Let me try to catch you up.  In January we had our first Board meeting of the New Year.  We added two new Board members.

In February, one of our new Board members and myself made a trip to Honduras.  We went down to see how Sandi and Bridge Ministries was doing and what we might be able to do to help.  We found a very busy, successful, vibrant ministry.  Their new school year has started with about 350 students in the bi-lingual school. A new administrator for the school is in place. They have had a little difficulty getting all their permits and accreditations in place but all those situations have been handled, the Lord moved, and everything is completed. The teachers and staff meet every morning for devotion, in English, and prayer before starting the day. On Friday’s, in the afternoon, they have a short message with praise songs led by teachers of the school.

The Center used by the youth and families of the community is still going strong.  A lot of kids come to play games like foosball, pool, basketball, volleyball, soccer, board games, and electronic games and put puzzles together 4 nights a week. On Sunday afternoon they had an organized break dancing competition between several teams in the Comayagua area. This competition was to pick a winner and a representative to enter in the state competition held later for all of Honduras and Guatemala. The team came to Sandi when they were first forming and ask if they could practice and she agreed if they would take part in a Bible study.  They agreed and the leader and a couple of others have accepted the Lord as their Savior. One of the judges is a member of this group and won the state competition last year.  We enjoyed the dances but turned down the invitations to join them.

Sandi had received an invitation to attend a meeting at the university and ask if we would like to come along. The meeting was good although some of us were handicapped a little by not completely understanding the language. The directors of the university asked if someone would like to come teach English part time. They also said that the Bible could be used to teach the class as long as a particular denomination was not pushed.  Sandi has since agreed to teach the class. One of the directors is also a pastor and wanted us to visit his community and see his church.  We traveled there the next day; it was a beautiful church setting on a hill, with the most gorgeous flooring I have ever seen, a great scene overlooking the village, the mountains and the valley. He also has a feeding program for the kids of the community and sells a relish they make. It looked good, but was told it was hot and we decided against trying it.

We also traveled to a new area called Jose de’ Pana.  The director from the university made the trip with us.  He was looking for a project for the students to help with as part of giving back to Honduras, before graduation.  He will work with the community to work on the sewer system for the community building. The building, at left, is a clinic. We will be helping Sandi and the locals clean and paint. Sandi has new medical equipment for the clinic as soon as the other work is completed. The big university in the Capital of Honduras has since contacted this director to talk about this new program and is going to use it as a pilot program.  If it works well, then they will require it of all the universities affiliated with them.

This is only a small part of all the stuff God did while we were there.  This newsletter will be too long for me to share everything that happened, but it was an awesome trip and we were busy the whole time.

Now we are knee deep in a new Denton shipment. It has been approved and awaiting inspection.

And in May, I will be attending a Tech Conference at Samaritan Purse in Boone.  They have asked me to teach a class on using the Denton program for shipping.

There is a lot going on and we are as busy as ever.  Join us in prayer, or in the warehouse or you can join in the blessings by helping us help others.  We will be purchasing a freezer for the Food bank in Robbins, NC.  Robbins has been designated as the poorest community in NC.  Helping Hands is working with a local coalition to help the people in Northern Moore County.

Helping Hands is still hauling resalable items to a second hand store in North Wilkesboro in support of Dean Crane. Dean and his team are visiting prisons, planning overseas trips, and still supporting four churches in West Virginia.

With your help and prayers, we can continue to make a difference in Moore County, North Wilkesboro, West Virginia, and the world!

Thanks for your prayers, help and financial support!!  We are “making a difference.”

Sincerely,
Tony and Donna Haywood

We have had a lot of stuff going on.  Several months ago I felt like God spoke to me about doing a shipment to some friends in Israel. I thought to myself and probably even ask God, How in the world am I going to do that? We don’t have enough money coming in to ship a container, I was afraid to even call to find out the cost. So I did the same I always do, which is the same that Mary did when the angel brought her the message, I pondered it in my heart.  And now the rest of the story; every once in a while God would remind me and I would store it away.  How, how could I do that? A little while later, I started to pursue this word, but only baby steps. I contacted my friends in Israel and asked them if they could get a shipment, what kind of items would they want. I assured them this was only a very slim possibility, not to get their hopes up. They sent me a list!  Now I had a new problem, part of the items on the list was stuff that we did not have in the warehouse.  I have to ask people to give these items.  What if I ask and this shipment does not happen, then what do I say to the people that gave it, and what do I do with all the stuff for Israel. Oh, you just don’t know everything that went through my mind.  Then the word came, use Denton, WHAT, NO WAY!!!! I was just sure that was not possible, but just on the chance, I made a phone call and ask the question.  The person I called did not know but would find out. I waited two weeks, and then called back; he had forgotten to find out. He gave me a number for a guy in DC with USAID and told me to call him and ask the question. I called and had to leave a message. He called me back and I asked if it was possible to send a Denton shipment to Israel. We talked a minute, he wanted to know what I was sending and if I could get the paperwork that was needed, I assured him I could and he put me on hold. When he came back on the phone he told me he had just added Israel to the country list on the web site.  Unbelievable, He had just added Israel to the list that means it was not on the list at all, I never checked!!!  Now, don’t lean back and blow a sigh of relief, this story is not over. Donna and I worked hard and got all the paperwork and inventory completed for a shipment to Honduras and the one to Israel. We submitted the applications Sunday night! The guy in DC told me it would take longer for the Israel shipment because USAID does not have a mission office there. Monday morning I received an e-mail that both shipments were approved. About a week later we delivered both shipments to the military base and they are both gone.  The Israel shipment is in Germany awaiting shipment to Israel, The Honduras shipment was delayed due to a tropical storm but may leave this week.

I know that was a long dissertation, but I felt it important to share. God is still doing great and mighty things and what He is doing for me, He will do for you!

This is the rest of the shipment delivered to the air base.

Israel could have asked for a long list of supplies but they only asked for winter clothing, blankets, diapers and some shoes. They are gathering supplies for a storehouse to meet the needs of the needy no matter who they are or
I hope you will join me in prayer for direction. It’s more important than ever that we know the direction and calling of God.where they are from.

This is a trying and unsure time we live in today. The news is full of earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, floods, financial crisis and almost any conceivable disaster, sometimes even inconceivable disasters.  What can we do?  The Word that God gave me a long time ago was;  Do What I Can Do! I can’t solve every issue and God does not expect me to, HHM is to serve where God directs. As long as I remember that and just serve where God directs, I will accomplish all He has for me to do. Us Mission types want to meet every need, we feel guilty explaining why we are not working in this or that particular area. We feel uncomfortable saying, God did not direct me to help there, or did not send me.  But that is the honest truth!  I always pray about involvement and if there is peace, I try to hold back.  I did not say I was always successful. Sometimes my heart gets in the way, but I do try!

Just Do What You Can Do, Go where Gods sends, If God calls you, answer.

Whom shall I send?  Our answer should be, SEND ME!!

Will you support us, Will you pray for us, Will you help us?  What will you say?

Join us in our work for the Lord,

We remain servants of the most high,
Tony and Donna Haywood

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 helped move this family in last fall. They were in the camp about 4 years before qualifying to come to USA. They are some of the few who speak pretty good English. They attend Friendly Ave. Karen Church.

 My wife (Donna) joined us this time.  We climbed up on the shelving, where a lot of the dental supplies was located, and began to sort through all the items. My wife, Donna, went off in another direction to look. A few minutes later she returned to ask what exactly she was looking for. Oliver, with broken English and myself proceeded to try and describe the broken item. I asked her if she was praying, I knew if she prayed and if there was one of those tools in the warehouse, God would lead her to it. Off she went to look some more and Oliver and I returned to our boxes. A few moments had passed when Donna returned with a hand full of tools. She held them out in her hands and asked if the tools we were looking  for looked anything like these. Oliver was so excited he jumped from the shelving all the way to the floor, “yes, this is them,” He looked them over closely and then a sad look came over his face, “we’ve got to have a wrench.” A wrench?  “What in the world does a wrench look like that would fit that thing,” was my question? Oliver described it to us and I told him that if that tooling was here, there had to be wrenches. We looked where Donna had found the tooling, but no wrenches were there. Oliver and I climbed back up on top of the shelving to continue to look through boxes of dental supplies. We found one broken one, then two whole wrenches. It was a blessed day for Oliver, Donna and Myself and the dental patients attending the brigade.

I was just remined by a friend of an important part of this story that I left out. These dental supplies that we were digging through arrived in Honduras at least two years earlier. Donna, myself and a bunch of volunteers made a road trip to Augusta,GA to sort and pack a dental office donated to HHM. I don’t know how they even heard about us, one of those God-incidences. He knew Oliver was going to need those tools and had someone donate an entire office so they’d be there when they were needed.

God is really good, Huh ?”

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

Click for photos of the trip

Tony

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