I pray this prayer almost daily lately. I have been torn between the requests of a priest to help fundraise for the completion of a health clinic and the desires to “do something more, something more hands on.”
The first 8 years Jeff and I have worked with Haiti, we have helped raised funds to build a school, build a convent for the sisters who run the school, build a well, build latrines, build the second story on the school, build an additional school in the country, help pay teacher bonuses, help pay tuition for students, and help with improvements on the main church building. All this time, following God’s lead and answering His call with our group, Hope for Haiti, but wanting more of a connection with the individual people of this country that we have fallen in love with.
For the last two years, we have done just that. We have started Hands for Haiti and have helped build shelters in Port-au-Prince after the earthquake, distributed school supplies to earthquake refugee students, built a home for a refugee family in Verrettes, helped distribute fruit trees to poor Haitian families in the mountains and brought 100 water filters to families that cannot get clean water. Now our next trip is planned for October and I am faced with the question of what are we going to do next? What is the need?
On our last trip, Fr. Alexis showed us an unfinished health clinic that he is helping work on. The nurse that is heading up the project has given everything she has and then some to this dream of hers and she is out of money. So the clinic sits unoccupied and waits for some miraculous way for funding. Enter, Debbi and Jeff, and Hands for Haiti. Fr. Alexis has asked us to help with this project. But here’s the catch – the help they need is in the form of funding, not in the form of manpower. Here comes the conviction… my prayer, “Lord, please show me what you need for me to do in Haiti. Please lead me and I will follow You! I am struggling with lack of direction. Please, dear Lord, guide me! I am feeling lost!”
Does God always call us to do what WE want to do? What WE feel comfortable doing? No, He calls us to do HIS will! He knows our gifts and our talents! My mother always said to me when I felt exceptionally challenged, “God won’t give you, what you can’t handle.” You just need to trust and rely on HIM! I have prayed this prayer so many times and all the while God is showing me, telling me what His people need. A HEALTH CLINIC! And I have been too blind to see it. Too concerned about what I want to do to see what God wants me to do! So, through many tears and asking God for forgiveness for my desires of self-fulfillment, I have committed to see this health clinic through. When we go to Haiti in October, we will be visiting the health clinic under construction and also visiting other Haitian families and possibly doing a little ‘hands on helping’ but we will become part of the dream of one local nurse to serve her brothers and sisters. We are now also her brothers and sisters. Let the family circle of Christ grow wider this October!!
Joyfully for Haiti!!
Debbi Gischia
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