Skip to main content

Haiti Version 1.5

This Haiti thing is turning out to be bigger than just a single week-long trip. For a number of us, it's led to shifts in perspective, new directions of the heart, all of which differ according to how Haiti influenced us but all of which center on Haiti's varied needs.

First, a team plans to go to the same orphanage again next summer at about the same time.

Second, a member of the team is starting a fundraiser to send instruments to that orphanage. It already has a name, a nonprofit to receive contributions made to it, and even a Facebook group. A lot of people from the sending church, especially, want to help, a fundraiser at a local restaurant is in the process of being set up, and someone has already given a keyboard for the purpose.

Third, the team is making three separate presentations about our trip to the church that sent us. It's like we're ambassadors for the orphanage at Haiti.

Fourth, I talked to a fellow teacher today about the trip. She wanted to involve the students at my school (and the local high school) by setting up another trip to the same orphanage near the time our team plans to go. This comes after one of the co-leaders of the trip mentioned that my church should also go.

Fifth, there will soon be an article in our local newspaper about the trip.

It's like the sphere of influence has exploded to involve not just the eleven people who went there, but a whole community. Vision is contagious.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...

Experiment

My social studies students and I are studying Islam right now. The other day, we were reading about one of the Five Pillars, zakat (charity in Islam that means "that which purifies"). Muslims believe that giving away money helps to purify it and also "safeguards [them] against miserliness" (1). I asked the class if this was true, that giving money away makes us less greedy. They generally agreed that it does. I wanted to test whether or not they really believed this, so I handed a volunteer a $10 bill. I told the class that I would ask for the bill back the next day. I said that they should pass the bill around among their classmates, and that as a result, there would be no way for me to know who had the bill. For that reason, whoever wanted to keep the money could keep it. Even if I did learn who kept it, I told them, I would not punish that person. I wanted them to be motivated by their own honesty. The next day, I asked for the bill, and a student handed it to me...