Haiti Love Trip 2015 - Of Granola Bars & Size 4 Diapers

Our luggage from McPherson at the Miami airport! They were heavy!

As we stood in the room where all the team's donations were being brought in we slowly, joyously began sorting through them.

So much had been given to help the people of Haiti. You friends, you purchased and gave and we were sitting surrounded by your outpouring of love for people you will never meet.

Each team member had brought two 50 lbs. bags filled with supplies to be handed out between two orphanages, two churches, a school and a hospital. That's 1,600 pounds of supplies! So many supplies to try to put a dent in so many needs.

It put tears in our eyes seeing the different things that had been donated, knowing those things cost so much more here to purchase if they are even available.

On the first go through, we sorted by content. Piles of school supplies, pain reliever, cough syrup, ointment, band aids, shoes, socks, fun activities, pillowcase dresses and piles of ziplock bags filled the room. It was overwhelming. It looked like someone's bag for summer camp had exploded a hundred times over.


Once all the team members had arrived and all the supplies had been sorted by kind, a few team members worked to divide them between the places we would be taking them. Gertrude's orphanage, Josie's orphanage, then Pastor Thomas' church & school, Leonard's church and the hospital.

At times it felt a little like the story of Elisha and the Widow's Oil (2 Kings 3-4). No matter how many diapers were packed in to other bags or granola bars eaten and handed out - those piles continued to loom large.

At several different times we said to each other, "What are we going to do with all these diapers and granola bars?" At one point we even took extra granola bars with us as we traveled to work sites to hand out at traffic stops to those walking on the street but even then we didn't have great success getting rid of many.

Little did we know but God had a plan for those diapers and granola bars. It would take us a few days to know about it too, but when we did come to know why we had them, we understood the provision of God in a new way.

During an evening chat with a resident volunteer at Gertrude's orphanage, Lauren (who is a story of God's love in herself) shared with me that her fiance had an orphanage. He was homing 13 kids that were found on the street, homeless, some due to the earthquake in 2010. That Chedner had plans of attending pharmacy school and had started but after the earthquake he simply could not bear seeing all the parent-less orphans on the streets. He allowed God to break his heart for those children and quit school, took what money he had left and opened his orphanage, Family Care Home.

She shared with me that he didn't have support from any organization to run it and that what fed the kids, kept a roof over their heads and sent them to school were what he made from his construction supplies company. Sometimes it was good, when times were good, but sometimes it was tight when times were lean. Doubly, he spent what profit was made on the kid's needs so he lacked funding to continue to invest more into growing his business.

What a story. What a man. What a God who continues to sustain him, those kids and that orphanage.

So that night during team devotions we were talking about the $5,000+ that had been donated for purchase of rice and beans (God is so good and you all were so faithful to give out of your excess to physically put food on the table for so many families) and I mentioned learning about a small orphanage just down the street that could probably benefit from some beans and rice. It is my first time traveling with this group and I wasn't really sure if I was overstepping any boundaries by suggesting this as they have places they return to and support each year but in hindsight I am so thankful I did. Keith, one of the trip coordinators nodded that there would be plenty to share some there as well.

In a turn of events caused by political demonstrations and a transportation strike due to increased gas prices, our team was unable to go offsite to jobs that had been planned the two days before we were to return home.

On the first day of our "house arrest", a few members of our team decided to make use of the time and deliver some supplies we had held back to Chedner's orphanage since it was a 10 minute walk away.

Family Care Home

When they came back you could tell that the conditions at that place had been rough by their expressions and quietness. They packed up more supplies including additional medical supplies, shoes, dresses and food. I went with the group on the second trip to the orphanage and all they shared was true.

Dirt floors. Dark rooms. Bare feet. Crowded sleeping areas. You can imagine and you cannot imagine all at the same time. Much work to be done.

At the Family Care Center, they are safe, they are cared for and they are loved. It's not the best accommodations but they are not living on the street, hungry and unsupervised. Chedner and Lauren have plans for improving the orphanage that I would love to share with you as well as some fundraisers they have coming up in the US for that purpose. They will be redoing the kitchen soon, making repairs to the second floor to make a separate bedroom for boys and girls and doing work on the roof to make a play area.

On the second day of our house arrest, another group of our team went back.The team noticed that the kids had their Sunday best on and later we found out it was because they had heard we were coming to see them. Such sweet kids.

The kids all dressed up to welcome their guests. They sang songs and had colored pictures for the team.

The kids enjoying a meal of beans and rice that had been provided by the donations we had brought.

Like the Widow's desperate need was filled by God's supernatural provision through the multiplication of her few drops of oil, the orphan's needs were met through your donations and our gift of service and time to say yes to Haiti, to show up, ask questions and to pour out love on them.

The size 4 diapers? The orphanage had taken in a little one with cerebral palsy. That precious child wears a size 4. Bless it.

Those granola bars? It was shared with us that the kids were embarrassed at school because other kids were able to bring a snack to eat and the orphanage could not afford to send anything with them. Problem {temporarily} solved.

When we were packing those bags in Kansas and Nebraska and Michigan and Washington, we had no way of knowing that a mile from our guesthouse there would be an orphanage desperately in need of the very things our friends and families had given us. But God did. And He knows of many more needs in Haiti that He is waiting to show me. And you. And provide for His children there through us by His grace.

In Matthew 6:24-34, it is written; "Do not be anxious saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What clothes shall we wear?' ...Your heavenly Father knows you need these things. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you"

In Luke 12:48, it is written; "But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required."