Hi Everyone,

Our hearts have been breaking for Haiti. My family members (myself included) and friends have many close friends there, having been involved in building and supporting orphanages, schools, and churches there for 10+ years. I've been so busy tracking down our friends in Haiti to check on their well-being, and praying for the thousands who are suffering, that I forgot to post anything about it on the Hangout.

One Haitian I'm particularly close to is named Daniel Thelusmond. He came into our lives as a Haitian orphan living in one of Starfish's orphanages. He's now 23 years old and working as a teacher in Port au Prince. Daniel is an extremely gifted musician and songwriter with a wonderful voice, impressive guitar chops. We've enjoyed playing together on numerious occasions. We didn't hear from Daniel for three days after the earthquake, and were praying constantly that he was alive. We eventually found out he'd made it, but were saddened to learn that his fiance was killed when her nursing school collapsed. Daniel hadn't contacted us for three days because he had been digging thru the rubble and identifying bodies, hoping to track her down.

That's just one story, of course. There are thousands more.

There are many worthy organizations accepting donations to support the relief effort. I'm going to tell you about the ministry that I'm closely involved in as well: Starfish Ministries. This is a smaller organization, so every cent you give goes to the people of Haiti--nothing goes to overhead costs. Their philosophy is to empower the Haitian people to improve their country from the inside out. You might be interested in visiting their website (www.starfishministries.org) as it has some pretty current news from our people on the ground there.

If you're interested in donating to Starfish Ministry's work in Haiti, you may do so here.

The people of Haiti are in desperate need of our help--especially now, but this was also true before the earthquake struck. My hope is that some of you in reading this might be spurred on to look into the current, as well as the ongoing, situation in Haiti and find a way to help make a change there.