Progress

What's up these days? 

It feels horrible not visiting this blog so much and writing updates :(

I miss all the excitement I felt at the beginning when our trip first got booked.

Here are some updates:

• I'm continuing to take Creole (official language in Haiti) lessons - in hopes that one day I will travel to Haiti and if anything else, to help our instructor out and to learn!
• Roland & Bernice are (most likely) going for almost 2 months in September/October time frame, VERY excited for them!
• We're preparing for a garage sale with LOTS of donated items to sell with ALL the proceeds going to New Missions - in Haiti to buy rice or help rebuild or help buy medical supplies.
• We are continuing to make jewelry - earrings, bracelets and now necklaces to sell (and getting a few orders here and there)...all this money will continue to go to buy rice & beans through New Missions in Haiti

So you see...even though I am no longer going on my trip, I can still do lots to help out!  I love doing it!

Not so great news...

We found out this week that the mission group we were traveling with has cancelled ALL mission trips for 2010.  This means that our trip from Dec 4 -11, 2010 has been CANCELLED.

It was really tough to hear initially, considering all the time and effort we have put into our fundraising efforts as well as how excited I was to be going on my first mission trip with such a great friend. This happened on Thursday afternoon....

I had a headache and bible study was on this night.  I SO didn't feel like going but SO glad I went, considering what I learned!  The first verse we studied was James 1:2-4 (NIV) and BOY, did it bring so much perspective to how I was feeling.  Read:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

or translated from the New Living Translation (which is much easier to understand and how I applied this to me)

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

When I left our study meeting, I knew that this was one of these trials the bible speaks of!  So, I' going to consider all we've done up to this point a pure joy for my journey to my first misison trip.  I have gained so much experience with fundraising and witnessed people helping out when they don't even know me.  All of this expience will be so useful for when I DO get to go on my first mission trip.  And when I left, I had a pretty positive attitude about what has happened. 

That said, Roland & Bernice are looking into other options to travel to Haiti.  One of them would be going to work in an orphanage in Port au Prince.   I would LOVE to work in an orphanage and love on a bunch of kiddies, but this option requires much physical work.  If we do travel to an orphanage, Dianne will not be coming with us.  And though I completely understand her reasons, I had my heart set on going WITH a close friend for my first mission trip.  So that leaves me with mixed feelings about what I am going to do about travelling. 

At this point, in terms of making a decision I feel like I am at a fork in my road.  Obviously, it's not time for me to decide so I'm excited to see what the year brings.  I am going to pray abou tit and I KNOW that God will lead me in the direction I am supposed to go.  I trust this.

Trip or no trip, we have donations and money that we have collected and purchased.  At this point, we have a few options to get them to New Missions and to Haiti.  I will even pay for shipping to get the supplies there.  But for now, I'm going to hold off on shipping items.  I will continue to buy & collect supplies to ship and we will continue to make jewelry to sell and continue to send the money to New Missions for them to buy rice and help them rebuild.

So this is my latest 'planning' news...not excactly what I wanted to share at this point, but it's just the way it is.   I'm going to trust that and go with the flow!!!

Trip

A few things to look out for

With our trip to Orlando (see family blog post HERE), I feel like I have been neglecting this blog.  Though I have been neglecting the blog, I have not been neglecting my excitement for my trip to Haiti!  Lots of ideas to 'carry out' and not enough time (with working at the school) to carry all my ideas out!

We've been busy making necklaces & bracelets, I've been busy trying to get a blog badge ready and I'm trying to get an ebay account set up so we can start selling our jewelry online.

One step at a time, is what I keep telling myself. 

My goal of the week is to get my ebay seller's account set up and running to start selling online!  If you have any suggestions with doing this, PLEASE send me your suggestions!

So that's what's been going on here....life couldn't be better!

To Jenny:

I don't have your email address to say 'THANK YOU' for your suggestion!

A blog BADGE!!!

Keep on the look out for a blog badge that you can post on YOUR blog if you'd like to support my mission!

Thanks so much Jenny for your suggestion - ALL suggestions are SO appreciated.

NOW, if you'd only send me your address so I could thank you with a pair of earrings!!!

Either way,  THANK YOU!!!

PS...can anyone lead me in a good direction for help in creating an AMAZING blog badge???

Free pair of earrings for YOU, if.....

OKAY blogger buddies....I need your help!

The contest/sale didn't work as well as I hoped.  In fact, I didn't get ONE sale.

I'm okay with that....but this is where YOU come in.

What do you think I could do to get sales going again???

For every comment/suggestion, I will ship you one FREE pair of earrings.

So, along with your suggestion, please send me your address and your colour preference.

Thanks for your continued support!

CONTEST / SALE

I'm going to start doing some contests to make my fundraising & supply building FUN!!!


If you have any ideas for fun contests, PLEASE email me.


Today's contest:


The first 5 people to purchase a pair of earrings or bracelet will get 2 pairs FREE (not just 1 but 2 pairs).  Make a comment, send me an email to let me know.

I'm going to upload a few of our newer designs for your viewing pleasure.

EARRINGS - $5 ea

BRACELETS - $10 ea

Creole 101

As part of my trip to Haiti, I am taking Creole (the official language in Haiti) lessons.  We started about 4 weeks ago.  Every Friday, 4 of us that are going to Haiti get together with our teacher, Renel.  He is a young Haitian man going to college in Grand Falls.  He has lived here for about 1 year and only speaks French. 

Though it's challenging me, it is SO much fun getting together every Friday afternoon with the other's I am traveling with, all for one common goal:  to learn to communicate with those we meet in our travels.  Plus, Renel is such a nice young man.

As part of my commitment to study, I am going to start listening to video's on YouTube to get used to the conversational piece of Creole.  I have decided that I will make a little 'Learn Creole' section on my blog for those of you interested!

Some of my favourite videos found today!





And my MOST challenging one is this one below. I'm going to try to go through this 30 minute story and translate the story (to the best of my ability)!!! I'm sure it will take some time!

Pay Pal button now working

...for sending me money, please message me to find out the correct amount then you can pay through Pay Pal using your bank account or credit card. 

NOTE:  you do NOT need to have a Pay Pal account in order to pay through Pay Pal.

9 months to go

I am so excited...9 months until we travel to Haiti and my dream becomes a reality!


There is SO much to do until then...starting with our earrings!  We need to make more earrings to sell.  Plus, now we have bracelets and just starting to get into necklaces - with the help of so many wonderful friends!!!    We are finally caught up and there is a slow down in the sales - which sadly to say I am thankful for.  Now that I am working until the end of the school year, it's proved to be 'quite the adjustment' for time management!!!

Now we're working on our original ideas we had for selling our earrings.  I have contacted our Town Manager and he gave me many great ideas!  Some of our ideas are setting up a booth/table at our local mall, farmer's market and radio station on a given day to sell the earrings.  Some ideas I got from the Town Manager is to contact local business's (specifically Walmart) to set up a table to sell earrings there, or possibly door-to-door campaigning.  WOW...he was ever so helpful.  He even offered that if we had to get a 'pedlars license' to sell on the street, that he would 'waive the fee' because he believed in our cause!!!

BUT first thing is first, we have to have a BIG supply of them first - which is what we are working on right now.  Thanks to all my 'working bees' while I'm at work - namely Dianne, Bernice and Julia (who is making us our necklace 'prototypes'!!!)  I really couldn't do it without them!

Other projects we are working on are making sacs for the rice (for distribution) - sewing them and feeding the draw strings, a summer garage sale of donated items where ALL the proceeds go towards projects for our trip (but NOT any of our travel expenses), Noah's special project to sell and the collection of donated medical over the counter supplies.

In all of this, I need to get in to get all of my shots for traveling, etc.

So you see...I am convinced that 9 months is going to FLY by like a blink of an eye!

Earring ART (and lots of it)!

Yesterday afternoon, our pastor allowed us to gather in the basement of our church to make earrings.  In all we had a turn out of 15 ladies, some of whom had NEVER made jewelry before (what great troopers they were)!!

I am so thankful to my church family and friends who took 3-4 hours out of their busy schedules to help in our mission.   In total we made 240 pairs of earrings.  AMAZING!!!

THANK YOU so much for your help!  It's truly appreciated!