Villanow residents Brenda and Michael Cooper aren’t quite done with Haiti yet. In fact, according to them, they’ve only just begun.

The Coopers have visited the Caribbean island 20 times since their first trip with Christian Flights International in the year 2000. But the couple weren’t content to merely assist other programs for too long. Their own nonprofit organization, Haiti Helpers, was founded and recognized in 2005.

Now, in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, the two are planning a last-minute relief trip to Jacmel, a town 25 miles south of Port-au-Prince. Up to 15 people are expected to accompany the two from Feb 11-18.

Donations

Checks or cash can be mailed to Calhoun Seventh-day Adventist Church, 1411 Rome Road SW Calhoun, GA 30701. Please put “Haiti Helpers” in the info line.

Volunteers

Please email coopring05@aol.com for more information and how you can get involved. Please put “Haiti Helpers” in the subject line.

This trip is going to be much more difficult than the Coopers’ usual Haiti excursions.

“We’ve taken all different age groups before, people from age 13 to 84. We always supply translators. We have the knowledge of how to have a secure and safe mission trip.”

Haiti Helpers volunteers typically work at a small clinic during the day and hold evangelical events in the eve-ning, including vacation bible school and a “Bible presentation.” Volunteers have regular meals and a pre-arranged place to sleep.

This time around, however, there will be no beds for Brenda and Michael Cooper. No showers, either. And any food the group of volunteers eats will have to be bought beforehand and brought into Jacmel. They will no longer be able to fly into the country, and will fly instead to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. From there, the group will likely travel to Haiti by boat or bus.

It’s going to be an “intense trip,” Brenda confessed.

And this time, the focus will be much more medical than moral.

“Any medical people, especially doctors or surgeons, with a burning desire to go can be fit in at the last minute,” she said. The couple stresses that trained medical personnel are desperately needed.

But this is just the first of many trips the couple plan to take this year to help relieve the impoverished country. Three more trips are currently in the works for May, Aug and Oct.

“If a group wanted to get together, if they have a particular skill or focus, we could probably find a place to plug them in,” Michael said. He explained that the upcoming trips will have a great need for skilled construction work-ers to help rebuild as much as possible, and he encourages anyone, especially those with particular skills, to con-sider accompanying Haiti Helpers on one of their trips. “Anyone who wants to go with us in the future is more than welcome.”

Thanks to the Coopers’ years of involvement with Haiti, they now have an impressive number of contacts in the country who could find places for volunteers of all ages, faiths, and skill levels.

The trips are expected to last from five days up to one week.

“We pay for everything on our own,” Brenda said proudly. “We paid for all our own trips. Nobody sponsored us.”

At least, not until recently. In response to the earthquake, the Coopers’ church and the CEO and administrators of Gordon Hospital have agreed to help sponsor Haiti Helpers’s projects for the next five months.

Nonetheless, the couple plans to do nothing but good with whatever funding comes their way.

“One hundred percent of donations we get go straight to Haiti.”

And in preparation for these trips, donations to Haiti Helpers would be very much appreciated.

“If people want to donate money, it will help us to reserve medical containers, foodstuffs, supplies in Santo Do-mingo, beans and rice,” Brenda said.

Despite the hardships, the couple are looking forward to getting in the thick of things in the disaster-torn coun-try.

“There’s a joy to it,” Brenda said of the act of volunteering. “It’s hard to talk about a joy in any fashion related to this situation, but you know we always come back from Haiti feeling like we got more out of it than they did.”

A friend of the Coopers in Haiti and the director of a women’s center in Port-au-Prince once called Haiti “the land of unlimited impossibilities.” The Coopers find the phrase morbidly appropriate.

“Over the years I’ve almost thought of Haiti as the forgotten country. Hopefully that may be some of the good that will come out of all this tragedy, that people start to pay attention,” Michael mused.

The couple, after all their experiences in the country, doesn’t exactly have much to say to those purporting the theory that the people of Haiti deserved this disaster.

“If you’ve never had to feed your children dirt cookies, then don’t criticize the Haitians,” said Brenda.

In addition to donations and volunteers, the Coopers hope for the moral support of the community as well.

“Just keep praying for Haiti,” they ask.