MANKATO — Michelle Ritchie received a text she couldn’t refuse on Wednesday.

It beckoned her back to Haiti to assist once again in the relief effort.

“We knew this could happen,” said Ritchie, who discussed the decision with her family before accepting a second mission. “I’m so blessed to go back.”

Fewer than two weeks ago, Ritchie returned from her first trip to Jimani, a Dominican Republic city near the border of Haiti. While there, the Mankato emergency room nurse tended to the sick, injured and dying. She coordinated triage efforts and offered comfort to the grieving.

She was planning to go back — but not until March.

But Ritchie is part of World Relief and Human Care, a disaster response team supported by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. The text she received Wednesday asked if anyone could return sooner.

Ritchie accepted and began preparing herself for the long hours and raw emotion that would greet her return.

“I don’t like to just be a nurse,” said Ritchie, who has six years of disaster response training. “I like to communicate with people and look them in the eye.”

Andrew Mittelstadt, a May 2009 graduate of Minnesota State University’s aviation program, returned from a relief mission to Haiti about two weeks ago.

On the day the earthquake struck, Mittelstadt was leaving Mankato for a temporary job with a charter flight company in Fort Lauderdale. Upon his arrival, he was assigned the task of clearing arrivals and departures with the military officials who were granting access to the airport in Port-Au-Prince.

Eventually, he was asked to fill in for another pilot and he carried six doctors and a priest to the airstrip. He returned with a 3-year-old orphan boy who was destined for a family in the Twin Cities.

Mittelstadt is now back in Mankato and said he is hoping to find a way to return.

“A city that big, you should see the lights from miles away,” said Mittelstadt of the eerie feeling he had during his approach to the runway, which is flanked on either side by mountains. “It was black, except for the little campfires all over the mountains.”

Several other area pilots also are continuing their efforts.

Gaylord native Alex White, who is the chief pilot for Downs Foods, made another trip on Wednesday to bring Haitian orphans to Florida.

Jared Brown, an adviser at North Mankato’s Weilage Corp. who is a founder of Haitian relief organization Project 81, also is flying relief missions to Haiti.

For Ritchie’s part, she will arrive in the Dominican Republic today, after a stop in Miami. She’ll then have one night in a hotel before reporting to her assignment in a hospital near Jacmal on Sunday. For seven days, Ritchie will help treat the 150-plus patients gathered outside the hospital at any one time.

She said she has marveled at the enduring faith and resilience of the Haitian people and is anxious for another opportunity to contribute.

“They are so rich in faith and love and family,” she said. “They have been amazing.”

If You Go

What: Haiti Disaster Relief fundraiser, with silent auction, free appetizers and lunch and drink specials

Where: Rounder’s Bar in downtown Mankato

When: Noon to 3 p.m. today