Nine young adults and youth from the village Skorped in Sweden remained in Bois Negresse, Haiti in the mid portion of their E-Team trip, a mission and work team combination. There they installed playground equipment for the local children, planted grass and built protective fence against hurricanes.

Before returning home on Wednesday, they will also visit the Star of Hope's school project in the villages of Marigot and Jeanton.

The nine belonging to the choir E-team have since the catastrophic earthquake in 2010 worked hard to raise money for the Star of Hope's work in Haiti. After a first concert tour they managed to raise about $25,000 dollars, which among other things paid for new wells with clean drinking water to people in the village Jeanton. Since then they have continued to raise money, which resulted in playground equipment, new grass and hurricane protection for the children in the village of Bois Negresse.

Our warmest thanks to E-team for their great effort!

Maja Gyll with one of our schoolchildren in Bois Negresse, Haiti.

Thanks to E-Team and their friends,  this girl for the first time in his life, had a swing and a slide - Joy!  Do you want to start a Star Team? Star of Hope has two new churches on the table for construction and we will be needing more people who want to change a life through a work team or as we say Star Team.

Enjoy this slide show following the team in Haiti and look at the results.

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In Russia Star of Hope supports children who currently reside in institutions as well as youth and young adults who grew up in an institution's. We do not support the ideology of Children living in homes and always work towards placing children in a solid family; here is an unedited report from our Russian director Natasha Kirillova, St Petersburg.

Here we send you the pictures from our meeting with ladies-graduates from the orphanages. This month we started a series of classes "Called to be a woman"; focusing on opening up and empowering Christian values of family with emphasis on role of the lady. It's a big problem for absolutely 100% of girls who were brought here to the orphanages - that they have wrong understanding of the aspects of self-worth and God's plan for each of us. The misunderstanding will cause a lot of problems in the future for them if not addressed. We want to use the teaching as a preventive work to get them help to avoid future difficulties.

They had to answer questions, listen to the lesson and discuss things that they see as a problem in their own life. That was the theory part; the second part was a cooking class, aimed to teach them to cook "meals that taste really good, but still are being made from inexpensive base products". The girls were excited to eat what they had prepared; we shared all the recipes at the end of our tea time.

We want to thank Star of Hope for making it possible to help graduates from orphanages to adjust for the independent life!

Nastya Leshkevich was raised up at the orphanage. After we started to work with the family plagued by problems, her mother stopped drinking and regained the right to raise her 4 daughters

It was a miracle for Nastya - to move away from the orphanage back to a home! Up to that time Nastya was 14 years old. In Russia social workers hardly have track on what is going on after the child comes back from the orphanage to the family - it is enough that the mother visits them once in a couple month being not drunk. It was clear for us that Nastya needs more supervision so we have enclosed her into our Graduates project and started to support her and strengthen her.

Thanks to Star of Hope she received both moral and financial support. She has travelled to another country to visit her sponsor, who even though blind, was faithfully helping Nastya and even visited her mother to talk to her! Now Nastya studies in school and takes part in our activities, still receiving such support from SOH. We have found her older sister Vika to be responsible enough to help Nastya and supervise her - Vika does 90% of what the mother must do for Nastya. After all they both are too young to be alone, that's why they like to come over to our studies, share their problems and ask for help!

Natasha

Natalia Kirillova and all Help to Children

Children in Luga, Jukki, Grace center

Where is Luga Russia?

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The Wetig family from Kansas visited Haiti the week of March 17-23. John, Nancy, Joy, Jamie and Alec have learned that they may leave Haiti but Haiti will never leave them!

Visiting 5 of the Star of Hope schools is always an experience. The family was greeted by more than 1,000 children. They especially felt like a rock-star when they were told that all these schools either delayed the break for Easter or had the kids come back just to meet them.

"I cannot describe to you in words how I have been transformed inside. My mind, body, and spirit have been touched by this experience. The trip not only opened up my life to a new world but my presence was seen as a sign of "hope" for the people I had the opportunity to meet in Haiti." - Jamie Wetig

In addition to visiting the projects the family installed hundreds of hurricane ties at the school in Rigaud. These structual improvements will help the school buildings weather the tropical storms that are all too frequent.

Take a moment and check out these photos from their trip. You will get a small sense of good they accomplished during their week.

Each person who visits Haiti is affected in a very personal way. Listen to Jamie as he recounts how it came to be, that he and his family have a sponsor child:

"When we arrived at the home, I gave the kids the last of the snacks I had brought for the trip and noticed a young girl who was milling some corn. During our short time, I interacted with her, helping to mill the corn and I noticed how this child is exactly like my daughter. When we left, I could not get her out of my mind. Watching her work, seeing the physical strain, hearing the effort she was giving. I just could not stop thinking how this little girl could be my daughter. Would someone help my family if they were in need? Would someone help my children? I kept asking these questions to myself, over and over. How can I help just one? I thought back to an old story about a boy walking on the beach and throwing starfish who had washed ashore back into the ocean, and how he was making a difference one at a time. That was my answer. I am now a sponsor to Christelene. Through sponsorships, one at a time, we can make a collective difference. Christelene is now a part of my family, and we are a part of Haiti forever." - Jamie Wetig

Feel free to facebook Jamie Wetig. He has posted so much from his trip and how it affected him and his son Alec. Here is a video he put together.

What can you get for a dollar? Not much. But with a dollar, you can make it possible for a child to go to school for one more day!

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If you think back you probably can remember a hard day at school; you know, a day when nothing went right. Emotions and tears come easily for the younger and of course school can be a scary place at times. Our staff does everything to help our kids to grow socially and emotionally as well but sometimes it is just too much and kids get sad.

Preschool teachers training with well accepted methodology has been a regular routine for our teachers in Haiti and similar systems of training programs are used around the globe at Star of Hope projects. Teaching techniques including, pedagogy, teaching methodology to teach in preschool, participation and cooperative learning epically with emphasis on parental and community support. Teachers had been also trained to make and prepare preschool teaching materials themselves, a most empowering skill set. The children will benefit tremendously from the new skill sets the teachers have acquired.

We are in need of new sponsors in Haiti and wonder if it's time for you to become one of us?

If you are not a sponsor already you can Sign up Now.

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StarTeam 2013 #2 Is a small team of 5 being lead by Star of Hope's CEO- Barry Borror, making the complete team 6 strong. The team is made up of 3 generations from the same family; Grand Father, Grand Mother, Son and Daughter and a grandson. They are all from central Kansas and have raised the funds to make the trip and to purchase the materials needed for structural improvements to the roof of 2 schools. John Wetig is a lineman for a power company in Kansas, Nancy is a nurse, Jamie is a principal at a school and Alec is his teenage son; Joy is Jamie's sister and is a nurse assistant. READ THE BLOG HERE.

They have visited Boyer School, where they distributed some school supplies donated by the students and teachers of the Valley Center, Kansas intermediat school of wh ich Jamie Wetig is principal. The team then had lunch with Father Roderick of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and visited the school which is supported by the church. Some school supplies and shoes were left  for the children of the school and the parish.

Tuesday the team met with the committees of the Rigaud Church and school prior to beginning the work to install hurricane ties and braces on the roof of the 3 new school buildings. Wednesday the work should be completed. Thursday the team will visit Marigot – the project for whicht SOH USA is working diligently to find funding to keep the school open.

Friday the team will visit Bois Negresse to help with the preparation for the Swedish e-team that arrives in 2 weeks.

"What started as an opportunity to walk across the road and share some candy with a little Haitian girl, is when it hit me! The realization of just how urgent the needs of this country are."

Stock photo, (c)Dennis Thern. Star of Hope

The above was blogged by Nancy Wetig a current StarTeam member and it seems she has had a grand realization.

Right now a Star Team is in Haiti we invite you to follow along; read the blogs here. If you like you can share the Tweets on @starteams1 Great Bend, Wichita and other places are represented.

We call all are trips "StarTeams" and each has usually a different priority that is pre prescribed by the local management in Haiti. I have never met a returning Star Team member who did not have a changed heart and a new perspective on his or her local life and personal place in life. Perhaps you have thought about participating on a "mission trip" well a great place to start is to follow one digitally then if moved you can contact us or even read more about StarTeams.

The current team is not close to any internet so the photos will follow later in this article are stock photos of the same projects visited.

READ THE BLOGS : LEARN ABOUT STAR TEAMS : BE A SPONSOR