Thursday night a group of local doctors, nurses and volunteers were packing up suitcases with medical supplies, medicine and clothes. The group is headed to Grand Goave Haiti for a medical mission trip.

Organizers say this is the groups seventh time going to Haiti to help those in need. Seventeen people, including four doctors and several nurses, will help with everything from infections and broken bones to helping with dental needs. The group says it expects to help 1,200 to 1,500 people during the week.

My first thought is I get anxious, I still have that Midwestern mentality where I want to be busy I dont want to have to have people wait. I am always apologizing because people do have to wait and yet they dont really have anything else to do. So yes, its a great sense of sadness these people have to wait, they have nothing, and they come from long distances to see a doctor and they will wait long hours in the hot sun if they have to, just to see a doctor, says Kathy Kivlin, who is a Foreign Travel Nurse with Marshfield Clinic.

Heading on the trip with the medical team are two parents who arent strangers to helping out in Haiti. They adopted a daughter about a year ago after the devastating earthquake in the country. Now the couple is in the process of bringing home three more children.

Little Mazie Grace is right at home here in the Chippewa Valley now. However a little over a year ago she was still in Haiti, waiting for this new life to start.

It was just a few weeks in and we noticed a huge change for her and shes adjusted great. Shes darling and wonderful and determined and she loves life and shes excited about every aspect of her life, shes got zest, says Sandi Polzin.

It was a long process to bring Mazie to the states, but adoptions were sped up after the earthquake. John and Sandi Polzin, who already have two sons in their 20s, cant believe how much their family will be growing. Theyre trying to bring home three more children from Haiti.

It was a huge shock when we got matched with the two older siblings, we said yes to them, then a few weeks later they said by the way we didnt know but theres a baby. Would you be interested or will you consider taking their baby sister, says Sandi.

She and John are headed to Haiti with the medical mission. Along with medicine and a new water filtration system the couple will take some time to see their new children. However it will be at least two years before Schneider, Mila Rose, and Merci will be home in Wisconsin.

Waiting will be difficult but weve done this before so we know what it will take, even though its agonizing we understand now that weve been through it. The cost will be an issue for us because we didnt expect to pay for three adoptions so we were financially surprised but god can help take care of that too, says Sandi.

She says waiting is hard and mission trips can be stressful but says when you see the great need of the people there, you cant help but try to make a difference.

Were excited its an intense trip when you take that many but its so worth it and you see lives changing all around you, says Sandi.

The mission trip starts early Wednesday morning. This will be the second time the Polzins have seen their new children. They took a trip this past fall to Haiti to see them. Sandi says if you want to help with the effort or learn more about Haiti adoptions you can get a hold of her through her store Down to Earth Gardens on Highway 93 in Eau Claire.

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