More important Information

We are drawing very close to leaving and I know that there are a lot of questions about the trip. While we are planning an important parent's meeting tomorrow night (Tuesday) at 7 PM in the Youth Center, I want to touch on a few VERY IMPORTANT DETAILS that will need to be cared for (some BEFORE tomorrow night).

MALARIA VACCINE

At the first parent's meeting (and other times since then) I let each of you know about the recommended vaccines and treatments that you might consider for the trip. While all of these are optional (up to you as a family and your doctor), I want to do everything that I can to help you take them correctly. In the case of the Malaria vaccine, the regimen is a series of pills that are taken every WEEK on the same day with the first dose taken the week before you leave. In speaking with a Pharmacist, we now know that it is not important that these pills be taken at the exact same time every week, only that they are taken with the principle meal for the day (although others have reported no problems with taking them without food - the difference is one person's stomach compared to anothers).

Here is the important detail: One of our very helpful parent's suggested that it might be easier if we would plan to take that medication on the same day so that once we are in Honduras we can take the next week's dose together (to ensure that everyone takes it correctly). That is the plan. So, please plan to take your first dose of the Malaria vaccine on Tuesday, July 15 with your principle meal. As I understand it, if you are not able for some reason to take the vaccine tomorrow, it will still be OK to start on Wednesday and still take it with our team the following Tuesday. As you can imagine, we would love it if everyone were able to stick as closely together as possible so that we can manage the 35 people who will need to take that medication together (it will be kind of like a mosquito communion). So, it at all possible, PLEASE TAKE THE FIRST COURSE OF THE MALARIA VACCINE TOMORROW!

PASSPORTS

We will be handling your students passport from door to door. Please bring their passport with you to the meeting tomorrow night so that we can make the appropriate copies and get them assembled into the teams in which they will travel. (We will return the passport to your student when we return to the Church at the conclusion of the trip).

PACKING INFORMATION

Please see the link in the top corner of the blog page (you will need to go to http://www.godeepblog.com/ if you are subscribing by email) to download the MS Word Document with detailed packing instructions. The document is 3 pages long and details everything that you need to know about packing for this trip. Make sure that you read it - we will be following those requirements very closely.

MEDICATIONS

In addition to all of the instructions on the packing document, I need to point out a couple of other things that you will need to consider:

1. All medications must be in their original containers with your student's name on the outside. This is not a requirement from us - this is directly related to Customs. As you can imagine, we will be crossing the US border with a LARGE amount of medication and will likely be questioned as to the contents of the bottles we are carrying - they will not allow us to cross the borders with unmarked containers or containers belonging to people who are not present. Please help us out by working with us on this.

2. Does your student use an inhaler or other regular or emergency medication? Inhalers are one of the only medications that students will be allowed to keep with them. In the event of their losing their inhaler, we will not have access to purchase another one. You might consider sending an additional inhaler that we will keep in the medical boxes. Again, this is up to you.

3. Feminine stuff. As you can imagine, I don't like to discuss this reality. But, I would rather talk about it now than try to deal with it in person while we are gone. It would be very helpful if all of our girls were prepared for the possibility that they may have not read the calendar correctly or just the possibility that the stress of the trip made the clock run a bit faster than expected. Hopefully, that will be enough said...

I know that is a lot of information, but it is only a fraction of what we need to cover so that we can plan to safely and quickly move through all of the security checks, Customs lines and airline boardings that will happen during the trip.

If you have ANY questions, please email me at jeremy@newhopecc.org and I will reply as quickly as possible.

Thanks!

Jeremy