What have we been doing?

For the past 12 months, we have been supporting some friends that had the call from God to serve in Nigeria. I’m happy to report they have returned to the states safe and sound and no worse for the wear. They reported to the Board at our last meeting and it sounded like a very successful trip.

Tony and Donna just returned from the TECH conference.  HHM is a member of TECH, which stands for “Technical Exchange for Christian Healthcare”, if you’re interested their web site is www.techmd.org. They consist of about 130 members who mostly consist of ministries who help medically overseas. This includes all different parts from insurance to medicine to bio-med folks. We learned a lot at this conference as we always do.  The Tech conferences are held twice a year, once in the Fall in Louisville, KY, and once in the Spring, this year at the Blowing Rock Convention Center. It started Thursday night and finished on Saturday at noon with a tour of the Samaritan’s Purse facility, for all that were interested.

Our warehouse is full to overflowing.  We have a work day planned for Saturday, June 11^th beginning at 9 AM. We have pallets to build and secure and a mountain of clothing to sort, box and palletize.  Hope to see you there. Warehouse is located at 211 Trimble Plant Road in Southern Pines.

Helping Hands has also been working with some nurses to fill the needs of some folks in our area that are falling through the cracks, as it were.  We had a request for an electric Hospital bed for a lady that was shot in the back and now paralyzed. We also furnished some other items for her and will be giving a used Hoveround that was donated to us. We’ve supplied back braces, sugar checking devices, adult diapers, wheel chairs, crutches, walkers and canes.  Most of the folks we’re helping have no other help available.

The week before the conference, I received a phone call from a company that supplies prosthetic devices to us.  They had some items for me to pick up.  This usually includes several prosthetic legs among other things.  While at the conference, Donna and I met a lady doing work in Cameroon, West Africa. I was sharing about some of the unusual donations that we get and what God has done with them.  I told her a story about some legs that we were given (first time we had ever gotten legs) and that I had no idea what God would do with them. After I finished the story, she asked if I had any now, I told her maybe but we just got the phone call to come make a pickup. She told us they had someone working in the hospital that could fabricate legs if they just had some of the joint parts and wanted to know if I was interested in helping her.  Of course we were and a box full of legs and parts was shipped today with UPS, on the way to Baton Rouge, LA then Cameroon, West Africa.

One last testimony, if you have been following us for a while, you know that we use the Denton program to ship aid to other countries.  Donna and I have been working to get an inventory completed and loaded on a new Denton web site.  We finally completed typing it in and then I worked the following day to get the remainder of the paperwork together, scanned and then submitted.  To our surprise, two days later, I got a call and was asked if I could be ready to ship by June 10^th.  The fastest this has ever happened was last year and it took four months.  I will begin moving this shipment to the air base this week and on June the 10^th, it will be loaded on a C-17 and be flown to Honduras!  God really is good!  He just continues to amaze us!

It’s amazing what God will do if we just make ourselves available!  Can he use someone else, sure, but if He told you, it’s because He wants you to do it, not someone else.  I’m sure God could find legs someplace else. I could have said, NO, those are mine and if I give them away, then I will not have them in case someone needs them.  Like God would forget that He needed some in a different place, then set and wring his hands trying to figure out what to do. God is Great, God is Good and God has a Plan, He just needs us to follow it. Most of the time, following his plan is not easy; it’s hardly ever the path we would take. In fact, God’s way, most times, doesn’t even have a path.  He needs and wants us to be dependent on him, for everything!

We’ve seen God do some pretty miraculous stuff and I have a lot of those stories written down, but I know He’s not through, there’s more to come!

This time we are living in causes great fear for some. Earthquakes, Tornado’s, Tsunami’s, Fires, the uncertainty of finances, the economy, there is plenty to be concerned about.  We should be making preparations.  What kind, I don’t really know, whatever works for you.  There are plenty of people telling us what to do, what do you feel God is telling you?  He is the ultimate source!  And you know what, He knows what’s coming!

Donna and I have attended Bible studies and group meetings and talked about what God told us and some of the people around us looked at us like we are crazy.  “You mean God spoke to you”, “What does He sound like? “ Some even told us they did not want God talking to them, they were afraid of what he might tell them.  This is not the time to not be able to hear God.

God is guiding Helping Hands Ministry!  We are doing our best to follow his leading.  Come, join us, put your hands to the plow, let’s go wherever God is leading and do as much as we can. We need workers, prayer warriors, worshippers, Mary’s and Martha’s. There is much work to do and plenty of people to reach!

Donna and I look forward to hearing from you!

In the Lords work we remain,

Tony and Donna Haywood

WE just shipped three, 53 foot truck loads of supplies to Sandi Burgess and Bridge Ministries in Honduras. In fact, we heard from the military base in Honduras that this shipment was the biggest one they have ever received.

This is the shipment being unloaded from the KC 10 plane that transported it to Honduras. All 38,000 pounds of it!!

Sandi Burgess rented a truck and went to the base to meet with the Honduran USAID representative and two ladies from Soto Cano Military base in Honduras to sign for the shipment and remove it from the base. Twenty Air Force Pallets in total. The Air Force moved 12 on Friday the 22^nd of October and 8 the following Monday. Sandi reported that her warehouse was full to overflowing.

This truck has just removed the first part of the shipment from the air base in Honduras and is backed partially in to the warehouse at Enlaces, Comayagua, Honduras.

This freezer, barber chair, electric motors and a few other items you cannot see are on the way to the boy’s orphanage. When I was there with the group in May, they only had the top freezer part of one refrigerator. The main freezer had died. They had a brand new building for training barbers but no chair. One of our Board members was able to solve that issue. The electric motors will put the lathes to work in the woodworking shop.

This lady was in bad need of a wheelchair. She only has one leg and had to be helped everywhere she went. Now she can ride!

These geriatric chairs are on the way to the old folks home (in Honduras it’s called the Home of the Ancients) . Helping Hands sent some a long time ago, seven years ago I found out in May when we were there. They were rusty and in bad shape.  We were able to send enough on this shipment to totally replace all the bad chairs.

I wanted to show you the pictures of a shipment from beginning to end to help you understand what it is that Helping Hands does. A lot of the time, it’s thankless work because the best part of what we do happens in another part of the world, to people that we may never see or meet, at least not on earth.

When you support us, it helps us to pick these items up, store them in a warehouse, prepare them for shipment, pay for transportation to an Air base and a whole lot of stuff in between. Helping Hands has to be a team effort; one or two cannot complete the task. It takes a team!!! All of us working together can and will make a difference.

I hope you will consider joining us in this worthy cause. People always ask me why we do not send money and let them buy these items there. It’s simple, these items are not available in countries like Honduras and without folks like us, the lady above would still not have mobility. If we don’t pick these very good items up, a lot of it will go in the dumpster.

We always try to work with other ministries. There is a lot of interest in the Denton Amendment now because the cost of shipping by other means has increased greatly. I am meeting with another organization this week.

We are still very active in West Virginia. Helping Hands is making trips to the North Wilkesboro to furnish resalable items to two second hand stores which support the work in WV. We will also make a trip to WV in December to help transport food for a local church to resupply the food pantries in 3 churches for the winter months.

Please help us help others! We need your money, good used furniture, appliances, nicnacs, cooking items, medical equipment, educational supplies, hygiene items, well, almost everything is needed somewhere! Just give us a call at 910-690-5527, we’ll be glad to discuss your items you wish to donate and arrange pickups.

Sincerely,

Tony and Donna Haywood

Helping Hands has been busy, so let me share with you.

We just recently completed another trip to West Virginia with Grace Church in Southern Pines.  Our goal was to carry enough shelving and food to set up two new food banks. We left early on Friday morning and drove to Beckley, WV with a team of about 30 people, where we checked into a hotel, then drove to Rhodell, WV. This is the site of our first new food bank. We set up the shelving that we brought with us and stocked the shelves with food and cleaning supplies. Upon completion we returned to the hotel, enjoyed a good meal together and turned in fairly early. Saturday morning we drove back to Rhodell to join the pastor, Dean Crane, in a 10 AM worship service. After the service, we had a meal and drove to Welsh, WV where we set up our second, smaller food bank with shelving, food and cleaning supplies. Once we completed the project, we traveled on to Bradshaw, WV. We used the remainder of the food to restock the shelves of the food bank that we set up in December of 2009. We arrived just in time to join in the 3 pm service at the Bradshaw church.  We used the church to bed down for the night. When we were there in 2009, the temperature was 16 degrees; the 75 degree temperature of this trip was a lot better all around. Helping Hands presented Dean with several electric wheel chair vehicles before our trip some of us had the opportunity to give these away.  This picture is of a man that lives up on the mountain who has a prosthetic leg.  He had been asking Dean for a wheel chair and we had the opportunity to present him one. This is one of two brothers living in this small travel trailer.  He had gotten saved just a little earlier and had asked to be baptized. Pastor Dean Crane and some helpers got him a regular wheel chair and rolled him out in the river and baptized him. This brother was very happy to receive this hover-round.  With only a short bit of instructions on usage, he took off down his ramp, up to the street and was headed out of site as we left.  I’m guessing he was showing off his new transportation.  Praise the Lord for this donated gift!!

Helping Hands Ministry now has a satellite office in the Greensboro area.  This will be operated by two of our Board Members, David and Deanna Lovin.  Part of their outreach will be to the Karen people who are being transplanted here by the US Government from the Myanmar area. They will also be performing outreach projects just like the Helping Hands in the Moore County area. We are very excited about this new planting!  Please pray for David and Deanna.

We are still supporting two pastors in India, Aaron and Madhava.  Madhava has 14 orphanages with about 1600 children. About 1400 girls and 200 boys all from the lowest caste group called the untouchables. He is asking for sewing machines to teach the girls a trade.  He has 28 teachers and only about 10 machines.  A treadle sewing machine is only $100.00, if you’d like to help.

Helping Hands is also supporting Petro Aziato in Togo, West Africa.  Petro is doing outreach to Muslims in his area.  He takes a team with him and holds medical brigades, passes out clothing, shows the Jesus film, helps with the widows and orphans and if there is no church, plants one. He also leaves someone to pastor the new converts.  He sends pictures to me after each outreach. He has an amazing work.  This picture is of his last outreach and it shows 29 new converts.

Helping Hands has a new shipment ready to go to Honduras and we are waiting on approval from the Denton folks. It was submitted on July 12^th and we are hopeful it will be approved very soon.

Several of you have asked if you can join us on upcoming trips. We are planning a trip back to Bradshaw, WV on December 10th.  We will be feeding the people in Bradshaw and Rhodell a Thanksgiving/ Christmas type dinner with turkey, dressing and all the fixings.  We will also have drawings for some door prizes.  This will be an evangelistic outreach, not just a feeding. Pastor Dean Crane just completed a tent meeting in Bradshaw and had 9, mostly drug addicts, saved. Dean said we could expect to feed maybe 80 people in Bradshaw. So we’ll need some help.  We may also do another food drive with a local church and make that run in November.

We are praying about a Kenya or Uganda trip in 2011.  There is a lot going on in God’s Kingdom, so come on, jump in and get your feet wet.

Help us pray for these projects, support us when you can and you are welcome to join us if you’d like.  It’s all about God, not us.  We’re just a vessel!  But we could use your help!!!

Sincerely,

Tony and Donna Haywood

A Helping Hands Ministry team just returned from an eight day trip to Honduras. Fourteen people made this trip and represented several different churches.

This is one of the best trips I have ever been on. This is my report:

Our latest shipment arrived one week before we did which gave us plenty to sort and distribute.

We visited the Santa Teresa Hospital and gave away newborn caps that were handmade and donated to us for this purpose. We also went to the “Home of the Ancients” (rest home to us), to see how they were doing and to meet the nuns that oversee the place. It’s been several years since I was there and we found many needs which we will attempt to alleviate with future shipments.

We went to a newly roofed church in a community called Ahortirique (unsure of spelling) which also now houses a school. We delivered school supplies, food, clothing, shoes and toothpaste and toothbrushes for each child. We also distributed quite a few stuffed animals.

And, of course, what would a mission trip to Honduras be without the infamous “chicken truck ride” up the Oki Mountain. The truck is a dual wheeled farmer type truck with metal rails around the bed about chest high. The rails serve two purposes, the main purpose is to keep you from falling off the truck on the rough roads, and the second purpose is to almost bruise every part of your body from waist to neck. This trip is looked forward to by all and anticipated greatly. By the way, this is about the only way to get a group up the mountain and it is about an hour and a half trip. The trip is a lot quicker coming down; but, enough said! The only way to get an “I survived the chicken truck ride” tee shirt is to, well, survive the ride.

We toured the Enlaces Bi-Lingual School and the new additions to the building. They have turned what used to be a warehouse into some really nice classrooms. They have also completed part of the second floor of that same building and have three additional classrooms finished. There was plastic on seven of the windows to keep the blowing rain out. After a few questions, we discovered they did not have the funds for these windows, so HHM supplied the funds for six of those windows and a member of our group purchased the last one. The school now has 357 students enrolled through 9th grade. Next year they will add the 10th and possibly the 11th, which in Honduras will complete your high school requirements.

There is a new building near the small gate to the orphanage which will be a barber shop. There was nothing inside when I saw it. I asked the administrator where he gets his support. Some comes from the Catholic Church, some from the community, some from folks like us. He said he just prays and God sends it. When we returned to the warehouse at Enlaces, we were trying to finish sorting the shipment that had arrived the week before we got there, and you’ll never guess what I found. Three hair trimmers, I plugged them up and all three worked, they were delivered to the orphanage the next day along with six mattresses. The other six requested mattresses were delivered the following day. When we were shown the kitchen, there was one freezer (it’s broken) and two old refrigerators and not much food. The sink drain lines have been patched the Honduran way which consist of wrapping the leaky area with plastic bags. We are inquiring the cost of feeding the boys per month and hope to have that information for you at a later date.

There is a church that meets at the Enlaces Center on Sunday morning. They have been building homes for people in need and just completed one project. The only thing left were the funds for a water meter and a power meter, which HHM provided.

HHM helped draw and paint a picture on the wall inside the school. We also painted part of the wall on the outside of the compound. The team organized the wedding ministry room, organized the kitchen, straightened up the storage room in the school and stamped the books in the library.

Tony Haywood and Sandi Burgess along with the newly hired ministry guy (don’t know his official title), Triffi Rios, met with the Governor of Comayagua state. She had some requests that we were able to fill and she toured the school, the youth center and the compound.

As you can see, we were busy and accomplished a lot. We are already picking up supplies and preparing the next shipment. Here we go again!!

It will take much funding to meet these needs. Please pray and if God so leads, help us to help these people with these projects. We will be waiting to hear from you.

In His Service,
Tony and Donna Haywood

Several weeks ago we were contacted by a young man named Garrett Jayne that attends Manna Church in Fayetteville. He wanted to do something for the people of earthquake torn Haiti. He wanted to collect T-shirts and asked if Helping Hands might be able to get them to Haiti.  We know several ministries working there and told him we were sure we could help. Here is his story:

When the Hurricane hit Haiti, the pictures of the island were very sad. I attend a large church in Fayetteville NC and many people are always doing something to help around the world, this made me want to be a part of helping someone.

I wanted to make a difference and help the people of Haiti with something they could use and really needed. Shoes seemed too bulky, medical supplies seemed too hard to get and T-Shirts are something we all have.

People in my Gray’s Creek community helped me collect T-Shirts. My goal was to collect 500 T-shirts and I collected 850. This thankfully filled our family van. It was really great to see so many people bringing T-Shirts to help. I thought 500 T-Shirts seemed hard to reach. Actually the hard part was sorting them and preparing them to get ready for shipment.

I hope to continue to collect T-Shirts again next year and see what God has planned for them.

Thank You,
Garrett Jayne Hope Mills NC

We met his mom, Katrina Garrett, in Fayetteville and transferred the load from her van to our truck. Once we had them in the warehouse, I sent out an e-mail to see who could ship them for us. We had about 10 different ministries respond offering to ship the tee shirts. We settled on Lumiere Ministries near Gastonia, a date was set for delivery and they were delivered to Mickey Stokes of Lumiere Ministries. Mickey hopes to ship his next container in August. They are rebuilding a hospital that was completely destroyed.

Because of the unrest in Honduras in 09’, our shipments have been on hold. In the last month we have been getting word that shipments may resume. We have had an application in process for some time and have been waiting for word that it could go. The schools in Honduras started the new school year in February and depend on us a lot to get new school supplies and furniture to them for the new year. They have been getting by but are in great need. Just today, I received word that our shipment has been approved and can begin movement to Pope AFB the first of May. The transportation managers already have flights that will be able to move our cargo by the middle of May. Just in time for our Honduras trip! They believe it will arrive just before the team and we may even be able to help move it off the base!

We gave 2 stretchers and some medical supplies and equipment to a church near the coast of NC for their effort of supporting the relief in Haiti. We delivered these items for them to a collection point in Cary, NC.

We supplied 10 stretchers to a ministry in Alabama for a new hospital being constructed in Ecuador. Samaritan’s Purse picked those up at our warehouse in Southern Pines.

Helping Hands has participated in two mission conferences this year so far. We made some great contacts and good friends. One of the families we met is moving to Guatemala to be full time missionaries. They will be working with several orphanages while learning the language. We are already making plans to ship supplies for them once they are established in country. They hope to move in June, 2010.

We now have a satellite office and warehouse in Greensboro. One of our board members has the desire to do the same things Helping Hands does and sees no reason to start another ministry. Part of the outreach he will help with is to the Karen people. They are refugees from an area near Myanmar and are being moved to the states. The US government moves them here but they have to be supplied certain things for the home. They have about three months to establish themselves and find work. Helping Hands is participating with other organizations in the initial set up.

Donna, Tony, the Helping Hands Board, and all the volunteers want to thank all those who are praying and supporting this work. By the way, I’d like to introduce the Board to you, by name, Bill and Mary Leusink, Kim Madrigal, Linda Dick, Elaine Jones, Jody Sparks, Diana Brower, Gary and Renee Fischbach and the Greensboro connection is David and Deanna Lovin. We also have Crist and Eileen Hamilton who will be joining Back to Back Ministries and serving in Nigeria for about one year. If you would like to put some “hands on” the work we’re doing, please let us know. We have work days, loading days, sorting days, the ongoing work in West Virginia and sometimes trips out of the country.

Your prayers, financial support, and “ hands on” support are always needed.

Thank you for all you do!

Sincerely,

Tony and Donna Haywood

It’s seems unbelievable that 2009 is almost over, where did the year go?

In 2009, we sent a 40 foot container to Bridge Ministries in Honduras and found the cost to be up to $4500.00 for us, not including the cost for our mission people in Honduras. We’ve decided, as a board, that cost is too expensive and have opted to do the Denton shipments exclusively to Honduras.

HHM completed the paperwork for a Denton shipment, delivered the shipment to Pope AFB and it was delivered to Soto Cano, AFB in Honduras in June. The people that handle the paperwork stateside is USAID in Washington, DC, their representative in Honduras contacts the missionary to let them know it has arrived and to help them with arrangements to have it removed from the base. The shipment is then transferred to the Bridge Ministries warehouse and readied for distribution.

Bridge Ministries has been in Honduras for about 14 years. They operate a bi-lingual school that will increase to almost 350 students this year. The new school year will begin in Feb. ’10. They have started a church, support two other churches, have a youth center that has an attendance of about 600 children and adults per day, furnishes much needed items to other schools, orphanages, clinics, rest homes and a local hospital. HHM has been supporting Bridge Ministries with shipments for about 10 years.

HHM usually makes at least one trip a year to Honduras to hold a medical brigade. The brigade this year was postponed due to the unrest. We will reschedule that trip for the Spring of 2010.

We have also been contacted by a missionary moving he and his family to Guatemala. He will be working with several orphanages in the country and has asked if we could ship some items to him. I have checked with the Denton people and found we can do that once the paperwork is completed. That missionary is in Guatemala as I am writing this newsletter and hopes to bring the needed paperwork back.

In September, my wife Donna, and three other board members joined a local church on a mission trip to West Virginia. They took clothing, toys and food to a church in Bradshaw, WV. They were to investigate for HHM and see if there was anything we could do to help. When they returned, they reported to the Board all that they had seen. They found that the Pastor of the church actually lived in NC near Boone and drove to Bradshaw every weekend. They also found that the Pastor, Dean Crane and his wife Betty, have two other churches, one in Rhodell and one in New Richmond. So, Pastor Dean drives to Bradshaw on Friday. He has a small home next to the church and sleeps there. On Saturday morning he leaves about 8 AM to make the 1 ½ hour drive to Rhodell for a 10:30 AM service. After the service he drives back to Bradshaw for a 3:00 PM service. On Sunday morning he leaves about 9 AM for an 11:00 service at New Richmond and then leaves from there to drive home to NC about 3 hours away. He makes this trip every weekend weather permitting. The church in Bradshaw has a lot of shelving in the back storage room where they had tried to maintain a food bank. The majority of the food had been picked up from the WV food bank but the food there had dwindled and there was not much to get when they went to pick it up. I, Tony Haywood, contacted Dean and spoke to him about the needs and what we might could do to help. He said food and cleaning supplies were in high demand. A lot of the people in all three churches had lost their coal mining jobs and had no work and very little income. Some of the HHM Board spoke to Grace Church and asked them to help. The church purchased paper bags and passed them out to the congregation with a list of the needed items. They also bought plastic shoe boxes and included directions of what was needed in the boxes for boys and girls and three different age groups.

HHM and Grace Church volunteers helped gather up all these supplies and loaded the HHM 16 foot enclosed trailer and the back of our truck and loaded the remainder in several of other vehicles and on Friday, December 11th at about 9 AM, 25 people pulled out bound for Bradshaw, WV with coats, sweaters, gifts and toys for the children, and food for the Bradshaw food bank. The Grace Church team and the HHM team arrived in Bradshaw at about 4:30 PM and proceeded to unload the goods. On Saturday part of the team stayed in Bradshaw to set up the food bank and make up the food boxes that would be passed out to each family, the rest of the teams traveled to the churches. When the whole team arrived back in Bradshaw Sat. afternoon we were in awe of the work that had been done. The food bank shelves were organized and full. Pastor Dean told his churches that the Wal-Mart had come to Bradshaw. The shoe boxes were passed out to the children in the churches. They were very excited to get these gifts. We insisted that they open their gifts before leaving the church. It was such a joy to see their faces. Pastor Dean said if we had not insisted, the parents would have made them wait till Christmas day. In most cases, that is the only gift they will receive for Christmas.

HHM and Grace church plan to make several trips to WV in 2010. Pastor Dean is praying about planting another church in Welsh, WV. We stopped and looked at the site and the building and had prayer with him asking for God’s guidance. If this new church works out, he’ll hold that service on Saturday night.

HHM has a shipment to Honduras we hope will move in January.

Guatemala is in God’s hands!

If you are not a supporter of HHM, would you consider joining us in God’s work.

We also need your prayer support, Helping Hands recognizes that we can’t do it all. But, we can do all God calls us to do, and that is our desire!

Sincerely,
Tony and Donna Haywood

What has Helping Hands been up to in the last few months?

We were donated a Braille Bible several months ago. Now picture this, 66 books of the Bible, several of the books of the Bible are two large for one volume of Braille, so several Bible books took two or three Braille volumes to include a whole book of the Bible. Now I know you’re probably asking yourself, “where is he going with this?” What I want you to understand is this complete Braille Bible weighed about 68 pounds. We have tried to give it to a lot of people but no one needed it. I was in the warehouse working on a shipment and mentioned the Bible to a volunteer. She said I should list it on TECH, “TECH is a medical mission association with over one-hundred non-profit Christian medical relief agencies as members” and HHM is a member. www.techmd.org I sent the Braille Bible offer on the list serve and within an hour, Global Aid Network asked if they could have it and would pay shipping if I would send it to them. They told me they were involved with a Campus Crusades organization at a Blind school in Liberia, Africa. I shipped it the next day!

The local hospital, clinics, rest homes and others have covered us up with Medical supplies. Because of the economy, our financial donations are off, so we do not have the money to ship forty- foot containers anymore. The cost of shipping a container has increased to about $4800.00, so Helping Hands has opted to spend more effort on Denton shipments which are quite a bit cheaper. The problem is medical supplies that have expiration dates really slow down the process, so we needed something else to do with the supplies. Once again, we utilized TECH! I sent out a sample list and told the list serve that I would like someone to take it all, about 6 skids and that most was in date. I received several request and settled on a group that was willing to make arrangements for shipping and would arrange for a truck to pick the skids up at my warehouse. Gleaning for the World is very glad to receive the supplies and will forward them on to Africa to a hospital.

I received a phone call from a local community college that asked if I ever received Medical supplies that were out of date. With the economy and funding like it is, they needed supplies for teaching the surgical Tech classes. They contacted us just prior to the shipment leaving the warehouse, so we were able to bless this class at the community college with some really nice medical packs that were out of date. I delivered them myself. The college teachers were very pleased.

Three Helping Hands people spent the Labor Day Holiday working on a Denton application. I wanted to train some folks so that I would not be the only one with the ability to fill out the application. I only had two people that came to learn but we were able to complete the application and e-mail it in to the USAID/ Denton folks. It took four hours to complete with three people working. That does not include the warehouse work, only the paperwork.

Helping Hands Ministry is joining a local Baptist Church on a mission trip to West Virginia. Room was very limited, so we could not take many with us on this first trip. The goal is to go check out the work, participate in a Bible school the Baptist church is putting on, help with food handout, HHM will provide school book bags with school supplies in each one, and we’ll furnish some quilts to pass out to the needy families. My wife, Donna, will be in charge for HHM on this trip and will set up a return trip for us. That way we can take a larger team on the next trip. She’ll find out what some other needs are and we’ll have time to gather the needed supplies before our return trip. Watch for news of this trip and the date for the next trip.

Our Honduras trip scheduled for July had to be postponed due to the unrest. We will still take this trip as soon as everything gets back to normal.

Helping Hands is also looking in to the possibility of having Emergency relief supplies on hand. We are still investigating what to collect and how to set it up. Any ideas, feel free to contact us with suggestions.

Please continue to pray as we seek God’s will and how to move. We need God’s direction, not our own!

Sincerely,
Tony and Donna Haywood

In March we prepared the paperwork for a Denton Shipment (military moves it).  In this time of price increases, fuel cost, and the problems with Customs in Honduras, Denton is a really good way to go.  The inspection for that shipment happened in May, we got approval in late May and delivered the shipment to Pope AFB in June.  Thanks to Don Thomas Trucking in West End for helping move two 48 foot truck loads over to the base.  It was a phenomenal shipment!  The truck was at the warehouse at 7:30 AM and so were a couple of volunteers.  The truck was loaded in record time and we pulled out for Pope.  Once at Pope, we were unloaded and headed back to our warehouse.  Before noon, we were reloading and by 1 PM we were on our way back to Pope.  We returned to Southern Pines about 4 PM with about 20,000 pounds of aid delivered.  We have been told that this shipment will be there by the 4^th of July.

In July, we have a team of 28 people going to Honduras to participate in a Medical Brigade.  They will be meeting the needs of the people in the areas of some of the schools we help support.  The team will also hold special classes for pregnant mothers, teach on clean water, how not to spread germs and some other classes.  We will also be helping with a huge painting party.  The mission in Honduras, Bridge Ministries, has ball courts, a school, a youth center, apartments and offices that all need to be painted.  Everyday part of the team will go out to meet the medical needs of a different community, one a day for four days and the rest will stay and paint.  We will also use this outreach time to distribute the aid from the shipment that will hopefully be there by then.

As soon as this shipment is removed from the base in Honduras and distribution is complete, I am required to send in an after action report to USAID.  They are the folks handling the Denton paperwork.  When the “after action report” is submitted, then I can submit another application for the next shipment.

It was such a good feeling to empty the warehouse and look at all the space.  I thought to myself that I would take a week or so to rest, and then spend a day or two cleaning up and throwing away some junk, and then I’d be ready to go.  God had other plans, I started receiving phone calls for pickups the next day.  The warehouse is well on its way to filling back up.  God is so amazing, for the two months we were working on this shipment, the warehouse was full with no room and we got no phone calls with donations or pickups.  The day after our shipment leaves, God starts filling it back up.  This is not the first time this has happened, but it amazes me every time God does it.

Helping Hands was donated a really nice Ultrasound machine.  We sent out word that we had one and that we were willing to share with another ministry. Honduras was not sure they had the personnel to keep it running so we looked elsewhere.  It’s important for a machine like this to be donated to an organization that has a bio-medical either on staff or have access to one.  After talking to several different people we decided on a doctor from a ministry in SC that is doing work in Nigeria, West Africa.  He has bio-meds that can check it out before it’s shipped and again once it arrives in country.  Sometimes just moving one around can cause failures so it’s important that it can be checked and repairs made so it can be put into service.  Emmanuel was very pleased that he was chosen as the recipient and made arrangements to come pick it up.

There is a local doc in the Southern Pines area that makes several trips a year to Kenya to volunteer in a hospital there.  He was preparing for a trip and called us to see if we might have some orthopedic items for surgery that he could transport for his trip.  I met him at the warehouse and he was very surprised at what he found.  Some of the items on his request list were in the warehouse.  We actually had more than he could transport but the items were in such high demand that he decided to take them any way and paid for his own shipping to get them to Kenya.

I want to extend a special thanks to our volunteers who have helped tremendously with sorting, boxing and packing for shipments.  Without those people we could not do what we do.  I also want to extend a special thank you to our financial supporters.  Even at a time when the economy is down, our support keeps coming in.

We hope to do another Denton application in August or September which means the shipment will be there before Christmas.

Again let me say thank you to all who help us.

Thank you,

Tony and Donna Haywood

I want to keep you updated so you know what we’re doing!!

We have received a $2000.00 grant. This money will be used for two Denton Shipments this year.  As we’ve told you before, the cost of shipping containers continues to increase.  We shipped one in January that cost us $4000.00 to Honduras.  The container was held up in Customs in Honduras, some items were taken even though we had a complete inventory and it took three weeks to clear.  We used a different shipper and they said customs was their fault so they did not charge us extra for each day over our allotted time, which is a huge Praise Report.  Enlaces, in Honduras, has to put up a $500.00 deposit for the container and if everything goes well it is supposed to be returned.  They’ve been told it will be! After talking with the representatives from Enlaces, we’ve decided that Denton is the way to go.  It takes longer to complete the paperwork and to ship, but it does not go through customs and is delivered to an Air base within a few miles of Enlaces.  If we at Helping Hands can get all the paperwork completed and the application turned in without problems, we can send two a year and the grant would pay for most of the cost.

HHM has been contacted to help a missionary couple move to Romania.  They have a small amount of personal items they would like to ship.  We are locating a shipper, determining the cost, and will prepare for shipment from our warehouse.

Petro Aziato is in Togo, West Africa.  We support Petro financially as we can.  He is reaching out to cities and communities in Togo.  I’d like to share a brief story that he shared with me. Petro and his team went into a small village with a little clothing, a doctor with medicine and a few shoes.  They held a medical brigade, showed the Jesus Film while the patients were waiting to see the medical staff. They gave away clothing and shoes and a few gifts for the widows.  They were there for a few days, on Sunday morning, they held a church service, gave an altar call, baptized all that accepted Christ, acquired a small parcel of land and built a small brush arbor church.  One of Petro’s workers will stay and help the church grow and train up the leaders.  As the team was preparing to leave, some of the community leaders came to Petro and ask why it had taken so long for someone to come and tell them about Jesus.  They had never heard!!!!
You may ask, How can that be??   There are millions of people alive today that still have not heard the name of Jesus.

Madhavva and Aaron are serving in India. HHM also helps both of these guys with a little money to help feed the orphans in there care.  One has about 30 children, the other about 1400 children in three different locations. What we are doing is not enough to solve any issues, but we are helping feed the kids.

Kenya:  We have been attempting to wire money to Kenya for the continued work there. We are having difficulties with a US bank and after three weeks, the money is still not gone. Please help us pray that this money would be sent on to Kenya! We also have a friend that travels back and forth to a different part of Kenya and works with a hospital.  We are exploring the cost and effectiveness of shipping some of the medical supplies we receive to this hospital.

We are in the planning stages for our medical brigade in Honduras.  This year it will be July 26 to August 2nd.  Our first formal meeting is March 8th at Grace Church.  This trip will be a construction and medical Brigade trip. We are hoping that the cost will be about the same as the previous year but will not know for sure until we get tickets on hold.

I don’t have to tell you the economy is rough, giving is down, I personally know several ministries that have closed the doors due to lack of funding; but God’s work has to go on!  Sometimes we go, sometimes we support someone else that is there doing the work, sometimes we send them things they need and always we pray.  Helping Hands Ministry has started a prayer list.  If you’d like to join the e-mail address is helpinghandsprayer@gmail.com

Sincerely,

Tony and Donna Haywood

By the way, the dates for the next brigade are already set. The ’09 brigade will be July 28th to August 4th. Those dates are subject to change a day or two either way depending on the airlines, but you can put that on your calendars.  We will have to start making plans a little earlier, but I’ll keep you informed.  If you know you have an interest, let me know and I will go ahead and start a list.  The last brigade was a huge success!  We made our annual trip in the chicken truck, enjoyed by all, up Oki Mountain.  The first time we held a medical brigade up there, we set up tables under the pine trees, which was not bad unless we had had rain or storms to deal with, which we did sometimes.  There are about 65 families we help.  Oki Mountain community now has a pretty nice school building, a kitchen for the school and an office for the teacher.  They used to have to carry water from someplace else; they now have water piped in on site of the school.  So, there have been major improvements, but the people are still very poor and need our help.

We also visited two additional sites and I’m not sure if we will return to both of those or not, but I’m sure Sandi will have us something lined up.  We also completed some work projects like working on Sandi’s vehicles, painting lines on the court, painting in the school and several other projects.  It’s too early for me to set up work projects yet, but we will have something for everyone to do.

We sent two 40 foot containers full of humanitarian aid in ’08. A very special Thanks to all who helped load!  We also shipped two Denton shipments, one, we just delivered to Pope AFB.  That one was delivered to Honduras on the 16th of December.  It also included a vehicle for Hermes Machado, the Director of Enlaces Bi-Lingual School.  Sandi tells me they will have about 250 students for the year of ’09.  Their school year begins in February and runs till November.

We plan to ship another 40 foot container in January.  Honduras had some pretty bad floods in November. Sandi and the team had about 200 people sleeping on the floor of the center during this time.  They gave away all the blankets and clothing they had in their warehouse. Part of this next shipment will be to replenish the supplies for donations.  The victims of the floods lost everything.  Sandi tried to meet the needs of as many as she could.  If you have things you’d like to ship, I need them pretty soon for them to make the next shipment.

HHM is supporting two people in India, Aaron Raj, and Bodigadda Madhava Rao and, Petro Aziato, in Togo, West Africa.  We are sending them monetary donations about once a month. Aaron works on the Andaman Islands, Madhava, in Mumbai, India where the Taj Mahal was attacked, and Petro all over Togo, but lives in Lome’. Two of them I know personally and we get regular reports and pictures from them all.

Edwin had returned to Kenya to deal with some ministry issues but has now returned to Canada to resume his schooling.  Ismail Wagongo from Kenya, another good friend was just here in the states for about two months.  He visited several churches and had the opportunity to speak quite a few times.  He returned to his home in Kenya on December 5th.  He has written me once and called me recently to let me know of his safe return.

This is Petro holding a service in Akodesseva Village, Togo.

We have a lot of dear friends in places all over the world and would like to personally ask you to join us in prayer for these people of God.

The economy is affecting our donations but we are very appreciative to all of you who can and do help. We praise and thank God for all of you that help us continue the work of the Lord. We’ve not been able to ship as much or do as much as usual, the fuel prices caused us to cut back and then the economy, but we are hoping and praying ’09 will improve.

Thank You,

Tony and Donna Haywood