"If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do." James 1:5-8
When the women found the stone rolled away and the tomb of Jesus empty on Resurrection morning, it changed everything, and prophecy was fulfilled. A theologian in an article on CBN suggests that coronavirus is also prophesy being fulfilled in our time. In my 69 years of life, this is the first time that I’ve spent all of Holy Week sheltering in place and watching church services from a number of different churches in AZ, NE, IL and TN on my computer on each Sunday, Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday.
We are certainly living in uncharted times along our journey, and we hope that our leaders are seeking advice from our Heavenly Father and following the nudges from the Holy Spirit and listening to His Word. Up until a few weeks ago there were no reports of any coronavirus cases being found in Haiti, but, unfortunately it has now spread to Port-au-Prince and the Haiti government has closed its border with the DR and all schools have been closed until further notice (most likely the rest of this school year). As bad as the Coronavirus has been here in the U.S., it has the very real possibility to be significantly worse in Haiti.
When schools with Trinity/Hope programs close, children are not fed and food has already been purchased and is in secure storage areas. When the earthquake hit Haiti in 2010 a similar situation occurred in and around Port-au-Prince, but not the entire country. At that time, Trinity/Hope assisted the LCMS World Relief by making arrangements for them to purchase food from the local vendors that TH uses and not have ship it to Haiti. That was then and this is now. The TH Executive Board prayed, listened and formulated a course and share with the remainder of their Board and it as agreed that this was a wise plan. We now have food and also have funds for food until the end of this school year. Within the next week, TrinityHope will begin executing a highly accountable action plan to get emergency food to the families that have children attending the 150+ Christian schools we normally feed. This plan will be overseen by our team of eighteen Haitian Feeding Program Directors and will include the following details.
The procedures, processes and quality assurance we use for transferring money to Haiti, purchasing food, getting food to our schools, securing the food at the schools and reporting will not change. The Haitian Feeding Program Directors will continue to be the representatives on the ground, assisting with this adjusted plan for feeding the children.
Changes that will be made to the normal operating procedure will be as follows. We will limit the ingredients we purchase to Rice, Beans and Oil; making it easier to distribute to families and allowing us to buy the most food possible. The quantity of food each child's family receives during the single distribution will be equivalent to the quantity of food the children would normally receive for the entire month at school. And, most importantly and to avoid any confusion a letter written by TrinityHope and translated to Creole will be shared with the families, explaining the food is given to them in the love of Jesus Christ and encouraging them to wash their hands with soap often.
Let us be reminded what Isaiah 41:10 tells us, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” It is going to be difficult as this virus leaves Port-au-Prince and into the rural areas where people don’t know what has hit them as they typically have allergy issues in springtime and this will blind side them. A few facts that I found about Haiti that may open your eyes. The U.S. has one ICU bed for every 3,000 Americans; Haiti has one ICU bed for every 100,000 Haitians. The entire country of Haiti, which has approximately 11 million people, only has 911 doctors (source: Haiti's National Institute Statistics). There are only 64 Ventilators in the entire country and several of those are likely not working. The projected death toll from coronavirus could reach 800,000 in Haiti. (The 2010 earthquake resulted in about 250,000 deaths).
Dear Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.
May God be with you…Jay