Preview of a family meeting on Haiti Service

"It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount

of love that is put into them that matters."

-Mother Teresa

There's nothing like viewing stark poverty and disaster to awaken one's self to deep compassion for the suffering, and gratitude for the comfortable life we have. The night after the quake in Haiti, I was watching Anderson Cooper report on the damages that were just coming to light. He spoke about areas of Haiti that already were in deep poverty which he'd visited and seen first hand- children selling mudcakes (which are exactly that- dirt/water) for FOOD. Mothers would feed mudcakes to their little ones because they were desperate to give them a full feeling in their empty stomachs. So, I'm feeling a little guilty that here I am spending hundreds of dollars a month on food for our family. I know that guilt isn't necessary, but the sorrow of the Haitians' plight has stirred up compassion in my heart and I know that as a family, we can and should help in some way. This is what our family meeting will be about when Wayne gets back tomorrow from his business trip..... What will we do as a family to help?

One thing we'll discuss is how we can help humanitarian relief long term. Our church works with the American Red Cross to offer humanitarian service wherever needed. They began sending relief supplies to Haiti soon after the earthquake (news report found HERE). Go HERE on our church website if you want to donate money to the humanitarian emergency response. You can set it up to donate any amount of $ each month. This reminded me of our monthly fast offering where we fast two meals each 1st Sunday of the month and donate the $ we would spend on those meals as a fast offering to help those in need. A couple ideas that have come to my mind to relate this to helping the people in Haiti....

• Fast a meal another time during the month & donate the money we would have spent on that meal to the Humanitarian Fund
• Have PB & J for Sunday dinner and donate the cost of a family pot roast dinner with all of the fixings.

I think we can do something along these lines to help not just one time in reaction to the earthquake, but long term to continually remind us of those in need & the opportunity we have to give. What makes this so powerful in my eyes is that this is our choice. I've talked with my kids a little about the earthquake and they are up for action, in fact Thomas' reaction was, "I want to go there and help!" I felt the same way, although we obviously will need to help, and can help from where we are in meaningful ways.

Our hearts and prayers are with the people in Haiti.