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Haiti 2013

The gates opened to reveal a crisp set of two-story buildings at the base of a lush, towering mountain. To the right of a green courtyard stood the new straw-thatched gazebo that last year’s team gave money to build; to our left, a new elongated concrete planter complete with ferns and a bench for rest. Whether its members were coming for the third time or seeing it for the first, the team that traveled to the Hands and Feet orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti, discovered that day the result of God’s people coming together to serve. They found a place of comfort for orphans; they found a place of provision for Haitian staff; and they found a place of purpose for short- and long-term missionaries alike.

Throughout that week, in fact, our team found ourselves fulfilling very real needs. Having purchased a large piece of land behind the orphanage proper, the missionaries there plan to build homes for the orphans who have become adults, a step that will ease each orphan’s transition into the world of work or study. Consequently, we were charged with the task of digging and building. We helped lay a dirt road along one side of this land so the missionaries could install a clean-water well; and we moved rocks, dug, and passed cement to Haitian workers as they built a new wall.

We found, however, that there were other, more subtle forms of building taking place in the orphanage. Indeed, those who had come for the third time noticed a stark difference in the behavior of the children. No longer clinging to us at every moment, the children seemed to be at greater peace than before. Stephen, the director, told us that this was because the children were now living in a family-style atmosphere, with a housemother and two or three children, together completing chores and eating meals. In short, the children were experiencing inside the orphanage a sense of the family that they had lost outside it.

This was to us just one example of the broader good taking place in Haiti. In fact, while we had come to serve physically, we witnessed a God already at work spiritually. He is, we learned, a God of building and restoration, and more than any other, it was this lesson that reminded us that the work he is doing in the lives of Haitian orphans is the same work he wants to do in us.

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