Haiti Trip Update

Just heard tonight that mission trip to Haiti in January has been confirmed. Right now it looks like we are moving forward even though there are only about 5 to 6 people that have confirmed and from what I hear even that changes daily. We would like more people on this trip, so if you are considering it please let us know. If you have questions we are always available for those as well.

Those of us going to Haiti are also doing fundraising for the trip. We are attempting to not solicit from ACC members so that our fundraising does not have a negative impact on those planning to travel to the Dominican Republic as that is the "official" adult mission trip. So if you are fundraising for the Haiti trip please keep that in mind.

The good news is that we are planning a fundraising event for the Haiti trip in Nashua, NH. One person (not me) is really doing all the work and that work is really appreciated. When the details get firmed up I will let everyone know. Please try to attend even if you are able.

On this year's trip I would like to be able to provide information in a more timely maner back to the congregation, both in terms of photos, video, and stories. I am hoping that I will be able to post to the blog while in Haiti, but I am not sure if that will be possible or not. If anyone has any other ideas please leave a comment.

Welcome and E-Giving

It occurred to me that often the information I needed to post to the mission trip Facebook page contained more detail than I could provide in the limited space Facebook allows. So it made sense that I needed to create a blog for the entries which I could then "advertise" via Facebook as well as other channels, such as email. Now, I already had a blog on the mission trip, but as that was more a personal blog about missions as opposed to a general blog for this specific trip I thought I better start a new blog. The issue is that in the personal mission trip blog I beg for money for me personally and therefore it didn't seem appropriate to use that as a general blog for the mission trips.

The big news today is the introduction of e-giving. You can take advantage of e-giving to help raise funds for the mission trips by pointing people at http://actonc.org/e-giving.php. From this web page donors can link to an e-giving site where they can create an account and specify a donation. When specifying a donation the giver need only fill in the line item labeled "Dominican Republic Mission Trip". While it is labeled "Dominican Republic" the funds will go to both the Haiti and the Dominican mission trips.

A limitation to the e-giving capability is the lack of the ability to donate to a specific mission team member. ACC has decided that donations collected from church members will be distributed to all mission team members, while donations coming non-ACC members can be designated to a specific team member. To work around thee-giving limitation an email account has been established, AdultMissionTrip@acton.org, which can be used by donors to designate a team member to whom they wish to donate. To specify the team member simply donate through the e-giving site and then send an email to AdultMissionTrip@acton.org. In the body of the email please specify your name, your email address, the amount of the donation, your transaction number from the e-giving tool, and the individual to which you wish to donate. I know this is a bit complicated, but it is what we have available today.

If you have questions please leave a comment and I will do my best to answer any questions or resolve any issues.