A Little Wish Tree

After some cajoling via email, I finally got Merline & Vlad to give me a wish list of needs. After sending a tent, which was an obvious need, I had no earthly idea what one needs most in the conditions they were living in now. The list was humble: watches, tennis shoes, scrubs, a lantern for her parents, toiletries. The one big ticket item was a laptop. At first, that may seem extravagant, but really, that's probably the most important item for their emotional health. With no other consistent form of communication (cell phone batteries die, no mail, lots of people moving around the country), email access meant knowing how they're friends and families were, meant keeping abreast of the news. I just wasn't sure others would understand why a couple living in a tent would need a laptop.

So, I went about trying to get the items on the wish list. I didn't want to hit up people at church again, because they'd already been so generous. But I spent three or four fruitless weeks trying to secure donations, or at least steep discounts, from various stores around town. Big fat no's all around. Plan B? Feel useless of a while and mope a bit, riddled with guild that I'd let Merline & Vlad down. They finally confided to me their needs, it became a little hard to fulfill those needs, and my busy day to day life threatened to water down the urgency I had felt for my Haitian friends after I first got home.

So, back to church. Our youth participated in a 30-hour famine, raising money to donate towards World Vision's feeding projects in Haiti. I was blessed to be able to share some stories of the lovely Haitians, to help these youth start to understand how important their cause was. It was motivating for me.

I wrangled up some persistence. I emailed the very busy coordinator of the NC Baptist teams until I had contact info for the next few trips. My ever-amazing husband did a 4 am run to the airport in Greensboro, a little over an hour away, so that two containers of baby blankets that Audrey's school collected could be taken to Port-au-Prince.

Most importantly, last Sunday, we placed a little Christmas tree in the vestibule at church. Audrey had helped me create little construction paper ornaments to decorate the tree, ornaments with needs written on them. We included donating "shares" of purchasing backpacks. We didn't want to send typical backpacks, we wanted them to have tough, water proof ones, good ones that would hold up. Those are expensive, even after Great Outdoor Provisions generous discount. So, the tree had many "shares" towards purchasing a backpack. Several of the ornaments were heart-shaped, in addition the stars and angels. That was Audrey's idea. "Let's make hearts, Mama, because we're loving Haiti". Looking at the tree just didn't seem to fully get across how heavy the burden on my heart was, but I think the hearts helped.

At the end of the day, we only had about $100 in needs still hanging on the tree.

Hopefully, tomorrow everyone will bring back the items listed on the ornaments, and next Sunday morning they'll make their way to Port au Prince. The laptop goes down tomorrow after another 5 am run to RDU. Then we'll be ready to meet the next set of needs as Merline & Vlad, like hundreds of thousands like them, daily work towards rebuilding their country.

All from one little wish tree.