By noon on Wednesday we had determined that we would do a special offering this Sunday for Episcopal Relief & Development's Haiti Emergency Fund. We announced it in our newsletter that went out that night, and on our website the next morning.

We created a new page on our website, "Helping Haiti," with information on how people can help. It includes prayer guides, links to relief organizations we support, our plan to give money to our denomination's haiti churches, and eventually send relief workers.

We also sent out information in an email newsletter and will include a special time of prayer in our weekend services.

The day of, we were swamped with emails and phone calls from our folks. I love it! We will be collecting money for the next 3 weeks or you can give on line at our website. All money will go to World Vision, as they are already on the ground there and set up.

We've got some personal connections with people in Haiti (both through missionaries and family members of church members). As of right now, we have only given our members the resources to give financially to help other organizations who are down there in the trenches. I believe, over time, we will perhaps offer other ways to help, but that is what we are doing currently.

My church has a 20-year partnership with some organizations in Haiti, so we've been working to make sure our friends are OK, praying for them, and collecting donations. Nothing ground-breaking or huge, but vitally important. We had a stretch of congregational prayer for Haiti during yesterday's service that was pretty cool.

And it's not my church's project, but I launched a little fundraiser called Color4aCause to support my church's efforts.

One church in my area donated all last weekends offerings to Haiti, $220,000.00. They also prepared 200,000 meals to be shipped to Haiti.