Sidetracked!

I’ve so much to tell you but I keep getting sidetracked.  I wanted to tell you how wonderful it felt to pick up a crochet hook after nearly 11 years.  All the wonderful projects the girls and I have been working on.  The Dreams.  How we turned off the T.V. a few weeks early… etc.

The sleep, the challenges, the ups and downs of life with six very different kids.  But I can’t bring myself to form two coherent sentences because my attention in focused on Haiti.  I’ve been checking up news updates every couple of hours, and my heart aches for their pain.

I’ve only been through one quake in my life that I actually felt and it shook me to my core.   A 6.8 magnitude, but it was deeper in the earth so the damage wasn’t catastrophic like you seen in Haiti.  I remember hurriedly crowding toddlers and small children under my large dining room table, watching the chandelier sway a few feet and seeing my vehicle out the front window bouncing up and down like a toy.  Then when it the shaking stopped, I grabbed my little ones and rushed to the nearby elementary school to make sure my other two kiddo’s were o.k.  They were fine.  I was the one freaking out.  No damage, no injury, only frayed nerves. 

I haven’t shown my kids too much of the news but I have told them a little about it.  However, I can’t tell them about it without getting a little emotional. 

My heart was touched yesterday afternoon when my daughter Lea brought me a sandwich bag full of her carefully saved money. 

‘Mom, I want this to go and help the children in Haiti,’ she said as she handed me the bag. ‘Maybe it could help so that they could stop dying.’ My husband and I had donated earlier in the day to an organization providing food, water, tents, medicine and more.  But I hadn’t really talked about it with the kids.

I love that Lea has a big heart.  I know her money will help.  But for many it will be too late.  One foreign relief worker told Reuters, ‘"Money is worth nothing right now, water is the currency."

Water, Medicine, Food, all needed.  All slowly trickling into a country with Millions of people so desperate.   Donations do make a difference, and I’m so grateful for those Doctors, Missionaries, Search and Rescue, and Military people who are flying in to help, and I pray for them as well as the people of Haiti.

Sometimes sidetracked can be a good thing.  I don’t think I’ve gone through our 72 hour kids for 5 years.  Time to update.  And those empty water barrels in the back yard, – now would be an excellent time to wash them out and fill them up.  Family escape drill, emergency contact information – perfect for our Family Home Evening activity on Monday.  I’m grateful that I have the means to help my family be a little bit more prepared.  I’ve no doubt that we will all have to deal with disaster at some time or another, so for me Preparedness is Hope.  And when you see the eyes of people who have lost Hope on the news, it makes you want it all the more for yourself as well as them.

Here are some great organizations that can use the donations to help and that are on the ground in Haiti helping as we chat.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Emergency Response

American Red Cross

Save the Children

World Vision International

Mercy Corps

Unicef

Care

Hopefully soon I’ll be able to let you in on all the other mommy adventures happening in our forest.  They are magical to say the least.