Oh man, I didn't think I'd be that person who blogged. But here I am....without a clue. I hope I can eventually get this figured out. Please bear with me if you decide to read this. :)
I will start out slow and try not to get too much info that you don't need, but my aim is to share with you what is going on with Ali over in Haiti. Her and I talked today and she gave it(the blog) the full thumbs up.
The reason why I decided to start sharing now about Ali is because we are going to join her there for Thanksgiving. Me, Rog, Laura and Steven (Laura's bf). It was easy to say yes to Laura about bringing Steven, "mom, dad would love another guy travelling with us, and Steven doesn't ever get in the way of you guys and me." and it's true, he's a great guy and I can't think of anyone I'd rather have going over to serve in Haiti with us. Except of course Chad Treloar, but by that time he hopes to be working in Canada or Montana. Anyway we are off to Haiti again, the Lord willing to get the "real Haiti experience" and to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Thanks to our Ali girl.
So before I get too long-winded let me just get to the core purpose of my blog. That is to raise up funds and donations for the kids of Haiti. Here is a letter, in part, from Ali and the needs at Tytoo Gardens. Now is the time for us to prepare for making Christmas for the orphans of Tytoo FANTASTIC!!! Here is an excerpt of her latest letter to us.
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(Ali)
You literally have no idea how excited I am that you guys are coming!!! like I cant sleep cause im so happy.
You literally have no idea how excited I am that you guys are coming!!! like I cant sleep cause im so happy.
I was thinking about what you guys should bring. Wow such a huge list lol. But I will give you more exact things as the time approaches but you guys are the last people coming before Christmas and since I will be at the orphanage for Christmas I want to make it special and make sure all the kids and staff receive presents. So I will let you know what kind of toys or ideas we have for kids for presents that you guys can bring. And I have had lots of people ask to send toys and supplies so I will contact those people and coordinate getting donations to you guys to bring. Like angel harper (from jolly rogers) wants to donate toys and stuff, and people from gymnast ask to send stuff all the time. and I will post on my fb about you guysu coming and the needs we have at the orphanage and see what kind of donations we can get. Because I dotn want you guys feeling obligated to bring all our needs.
Another cool thing we can do is do random acts of giving where we drive around with boxes of clothes and donations and just stop randomly and give them to people on the streets. Tirzah did this and said it was amazing.
We can go to the homeless shelter in Cabaret. We buy a huge bag of rice (for $20) and water and go and give it to the homeless shelter. It will break your heart going in there but they truly need ANYTHING there. Its the worst homeless shelter EVER. And it is great to just go and pray and bring rice and water to the people who call this shelter home.
you guys will be coming at a great time because it will be the week after esther and frank leave so I wil be moving rooms and we will be doing some shuffling of things so I will deff need help with that. I would love for dad to make shelves in the kids rooms and in random places around the orphanage. We can get wood easily and we have all the tools he would need.
So if anyone asks what they can donate here is a small list of general things:
-underware (for girls like my size) like ages 12-18
-Soccer balls
-deoterant
-shampoo
-TOOTHPASTE
-baby formula
-water bottles
-swim suits
-anything from claires
-old navy flip flops (bigger sizes are more needed)
-make up (not new) I would love to give the older girls some eye shadow just so they can feel pretty, I think of all the tons of old make up at home that I never use, they would feel so special to have that
Of course the best thing you could bring is money. buying Christmas presents here in Haiti is the most ideal thing. It enables us to get exactly what is NEEDED and not have extra stuff that we don't need. It allows us to pay Haitians who work extremely hard to earn very little money. It helps the Haitian economy and the most important thing is enabling Haitians. We know where to buy things from people who deserve it. even if it costs a little bit extra we buy from the people with large families, from people who are sick, from people who don thave jobs, from people who live in tents, from young children whose parents have died.. you get the picture. The importance of having money to spend in Haiti is exponential but sometimes people would rather send toys or other supplies, which is of absolute importance as well.
We have absolutely amazing Haitian staff at tytoo and giving them something to show how much we appreciate them on Christmas is definitely something I am passionate about. I don't know what it looks like yet and how god will provide to make that possible so if you would just pray about that I would appreciate it.
We don't need:
-any baby clothes
-baby blankets
-baby hats
-baby diaper protectors
-don't bring ANYTHING baby unless its formula people LOVE to give baby stuff. there aren't enough babies in Haiti to give out all the baby blankets we have
-don't bring tooth brushes, we look like a dentist office we have so many tooth brushes
- don't bring junk, people bring lots of junk. people donate crappy stuff and we cant use it, or we can use it for a day and it breaks, that's not useful.
Wow I could keep going about things we can do while you guys are here but its a ways away and thigns change here daily and needs are always changing. So I will keep you posted on that. Im sure you aren't going to be packing yet. If dad has a great way to provide garden growers I can make sure to find people in the community and have a list of target people we want to build them for. Like I said we have PLENTY of boys to work. We pay outside workers (young 17-22 year old boys) $6 a day so labor is affordable and providing jobs for these people is life or death for them. We like to over staff projects just because everyone we use dont have jobs other than when we call them. So if we have 4 people for a 2 person job, yolo.
________________________________________________________________________________
(Suz)
(Suz)
Well there you have it sweet family and friends. I have no marketing ideas to add to this. I think Ali hit it pretty well... This is another trip of a lifetime for us (really?? twice in one year?) How are we so blessed? If you are interested in jumping on board, please contact me at suzannesheetztreloar@gmail.com May I assure you that 100 percent, that's 100 percent of monetary donations (and non monetary) go DIRECTLY to the orphans of Tytoo. There are no administration fees thanks to Dell and Renae Grooters.
Thank you guys for reading this blog. Give me some time to figure it out and I will keep sharing. I am so grateful for you, but more than that I am grateful for Ali who ran hard (and continues to) after the voice of God who told her to "GO". We are all within the hearing of the same voice. To "GO" could mean the other side of the world or to your next door neighbor. For Ali is was Haiti, a broken nation in need of people who care.
Thank you guys for reading this blog. Give me some time to figure it out and I will keep sharing. I am so grateful for you, but more than that I am grateful for Ali who ran hard (and continues to) after the voice of God who told her to "GO". We are all within the hearing of the same voice. To "GO" could mean the other side of the world or to your next door neighbor. For Ali is was Haiti, a broken nation in need of people who care.
