“This week, I witnessed what happens when the body of Christ sees not numbers, but souls!” exclaimed Grace, one of Mission of Hope’s HaitiOne staff members. Mission of Hope serves as Food Aid’s primary distribution partner in Haiti, a nation struck by desperation, poverty, and starvation. An orphanage not yet in the HaitiOne program had been visited the day before by the mobile medical team, and the team had presented Grace with some disturbing numbers.
63% of the children were in the bottom 5th percentile for height and weight.
14% were suffering from moderate to severe malnutrition.
The children were eating only 2 or 3 times a week.
Grace understands numbers. She operates in numbers. Every orphanage and school in the Haiti One program is assigned a Program Center Identification number. Every child measured has a corresponding Child Feeding Participant number. GPS coordinates, anthropometric measurements, “effective” enrollments (which dictate how much food is distributed each month), all numbers. But on this visit, God took Grace out of the world of her numbers and revealed to her that behind each of those numbers is also a soul living in an orphanage. A soul that someday hopefully will have an assigned Program Center ID number. Grace described her trip back to the orphanage the following day.
“Geraldine (a fellow staff member) and I joined the Mobile Medical team the very next day to visit the orphanage. The team did not return for medical reasons specifically. Rather, the team returned simply out of love. I watched in awe as doctors, translators, North American staff, and two young children of North American doctors visiting for the week all just literally poured out love. I saw zero concern for themselves from translators and drivers who knew that an extra trip would mean an extra long workday in what had already been an extra long week. I saw each person see a soul, and not a number, and it was beautiful.
I do not know what will happen, but I trust God’s sovereign plan. I am thankful for the reminder and for the opportunity to see ‘ordinary people,’ Haitians and Americans alike, display His love in extraordinary ways.”
Through partners like Food Aid International, the MOH nutrition program has provided over 15 million meals so far this year, feeding over 90,000 children per day through the HaitiOne network. But over 83,000 children, like the children of this orphanage, are still on a waiting list to be served. The need is great as evidenced above. Your partnership and support is reaching those numbers and changing them on a daily basis! Thank you for being part of God’s plan to reach the souls behind the numbers.
