No child should die alone. [in Haiti with World Help]

I’ve had trouble forming into words all that I’ve experienced here in Haiti. The stories will be unfolding over the next few days in my heart and on my blog. I am always amazed at how many un-follow, and unsubscribe when I post about these trips. But this is my call. And the call has come from God and I’ve answered. So in following Him, I go forward. #doJUSTICE

This story is about how World Help came into partnership with Danita’s Children and the reason we came, to dedicate the new medical center they’ve built together, by God’s grace.

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Dedication of Danita’s Children Medical Center

I feel very small. I’m here in Haiti to be a teller of the story — His story. And I don’t want to just tell the story, I want to become part of it. The story is much bigger than I am. Much bigger than us all.

And I feel very small. Yet, it’s not about my smallness, but God’s greatness. What wondrous things He can do through us, His people, if we would know that. Really. Truly. Believe it.

“When God gives you a dream, it’s not a dream just for you. It’s a dream for His people. It’s a dream for His children.” Mama Danita spoke those words as she began the dedication ceremony, the one in which we dedicated the medical center that was once a dream.

Thirteen years ago Danita watched three children die in a public hospital. The three of them had been abandoned by their families because they suffered with AIDS. One of the those children, a little girl named Erica, Danita watched take her last breath. And that moment she said a prayer and made a promise, “One day I will build a medical center, by the grace of God, where children will come and will not need to die alone.”

And when the Lord calls you to a work He doesn’t call you to do it alone, but brings people to journey with you, to support you and together as His Body, we can reach the world for Him.

In 2010 Vernon Brewer, President of World Help, was on a trip to Haiti working in Port-au-Prince after its devastating earthquake. Before he made his way out of the country, he stopped at Danita’s Children, hearing of the incredible work Danita was doing for Haiti’s orphans — he wanted to see.

Vernon came and saw and as he was leaving and waving good-bye, he got off his taxi motorcycle, turned around and came back. Vernon said, “I’ve got to obey God. The Lord just spoke to me. We are going to help you finish this medical center.”

And 3 years later, the medical center is complete.

“Today, I don’t celebrate a building,” Danita continues. “I celebrate the future and the destinies of thousands of children that were maybe destined to die.”

When a family wakes up in Haiti, their thought is, “How am I going to survive today?” Hundreds of thousands of Haitians do not receive proper medical care, and most die from ailments simple to treat. No child should have to die from going hungry. No child should have to die from diarrhea.

Noel, Vernon’s daughter and Vise President of World Help shares her heart at the ceremony, “We wondered if there would ever be hope for Haiti again [after the 2010 earthquake]. We are witnessing the beginning of a transformation. The beginning of generations that would forever be changed in Haiti.”

And Noel goes on to say a statement that resounds in my soul, and has for the last few months even before I heard the words from her mouth, “Because ONE woman was bold — one woman had the audacity to believe that God could use her to change a nation, all this was accomplished.”

And all this — I am struggling on how to even begin to tell you what “all this” is. I hope to tell you over the next couple of days what Danita’s Children really is. How Hope for Haiti Children’s Center truly is bringing hope for Haiti. Will you start with this video about Danita’s story, that is becoming Haiti’s story, that is His story? Click here to watch.

“When God hears the cry of His children, He sends a deliverer. In the scriptures, when the Israelites cried out God sent Moses. In preparation of the famine, God sent Joseph. In preparation of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, He sent Ruth. And today, when God hears the cries of His children, He calls you.” — Danita Watts, Danita’s Children.