Hope for Haiti -- Continued

When an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan recently, I grieved for this country I grew to love through two educational trips, including an educational video (Japan: A Country in Contrast) created by my students and funded by Toyota. At the same time, as the world rightly began to help Japan, I worried that my friends in Haiti would be forgotten. Sunday, my church announced a new campaign to help see that Haiti continues to receive the help it needs.

It’s been almost a year since I worked in Haiti as a non-medical member of a medical team helping Haitians injured in the country’s largest earthquake in more than 200 years. The January 12th, 2010 earthquake killed an estimated 300,000 people. It’s believed 800,00 people are still living in tents there today. My experience living and working with the Haitians last year stays with me every day. The documentary of the trip my students and I created (Haitian Hope: Field Hospital)has been downloaded by thousands and seen in film festivals. My Haitian friends Estabe, Remixon, and Lamy still connect with me on facebook.

The year since my Haiti mission trip has been marked for me personally with walking pneumonia, whooping cough, home displacement and continued medical problems from mold, and a possibly medicine-induced speech impediment. Without a doubt, my problems this past year pale in comparison to the devastation in Haiti, but part of what has kept me going is the experience I had in Haiti of faith, hope, and personal resolve. The images of adults and children rising above their circumstances and still finding joy are etched in my mind.

On a recent trip to Haiti, a team from my church, Flood, saw the state of Haiti today and began a plan to help the relief organization Children of the Nations (COTN), which also coordinated my trip, build a village partnership program and ministry center created in Haiti that will provide the medical, nutritional, educational and spiritual care required to transform a nation from the inside out.

In a monumental step of community faith, our church hopes to raise $100,000 by Sunday, April 17th to help COTN purchase the necessary land, facilities, and supplies to launch this ministry. Will you partner with us? It could be as simple as cutting back on coffee, soda, or a favorite food for a few weeks to make a donation. Haiti still needs our help. I have hope we can make a difference.

If you would like to make an on-line donation goto: http://diveintoflood.com/hopeforhaiti/