our church not come down last year and we met, he was going to be closing down the orphanage and letting the kids go. Now what you have to understand is that when he means letting them go it literally means opening the doors and letting every single one of those kids out on to the street to fend for themselves. Can you even comprehend that? I can't. Pastor said he believes it was by divine appointment that I was there. And it has been through your donations that we literally were able to save the orphanage. Are you comprehending how much your donations do and will make a difference? Please spread the word. This is real. You are a part of changing 32 kids lives (they have been able to take in 2 more boys). We saw it firsthand this year. And I am able to show you in pictures. I can communicate it directly to you. This is an amazing opportunity, you are making a difference. HERE IS OUR LOGO!!! SO EXCITED!
We have combined the logo of the orphanage and our name to form this wonderful picture! So excited to start seeing this on shirts, papers, backpacks....whatever we want! Three of the girls were running fevers and a couple other symptoms. They were taken to the doctors and had some labs run. Their fevers are now gone, thank you Jesus. But one of the little girls, Pascale is anemic and one of the other girl has an infection. They are running another lab on her. But they all appear to be doing better.
I would like to take the time right now to stress how important the sponsorship program is. Without donations from you they do not get to be seen when a problem arises and if they do it doesn't always mean that there is money for whatever medicine is needed. As you view these pictures please pray and see if you can spare $20 a month to help sponsor these children. They need all of the help they can get. Pascale is the second child in the last 2 months to be anemic. They are not getting adequate food. The sponsors we currently have are doing as much as they can but we could ALWAYS use more help. Please join today and help them out. It really isn't a lot of money and 100% of it goes DIRECTLY TO THEM! I spoke with Pastor and they will be sending 28 kids to school this fall and 2 to preschool. That is about $175 per kid for the school year. Wouldn't it be great if we could help the cost? If you are not interested in a monthly sponsorship you can donate one time and I will allocate it towards this coming school year for the kids. They will also be paying for uniforms and for books so any amount will help. We will be purchasing backpacks for the kids as we head back to Haiti in August! Please help if you can. It is so greatly appreciated.
These children have never seen a dentist, never had a consultation, never had a cleaning until now! Can you imagine never having seen a dentist? Thank you Jesus for making this a possibility. I will not have to worry about that poor boy dealing with that tooth problem again. Your money goes such a long way!
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InfoI will explain some of the pictures here so you have a visual of what is going on! Amazing things are happening! Archives
May 2019
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