Tag Archives: helping others

In God’s economy, nothing is ever wasted.

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I’ve been helping one of my dear friends pack up her house to prepare for a move to another community. It has been my pleasure to watch she and her husband embark on this adventure. They’ve lived in this valley for so many years. They raised their children here, owned businesses, know many people and have more memories of this place than I can imagine. Yet, they heard God say it was time to move.

I heard she told her son how thrilled she is to have someone help with the packing, one that had moved many times with the military. Wow! I think so seldom of those years and when I do, my thoughts are of places I traveled to or people I met who impacted my life. The rigors of packing, moving and unpacking are not high on those memories. Yet God in His infinite grace makes something out of what we may perceive as nothing. I’m honored that a friend can use something past, which seems like part of another life, today.

Grateful Haitians…

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While in Haiti I was impressed by the people. They are poor. Poor beyond anything I could imagine. Yet these people were dignified, gracious and grateful. The following photo is a candid shot of one of these couples. I also shot the formal pose, which was their preference.

Grateful Homeowners (rural farmers)
Grateful Homeowners (rural farmers)

I volunteered with Poured-Out, installing bio-sand water filters in homes. The people have requested these filters, signed up for and paid 200 Gourde (approximately 4.00 US dollars.) This small contribution to the cost of the filters denotes ownership in the process. These people were interested and invested in learning about the benefits of the filters and the maintenance. As part of the extensive survey they participated in, they were asked if there were things they wanted shared with people in the United States to understand what the filters mean to them and why their contributions are so meaningful. I was blown away by the responses! Below are some of the responses I would like to share. Hopefully these words will give you some insight into the gratitude I was able to witness during my work in Haiti.

  • Thank you, this kind help will be easy for us to save more money, to keep our health – May God bless you. I hope this favor continues in Haiti.
  • Thank you a lot, encourage you for this good work, it is a great work, we really like it. We will pray for more people to give to this work, so God will touch their hearts. We are very happy with the work.
  • Thank you so much for the work you are doing. Be strong in the world. Cover much area with filters. She will pray we will be blessed and can continue this work.
  • God sent you to Haiti to bring clean water. Thank you so much for helping another country. We will pray for you.
  • I feel it is a big lesson, just sitting here while you install a filter for my family. Now we don’t have to worry about diarrhea or other diseases because now our water will be clean. This is a big opportunity for all of us. A big thank you to all of you.
  • I congratulate you! I think it is a big thing. My family has a filter. I hope others will have filters also. That’s why I will continue to pray for you so that God can continue to bless you to have a giving heart. Thank you.
  • Thank you for the good work. Continue the good work. Don’t get discouraged. Even though you do the work for us, God will bless you. Thank you and God bless you.
  • We need to get the word out so more people can have filters. More people need them. Doing this is a big job in Haiti. You are killing cholera in Haiti. Thank you so much. Pray that God can bless you as an organization and keep on working. Pray that God would continue to provide the money for this work.
  • I have satisfaction you have given us this filter. I want to thank you for doing this work. I know the area next to mine needs filters too, so can you guys bring more? We have other areas, communities, people who have sickness and cholera and they need filters and would love it if you could bring some there too.
  • This is a big help because we have a lot of disease in this country. This filter will help us a lot because clean water is the most important thing in our lives. Thank you.
  • I am so happy about the work I know that God put that in your heart to help us. I want to say thank you again. May God bless you to continue to do this job.
  • I say thank you for this support. It will help me not to buy water again. Money it will be used for other. Thank you a lot. May the Love of God follow you.
  • We say thank you for this effort for this help in Haiti. We encourage you to continue doing this job because God will bless you. May God protect you and bless you. Thanks for having God in your life.
  • We say thank you. May God continue to bless you and give you the ability to continue installing these filters. May God bless you.
  • Thank you so much because you leave home, your family to come. We will pray for you I pray that God will protect and take care of you. God is the one who is in control of you.
  • We thank you for this gift that you guys give. If we were buying it would cost a lot of money, but to have one is a big gift.
  • We say thank you for the team that our eves see right now because God gave you the opportunity to think of Haitian people, after the two big shocks that we have had in our country of the earthquake and cholera outbreak. We say thank you to all the people who contribute to buying this for the Haitian people. May God bless you.
  • First of all we thank God, that makes the idea in your mind to think of Haiti, and we thank God because he made it possible to do this good work. We pray the blessing of God over everyone who is doing this work. We were in need of this because we used to have to buy water to drink now we won’t have to buy it anymore.

Go. Learn. Love. HAITI — The Short Story

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I arrived home about 4 am today.

It was an amazing week! I’m still sorting through all the different thoughts and emotions involved in experiencing something so totally different from my life routines.

Market Day
Market Day
Rural Farm House eager for their filter install.
Rural Farm House eager for their filter install.

There were 14 team members, 3 team leaders, and 3 translators working together in the Torbeck area, Okay Region of Haiti.

We installed 50 filters.

Yes! 50 filters.

What does that mean?

Each filter can process approximately 20 gallons of water a day.

That creates a potential of 1,000 additional gallons of safe drinking water available each day to improve the quality of life for the people of this area.

Lovely Haitian Girls
Lovely Haitian Girls

More info and photos to follow…

GO! LEARN! LOVE! — Haiti is the place.

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Go Learn Love is the motto our church uses for our missions programs. Haiti is the place in June. This week I completed the last of the immunizations I need before leaving on this exciting trip.

Thank you! Those of you who have been praying for me, and the team – God has been answering your prayers. He has been erasing my fears one at a time and building my confidence about this trip. He has also been building relationships between team members. This last Sunday as a group, we did a fundraiser. We fixed the after church brunch, provided music during lunch and had a great time working together. Lunch was a success! The money earned from this effort will be distributed between the team members. Then we had a Skype session with one of the folks from Poured-Out giving us more detailed information about our trip. June will be here before we know it!

I’d like to thank those of you who have graciously contributed to my expenses for the trip. I have about a month left and a small amount to raise to cover my trip expenses, and am confidant God has this under control. If after praying about this, you feel God is asking you to contribute to this great effort, please private message me so I can provide you the necessary information.

It will be my pleasure to share the adventures of this trip with you.

Stay tuned…

I pray blessings to each of you, who have been supporting this trip through your prayers. I believe God will use your prayers and financial support in a mighty way.

Living a life of passion……

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I recently visited with friends I had not seen in 20 years. It was a memorable evening on so many different levels. When I knew this couple, David was a military chaplain and his wife Rose and I were involved in Women’s Ministries together. Twenty years later I find that David tried ‘retirement’ and did not find it satisfying. Something was missing for him. He is now working for the VA as a chaplain, ministering to soldier’s who return from war suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorders. It was a blessing for me to see someone who is 70 still pursuing the passions of his youth. His life is making a difference to those who want his help – and he feels blessed to be in a position to use his life’s experience to help these younger returning soldiers through difficult times in their life. There is talk that David may ‘slow down’ a little, but it does not look like he will be walking away from this job anytime soon! The visit has me thinking about passion, and wondering if many of us have something we are so passionate about we would change our way of living to fulfill. Are you willing to share your passions?