Before the sun rose on a small Haitian mountain community, Ismene Alexis got up, took the water jar, and headed to the village pump for water.

A Haitian girl brings water home to her family.

Although it was still dark, Ismene had no trouble finding the pump. She’d walked these streets a thousand times. On returning, Ismene found her grandparents awake. Grandma was cooking breakfast.

“Good morning, Ismene,” Grandma said, smiling.

“Good morning, Grandma. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, although I had an odd dream. You and I were working in the garden. I looked up and saw a man standing at the gate. I greeted him, and he told me he had special news. So I invited him into our house for tea. While we were sitting together, the man started to say something about you, Ismene, but then my dream ended,” said Grandma.

“That is an odd dream,” said Ismene. “What do you think he was going to say?”

Grandma shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Pondering her grandmother’s dream, Ismene swept the floor and straightened the blankets on the straw pallets that served as beds. When she came to her sister’s pallet, her sister was still sleeping.

“Get up, Nicole!” Ismene said, pulling her sister’s pillow out from under her.

Thwap! Ismene thwapped Nicole over the head before Nicole jumped up and grabbed the pillow from her. Giggling, the two girls wrestled for the pillow until Grandma told them to finish their chores.

Nicole went outside to feed the animals with Grandpa while Ismene finished making the beds. Grandma set breakfast on the table and the family gathered around to pray. After thanking God for the meal, Ismene and Nicole gathered their schoolbooks and left for school.

The sun was rising now, spreading golden light on the huts and houses. Nicole and Ismene chased each other between the houses until they arrived, breathless, at their school. After catching their breath, they went inside and sat down.

Ismene loved school. She loved learning how to work math problems. She loved learning how to combine letters together to make words. She had been so excited the day she read her first sentence.

Classroom in Haiti

But Ismene was worried. Her grandparents might not make enough money to buy food and keep her in school. Then either Nicole or Ismene would have to quit school.

I’ll enjoy school as long as I can, Ismene thought, then banished the thought of having to leave school. The girls sat down on the floor just as the teacher, Miss Lillian, entered. Then the rest of the students arrived and took their places. Miss Lillian prayed to God for a good school day, and class began.

When the sun was high in the sky and boiling hot, Ismene and Nicole trudged home from school. When they arrived home, they found Grandma working in the garden. Nicole took Ismene’s books inside while Ismene knelt and helped Grandma with weeding.

“How was school?” asked Grandma.

“I loved it,” said Ismene. “I got an A in math.”

“Very good,” said Grandma, tugging at an especially deeply rooted weed.

For a while they pulled weeds in silence. Ismene was about to say something when there was a polite “Ahem!” from the gate. Looking up, she saw a man standing at the garden gate.

“Grandma,” said Ismene.

Grandma had seen the man, yet she wasn’t getting up to greet him. What’s wrong with her? Ismene wondered. Then she realized this was just like Grandma’s dream!

“Grandma!” said Ismene, a little louder. Her grandmother got up and went to the gate.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Is this the home of the Ismene Alexis?” asked the man.

“Yes,” Grandma said. “I am her grandmother. Do you need to speak with her?”

“I have some special news for Ismene.”

“Come in then,” said Grandma, opening the gate. “I’ll make some tea.”

Grandma and the man entered the house, and Ismene followed. All Ismene could think was, Maybe now we’ll know what the man was going to say about me! Ismene went in and found Nicole. When the tea was ready, Grandma, Nicole, and Ismene all sat down at the table.

“Now what’s this news about Ismene?” asked Grandma.

The man, who introduced himself as John, answered, “You know that Ismene is a child of Compassion International, right?”

Grandma nodded.

“A family in the United States wanted to sponsor a Compassion child, and they picked Ismene,” said John.

Ismene jumped up and screamed. Then she started laughing. Grabbing Nicole, Ismene and her sister danced around the room.

“Now I don’t ever have to worry about being taken out of school!”

At last Nicole and Ismene sat down, and John asked Grandma to sign some papers. Then John told them what Compassion would do for Ismene.

Compassion International is a worldwide organization that enables people to sponsor children in poverty-stricken countries. When children are sponsored they can go to school, received healthy food at their child development center, and get medical care if needed.

When the shadows began to lengthen, John said goodbye and left Ismene and her family.

“Oh, I’m so happy for you,” said Grandma to Ismene after John left. Grandma spread her arms and hugged the two girls.

“You’re not jealous, are you?” Ismene whispered to Nicole that night as they lay on their straw pallets. Grandma and Grandpa were already asleep, but Nicole and Ismene were talking about everything that had happened.

“No, of course not,” said Nicole. “I’m not jealous. I’m happy for you, Ismene. Now that Compassion’s paying for you to go to school, Grandma and Grandpa will only have to pay for me. I’ll be able to stay in school too. It works out for both of us.’

“Oh, good,” said Ismene. “Good night.”

“Good night. I love you,” whispered Nicole.

Ismene turned over on her side, said a quick prayer of thanks to God, and fell asleep.

A week after first being sponsored, Ismene received her first letter from her sponsor family. The family’s name was the Dodges. They asked her about how she and her grandparents were, what her day was like, and if she had any siblings. Along with the letter, the Dodges sent a photo of their family. There was a mother, a father without much hair, and two dark-haired girls.

L to R: Jasmine (adopted after Ismene was sponsored), Liz, Danielle, Brent and Yani

I hope I get to meet them face-to-face one day, Ismene thought.

Ismene

When Ismene finished reading the letter and inspecting the photo, she got her own paper to write back. The Dodges wrote once a month.

It took a long time for the letters to reach Ismene because they first had to be translated and then delivered all the way to her mountain village. It took a while for her letters to reach her sponsor family too.

When the other families in the village heard that Ismene had been sponsored, they, too, signed their children up for Compassion International. Soon many more children got sponsored.

Two Years Later

Folding up the letter, Ismene took it to the special box where she kept all of her letters from the Dodges. Grandpa had built the box for her and by now it was getting very full. The lid could hardly close.

“How many letters do you have now?” asked Grandma as Ismene returned to the table.

Ismene smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know. Lots and lots,” she said.

“The Lord has been so good,” said Grandpa as he held out his hand to Ismene.

The whole family held hands and bowed their heads while Grandpa thanked God for another letter from Ismene’s sponsors. He prayed that her sponsor family was in good health and that God would watch over them and bless them.

Thanks, God, so much for all your blessings, Ismene prayed silently as Grandpa spoke.

“Amen,” Grandpa finished.

“Amen,” the rest of the family echoed. Grandma got up and went to the stove to start cooking dinner.

“Girls, please collect the chicken eggs,” Grandma said. “I need another egg to make dinner.”

The girls went to the chicken house and gathered the eggs from the nests. As they were starting back to the house, Ismene thought she felt the ground shake. It was a tiny tremble, so Ismene thought she’d imagined it.

“I’ll race you back to the house and we’ll see who’s really the fastest,” said Nicole.

Ismene burst into a run but she’d only taken a few steps when another tremor shook the ground hard enough to make both girls fall.

“What was that?” asked Nicole, picking herself up. “Oh, my eggs broke.”

Ismene stood up and looked around.

“I think it might be…an earthquake,” she said.

“We need to get home then,” said Nicole.

The two girls took off running. Ismene expected another tremor to shake the ground any moment and knock them down again.

“Are you all right?” asked Grandma when they rushed back to the house.

“We’re fine,” said Ismene. But in her hand her own eggs were broken. She’d been so frightened she hadn’t even noticed.

“I’m sorry, Grandma,” she said. “All the eggs cracked.”

“That’s all right. We can make do with one less egg,” said Grandma.

Just as Ismene had finished washing the egg off her hands, another tremor shook the house. Everyone gathered together on a straw pallet. Grandpa started to pray for their safety.

While he was praying, Ismene prayed silently: Please, God. We know that you’re the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Will you watch over us and protect us from this earthquake? Please keep our family — no, our village — safe from harm.

Tremors kept on shaking the ground, great big tremors that knocked things off the shelves. Pots and pans clattered to the ground. The water jar fell on its side and broke. Chairs tipped over. The table shook and Ismene and Nicole’s schoolbooks fell off.

Ismene shut her eyes and tried to calm her fear. She mentally quoted a Bible verse that she had memorized just that day. Psalm 23:4. “Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.”

Gradually the tremors began to decrease in strength and ferocity.

At last Grandpa said, “I think its over.”

The family quietly stood and began to clean up the house. Ismene grabbed her broom and swept up the remains of the water jar. Nicole sat the chairs up. She gathered up their school books and put them back on the table.

Then the family went outside and visited their neighbors to see if they needed help. Over the next few days news trickled in about the earthquake. It turned out that the center of the earthquake’s destruction had been in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.

Whenever Ismene and her family gathered to pray at each meal, they prayed for the people in Port-au-Prince.

As the months passed, the count of those killed by the earthquake rose higher and higher. The death toll was as high as 316,000. The injured and homeless were even more numerous.

Earthquake devastation in Haiti

Compassion International families who sponsored children in Haiti were all frantically writing letters and sending emails, trying to find out if their children were all right. When the Dodges received a letter from Ismene, they were so relieved to know she was safe.

Although relief workers flooded Port-au-Prince, the healing of Haiti will take a long time. Yet there is much to be thankful for even in the face of this darkness and death. Both families –Ismene’s family and the Dodges – are thankful to God that through Compassion International, Ismene has an opportunity to succeed in life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Danielle Dodge is 13 years old and wrote this story when she was 12. Danielle’s semi-fictional story won second place in her local library’s annual writing contest and first place in VisionForum’s webinar, “Mrs. Morecraft’s Ps & Qs of Proper Writing.”

If you’re interested in writing a guest blog post, we are happy to consider publishing it. Read our guest blog post guidelines.

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On December 17, 2010, a 26-year-old man in Tunisia set himself on fire after losing confidence in ever finding a better future. Unbeknownst to him, his act of desperation unleashed a massive and violent ripple effect throughout the Middle East and parts of northern Africa that is still going on today.

Then, on March 11, an earthquake of epic proportion devastated one of the most industrialized nations in the world, Japan. The island country, known for its state-of-the-art systems for disaster preparedness, is now struggling to meet the basic needs of many of its people.

Needless to say, the world needs hope.

True hope, however, will never be found in stable and financially secure governments, sophisticated technology, academic achievements, good jobs or happy families. While these are blessings from God and are noble ambitions to work toward, they will take you only so far.

Unfortunately, many of us discover this truth only after experiencing disappointment in a person, achievement or goal that we may have unintentionally elevated as our object of hope for a happier and more secure life. In the end, our real hope lies only in God.

This message is not new. You have heard it before, but I believe it is important to say again as we are all experiencing different seasons in our professional and personal lives. For some of you, this may be a season of comfort and peace. If this is you, praise God. However, remember that your season and the blessings from it are from God.

For those whose circumstances are a little more challenging, remember that God sees you, too, and knows where you are. Recall and recite the words of the Psalmist:

“Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.” Psalm 31:24 (NIV)

So whatever experience you are currently facing, take it to the One who already knows all about it. The God of Abraham is still the Jehovah Jireh of the 21st century.

Rest in Him, and may you find your joy, righteousness, peace and greatest hope of all in Him alone.

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I think the thing I love most about God’s character is His desire for redemption. He loves creating good out of bad. Bringing life out of death. Restoring hope to completely hopeless situations. In fact, it often seems that His favorite time to redeem is at the very point where redemption seems impossible.

Do you think anyone who knew Saul would have believed he’d be one of the most outspoken Christ-followers in history?

All this thinking about God and His love of redeeming things came from reading the recent cover story for Relevant magazine on the situation in Haiti. It’s long but extremely well written and informative.

No one in their right mind would call the earthquake that hit Haiti a good thing. It was utterly devastating. And yet still there is good.

Because of the earthquake’s destruction, Haiti is now having to start with what feels like a nearly clean slate. The [corrupt and inefficient] government was toppled. The [inadequate] school system was destroyed. Proof of [unjust] land ownership is now virtually impossible. The [enormous and unbridgeable] gap in economic status was decimated, putting government officials in tents next to poor slum-dwellers.

Do you see how, along with hundreds of thousands of lives, injustice and corruption also took a hit?

Not only that, but according to the article, here’s a quick list of the good that has come of the earthquake:

• Immediately following the earthquake, people called on the name of Jesus. Not Voodoo. Not Catholic saints. Not anything or anyone else. They called out to our Savior, Jesus Christ.
• The country held a government-initiated national day of prayer.
• More people are going to church. More people have accepted Christ in the past six months than in the previous two years.
• The new school system that is being rebuilt is aiming to allow for free public education, something that Haiti has never had.
• The government and leadership in Haiti have the opportunity to install leaders with integrity.
• A devastated and poorly functioning capital city was demolished and can now be rebuilt and decentralized.
• The Church in Haiti has the opportunity to prove itself.

It makes me supremely happy to think about how what Satan intended for destruction, God is using for good. When is the dumb devil going to get the fact that it’s over? It was over at the cross.

The devil lost.

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Five-thirty comes early most days, but especially on a Sunday morning when you hope to get some extra sleep before church. Not this week, however. I was wide awake at 5. I forced myself to stay in the sack for another 30 minutes despite the rooster’s consistent crowing.

The high-pitched chirp of some baby doves asking for food and the soft cooing of their parents as they brought another tasty morsel to them brought back memories of 30 years ago when I was living in Limbe’ at the hospital where I worked. One of the other missionaries at that time was raising a pair of turtle doves for the eggs.

Calling my tent a sack is an exaggeration of for what I’ve been sleeping in the last three months. My tent living is nothing like what the vast majority of Port-au-Prince residents are living in at the moment.

As you’ve no doubt seen on the news, tent cities are all over town. More than 300 camps are registered in the city and more than 19 of them have 5,000-plus people living in them. The families are crammed together in muddy lots with only a sheet between them and the next family. Privacy is not a word in their vocabulary right now.

We are in the rainy season now, which means we get about an inch of rain on a light night and 3 inches on a heavy night. It rained during the day today for the first time; usually it waits until after dark to dump on us.

I’m located in the parking lot behind the office building Compassion owns and remodeled a few years back. It withstood the earthquake with only superficial damage. The building now stands over the “Haiti Hilton” as my location was christened by Bob Thorp, my earthquake buddy. He and I arrived in Haiti four days after the quake, but he returned to Colorado Springs several weeks ago.

Our parking lot is paved so we don’t have any mud or other problems, and it is close to my office which is just inside the back door. I’m calling this my “hoffice,” because “offome” doesn’t have much of a ring to it. I can’t really call this my home/office because it isn’t much of a home. We’ve discussed other options but until now haven’t found an acceptable solution.

There are a couple of restaurants around the area. One is like a food court in a mall, which is where most people go for fast food. It is a busy place and must make a killing, because fast is not usually used to describe restaurant service here.

The place is great because it has a crepe station, drinks, pizza counter, sub station, hamburger side and ice cream, all in one building. I go sometimes to meet Americans, but there are way more Haitians who go there.

I digress. I started out to describe the beautiful sunrise I got to see as a result of getting up so early. With all the buildings around there is not much sky to actually enjoy, but I decided to go for a run and found a gorgeous pink and yellow sunrise.

Here in Port-au-Prince, the mountains are in the east so they block a lot of the sunrise, but this morning with the clouds from the rain still hanging in the sky there was a great canvas for God to paint in many different hues. It was a great way to start my day, but I was a late starter compared to the local population.

I passed hundreds of people at that hour dressed up, on the way to church. The amazing thing is that everyone is wearing white shirts and ties, nice dresses and heels. You would never guess that they have just walked one or two miles on muddy roads until they get to our main road of Delmas, where the public transportation is constantly coming by to pick them up.

It puts me to shame on so many levels. I’m out of shape and under-dressed, but I’m here and doing my best to help out.

Please keep Haiti in your prayers because it will need lots of help for a long time. We are praying that all the mistakes of previous years are now exposed and that people will be able to learn from them.

Nou va oue’ ou pita (See you later).

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We don’t have accurate information on how many of those living outside are in shelters that can withstand the rainy season, but it’s clear that a large number of them don’t have rainproof materials. The materials most commonly used now for shelter are bedsheets. These provide a bit of privacy as well as protection from the sun, cold and dust, but not from rain and wind.

We are focusing our efforts on addressing temporary and transitional shelter needs by providing tarps as well as materials for transitional shelters. We will not be able to assist everyone in need. We will focus on those who are most in need and who have not received shelter assistance from other organizations.

We are implementing a transitional solution to address shelter needs of the 6,000 most-affected families in our programs. Our solution is based on the recommendations of experts in the field and documentation that provides guidance on transitional shelter.

We will provide waterproof tarps in urban areas, and corrugated metal sheets in the countryside. Transitional shelter is considered much easier to implement in rural rather than urban areas.

We will not use tents as part of our solution. Tents are a short-term solution only. Disaster response experience has demonstrated that even high-quality tents generally do not last more than one year.

Tents are considered less waterproof than other alternatives and are difficult to use effectively in high-density areas such as Port-au-Prince. They also cost more than alternative materials, and most can’t be reused so they take away resources from longer-term solutions.

Waterproof tarps and plastic sheeting have been established as an effective, strong and flexible solution when accompanied by appropriate materials to attach them, and they significantly outperform tents in many circumstances. They are recommended by shelter experts as a good solution in Haiti.

Transitional shelters consist of a corrugated metal roof and a simple timber or steel frame. They provide cover for families, and utilize material that can be reused in reconstruction or moved to another site. Haitians already are trying to build such shelters for themselves, and experts recommend supporting those efforts where possible.

We must balance our short-term concerns over inadequate shelter during the rainy season (such as health issues and disease) with the many challenges of providing long-term shelter (such as high costs, land tenure, government and international plans, and the inevitably slow pace and limited scale of permanent housing solutions).

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

How do you say goodbye to a sponsored child who has died? Have you ever had to do that, or to say goodbye to another child in your life?

As with many things, there’s often the thought, “Oh, that won’t happen to me. That sort of stuff only happens to other people.” Then the world shook in Haiti and changed our perspective.

But children don’t just die or get injured in earthquakes. They die from malaria and AIDS. They die from diarrhea and other preventable causes. They die in childbirth and in accidents. And when they die it’s, well, it’s like this:

I can’t explain how one comes to love a child who they hardly know. But I can say that I felt like Akouvi was part of my family. I loved her. And so often in her letters, she told me that she loved me too.

I don’t think I understood the depth of my love for her until February 23. That’s the day that I found out Akouvi had died. That’s the day I felt like something had cracked open inside of me, filling me with red-hot grief. Sadness that burned so fiercely that even my tears could not extinguish it.

Read the entire post.

I found myself very distracted the day we heard of his death. I wondered how his family is coping. I wondered what kind of ceremony they would have in Tanzania to remember such a precious child. I wondered if his family realized that his sponsor family was at a loss over what to do.

Read the entire post.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

One possible component of a larger strategic approach includes working with other organizations in Haiti to implement income-generating activities for those who have lost homes, property and the means to provide for themselves.

Beginning in March and continuing every three months, we will begin hosting conferences and workshops for key church leaders in Haiti. We not only want to encourage them, but we also want to challenge them to be a prophetic voice during this time.

Edouard Lassegue, Vice President of the Central America and Caribbean Region says,

“Compassion has earned respect in Haiti and we are uniquely positioned to leverage that respect and the strong relationships we have developed with church leaders. We want to use our credibility to encourage them to be a voice for what is right, for service, for responsibility — that is what is required in a time like this.”

As far as the children themselves, safety is our top priority. Until children and their families can move back into permanent dwellings, protecting them in the tent cities is essential.

“The way these children are exposed and vulnerable is getting a lot of publicity. We are ramping up awareness among our church partners — things to look for and be ready for and ways to prepare the children themselves so they do not fall prey.”

Getting the children back into school is also a key step in returning normalcy to their lives. The Haitian government has set March 1 as a possible day for schools to resume, and we are helping our church partners work toward that goal for as many of the sponsored children as possible.

We are working with Engineering Ministries International (EMI) to assess the buildings of church partners that were damaged by the earthquake. We are committed to their repair, and EMI will help us design new buildings and facilities that are earthquake safe.

Until the buildings can be repaired or built, children may meet in tents. Many of them are still afraid to go into buildings, and our priority is to give them some sense of routine and normalcy.

Our staff in Haiti continues the difficult process of taking a census of each and every registered child who was “significantly affected” by the earthquake. Staff members are back in the office building and doing some regular activities, which has helped them to focus on what needs to be done and not think of the hardship as much.

To assist our staff during the grieving process,

“We are deploying a team of counselors from Haiti and south Florida —Haitian Americans who understand the language and the culture — who can talk with people directly and in groups about what they can expect as they work through this, and how to help their families and beneficiaries. We are aware of the fact that it will be quite awhile for them to get back to where they were.”

As great as their sense of loss is their sense of gratitude for all the support and generosity they have received from around the world.

Please continue to pray for our staff members, that they would be a blessing to others and not lose heart, and that in spite of their own pain, they are bearing fruit and making a difference.

Pray as well for our first church conference the week of March 8. Pray that the church in Haiti raises a banner of direction and hope for the future of the country.

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Live performances will occur in Nashville (7:30 p.m. CT) and Los Angeles (9:30 p.m. CT) and both concerts will be streamed live at HelpHaitiLive.com beginning at 7:30 p.m. CT.

The concerts will feature special performances by Big Kenny, Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, Amy Grant, LeeAnn Rimes, Mat Kearney, Jars of Clay, Francis Chan, Rebecca St. James, Matt Wertz, Brandon Heath, Dave Barnes, NEEDTOBREATHE and more.

Viewing online at HelpHaiti.com is free. Tickets for the live performances are priced between $25 and $75 and can be purchased at Ticketmaster.com and all Ticketmaster locations beginning today, as well as through:

• The Ryman box office: 800-745-3000 or ryman.com
• Live Nation for The Wiltern

All net proceeds from this event will support our relief efforts in Haiti. Visit HelpHaitiLive.com to learn more.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

Barry was leading a weeklong vision trip for six Canadian pastors and their wives. Their home for the week was to be the Hotel Montana. But less than an hour after landing in Haiti, it became clear that this trip would take a very different turn.

Instead of settling into the hotel at 4:53 p.m., they were still en route, traveling in a minibus with two Haitian staff. Barry recalls,

“We were driving on the back streets to avoid traffic congestion, and the bus had been bumping around a lot anyway, but all of a sudden it started heaving from side to side. We saw people who had been walking all falling. One lady fell right in front of us, and walls crashed down on both sides of us.”

As buildings shook and began to crumble before their very eyes, the passengers could barely process what they were seeing.

“From our vantage point, we could see the city of Port-au-Prince beneath us and all the dust that was blowing up. That’s when the gravity of the situation hit us.”

Miraculously, nearly three hours after the quake struck, they were able to text their families back home when one of their cell phones began working for about 15 minutes. As soon as everyone had typed out a quick message to report that they were safe, the signal was lost.

With people and debris filling the streets by the second, their vehicle could barely move forward. One woman was killed right in front of them, and bodies were already piling up as they inched toward their new destination, the Compassion office on Delmas Street. Still, the Haiti staff were determined to press on, even as their Canadian passengers pleaded with them to leave and go check on their families.

What should have been a 12-minute drive instead took three horrifying hours.

“We felt so helpless, but we knew the one tool we had was prayer. Our vehicle became a mobile prayer chapel. When we saw someone wounded, we cried out to God on their behalf.”

When they turned onto Delmas Street and saw huge commercial buildings flattened, they could only gasp, “There’s nothing left.”

At 8 p.m., they arrived at the Compassion office and were surprised to find it still standing. Also standing, across the street, was the Canadian Embassy, built just four years earlier.

As the first Canadians to arrive at the embassy, they were welcomed but told they would have to sleep outside since the building was still considered unsafe. They spent the night — most of them not sleeping at all — in a parking lot, trying to breathe through the thick dust that had hours ago been Haiti’s center of commerce.

Twenty-eight hours later they boarded a Hercules military transport that would take them to the Dominican Republic. By Thursday afternoon, they were home, where Barry sat glued to the media coverage of the country he had just left.

“The hardest part was leaving. Tears ran down my face as I asked God how I could leave my brothers and sisters at such a time. But I felt like God was telling me I needed to go back home and do what I could do here — be an advocate for these people, tell their story, raise money for their recovery. I haven’t stopped since I got home.”

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

We have a long-standing relationship with Healing Waters International, providing water systems to church partners in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.

In response to the immense need in Haiti, Healing Waters International has provided 2,500 one-gallon jugs of water at no cost to Compassion Haiti. The water was bottled at the Healing Waters projects at our Dominican Republic church partner sites. If there is continued need, they are equipped to begin bottling on a daily basis.

The water will be trucked to Haiti along with the family food kits being assembled at our warehouse on the Dominican Republic/Haiti border.

We will also investigate several long-term solutions, such as building water systems at church partner sites in Haiti.

According to Gregg Keen, our Complementary Interventions Director,

“Healing Waters International and Compassion have been good partners for several years. When the disaster hit Haiti, Healing Waters was among the first organizations we called to ask what their response would be. They went to heroic efforts to find available water bottles in the DR when none could be found there. Bottled water will help people to avoid drinking and using contaminated water and the related diseases they can cause, especially in a disaster situation like this one. The impact of this can’t even be measured.”

Healing Waters’ mission is to empower local ministry partners to bring physical, social and spiritual transformation to poor communities, a mission that makes them an excellent partner for us.

Read more about our partnership with Healing Waters International.

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