• RedCrossPDX VIDEO – Hero Jack the Chihuahua, who saved residents in an Oregon City apartment w/ his growl: http://tr.im/R901
• redcrossny Changing Lives blog story by Sharon Hawa: “Timing is everything.” http://bit.ly/dba7zP
• stlredcross New Blog: Lindsey Weber- Tuesday Trivia: And the Oscar Goes To http://ow.ly/16KYfs
• Federation (Photo of the day) Taking care of traumatized patients in #Haiti : http://bit.ly/awFAHx
• RedCrossSELA Lauren is on Spring Break – then busy recruiting the next round of #AmeriCorps – could that be you? http://tr.im/RbZQ
• redcrossink Armond Mascelli, VP of Operations for ARC Disaster Services has a letter from our government announcing that ARC is NIMS compliant.
• shaunroberts Glad to see HopCo fire depts strengthen accountability standards so that our fire fighters are better protected & fire scenes more efficient
• attiep21 Great article re: ICRC Museum in Geneva – “chacun est responsable de tout devant tous” – http://b2l.me/fdhwd

• Painting a Village (time lapse video for Haiti)
• For scientists, Chile becomes the ideal lab for studying seismic activity
• Our Red Cross tweeters in Haiti: @MatMorgan (American Red Cross), @TimoLue and @Tammamo (International Federation)
• Haiti and the tyranny of technology
• Successfully countering a secular tradition in Rwanda
• Our legacy

See other links we should be aware of? Leave them in the comments.

• National Hurricane Center issues changes for 2010
• Profile of satellite company that set up communication services for us in Haiti
• Google Apps now disaster proof? – from Techrunch
• Calling All the Saints – by Dino Jag
• Don’t Mess with Chile – tees for a cause from DieHard Threads
• Lindsey Vonn skis and poles on auction via Ellen Degeneres for Haiti Relief

Have you seen any interesting mission-related articles we should be reading? Leave the links in the comments.

March is Red Cross Month.

That’s right. We have our very own month. Starting with Franklin D Roosevelt in 1943, every sitting President has proclaimed March as Red Cross Month.

What does this mean for you?
March is Red Cross Month is a time to celebrate your great support. Thank you for your generous gifts. You have positively changed people’s lives.

This is also the time, as FDR so eloquently suggested, for Americans to

“rededicate themselves to the splendid aims and activities of the Red Cross.”

We humbly offer a few ways you can do just that.

• Call your local chapter and find out how you can get involved today.
• Find a local blood drive and donate.
• Join us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and LinkedIn
• Right click, save as those sample avatars at the top of this post and use them during March on FB, Twitter, and wherever else you like. Want to make different avatars for us? Go for it! We’d love to see them – leave links to them in the comments of this post.

You can follow the Hawaii Red Cross chapter on Twitter: http://twitter.com/hawaiiredcross

Registering with the Safe and Well Web site is an easy way to notify loved ones of your well-being during a tsunami evacuation (US only)

• If you have time before you evacuate, call someone and ask them to register you and your family.
• Registration can be done with the Safe and Well feature of redcross.org or by calling 866-438-4636.
• Friends and family can then search for your message on Safe and Well by using your phone number or complete address.

Chile Earthquake
For inquiries about friends and family in Chile, please try to keep calling them, monitor their social networking profiles or contact other family members who live nearby.

Telephone, internet and other communication lines are often disrupted in times of disaster.

People trying to locate U.S. citizens living or traveling in Chile should contact the U.S. Department of State, Office of Overseas Citizens Services, at 1-888-407-4747 or 202-647-5225.

• Google Map: Red Cross Haiti Relief Efforts
  [Recently updated map of where we're working in Haiti]

• redcross.parsons.edu
  [We're not sure what this is quite yet, but we think we love it]

• Relief…
  [Home fire in Omaha turns ... adorable]

• The big picture
  [effects of social media in helping Haiti]

• Our Haiti
  [Red Cross volunteers on the USNS Comfort created their own website]

Know that the disaster response money you’ve sent is making a significant impact down here.

I miss Haiti. I miss the people. I miss feeling inspired, in awe, in the thick of it, alive amidst nearly a quarter of a million dead. I miss the sun beating down on my hair and the dust in my mouth. I miss holding the survivors’ hands, listening intensely to their words, the photos they pressed into my hand. I miss closing my eyes to voices singing into the night and awakening to sounds of the city coming back to life. I miss every minute meaning so much.

I bandaged wounds, knowing their open sores would heal long before their broken hearts or homes. I tossed boxes of life-saving supplies down the lines of people wearing the same red and white symbols of hope from Haiti, Colombia, Iran, Italy, the Dominican Republic, Luxembourg, Israel, Spain, Korea, Croatia, Belgium, France, Japan, Turkey, Canada, China, the US and so many places. I led a fragile grandmother to a chair in the shade, gated away from the crowded lines of humanity waiting for supplies. Then I retrieved her relief supplies which a youthful Haitian Red Cross volunteer carried up the hill to the old woman’s makeshift living space. We drew on the strength and resilience apparent all around us in the tent cities to push and expand our relief machine around the clock.

Mat tells me he saw the numbers for the first time since he arrived two weeks ago and was floored. I remember not reading a single statistic while I was there, too consumed by the gritty life and death reality all around me. So, I held my breath, not knowing if the news was good or bad. “We have helped 1.3 million people to date, can you believe it?” I exhaled.

He told me about the boy he met in the German Red Cross field hospital, erected in the Carrefour soccer stadium just days before I left. The child lost his entire family– and his leg– in the earthquake. I can see Mat, a big kid himself, playing games at his bedside, no translation required.

“What’s it like to leave here?” he asks me. “I can’t imagine not being here.”

Expect the shudder from a truck driving by to feel like an aftershock. Your heart will pound until you ground yourself. Expect withdrawal from the lack of information juxtaposed with a barrage of news-that-happened-while-you-were-gone hitting you like a cement block. A broken cement block like the remnants of so many houses and suddenly your mind whisks you back to Haiti.

Expect spontaneous tears at inopportune moments. Remind yourself that it’s normal and just breathe and ride the wave. You will have to unpack all those little boxes you hid deep inside yourself– images, sounds, smells, feelings, inconsistencies and frustrations that you had to pack away in the moment so you could do your job.

Focus and be strong, you told yourself while in Haiti. It’s what you had to do during those weeks on that half-island that lies somewhere on the road between hell and hope.

When you are home, nothing will ever look the same. But that’s good, I tell Mat. It keeps Haiti on your mind.