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Haiti: And a Little Child Will Lead Them

by Rachel Campos-Duffy 

So often, when natural disasters and human tragedy hit on the scale we are currently witnessing in Haiti, we feel helpless. How could this happen to people who are already suffering so much?

As the images first hit my television screen, a deep sense of sadness came over me.  Though I prayed, the sadness and helplessness did not go away. I wanted to do something more than sit in my warm kitchen and write a check. But what can I do? I have five young children, no medical skills to offer and I’m more than six months pregnant to boot. At this moment in my life, I couldn’t be more unqualified to be an international aid worker.

All I can do is pray. And I have. Especially when I happen to remember one of the hundreds of little comforts I take for granted on a daily basis (a warm cup of coffee, a shower, the luxury of knowing I can make my kids breakfast today).

But it is my conversations and prayers with my children that have helped most. As it would happen, they know a bit about Haiti because our family donates to a charitable organization that has always had a special focus on this desperately poor country. The letters and brochures sent by “Food for the Poor” often depict the squalor that is everyday life for more than 80% of this country’s population. Over the years, these pictures have had a profound impact on my kids and periodically, they pool their allowance and gift money to make a joint donation for which my husband and I agree to match the funds.  This past summer, they ran a lemonade stand at the end of our driveway for “the poor chil’ren” (as my five-year-old calls them) and used the money to purchase chickens, one of the many livestock and projects offered in the charity’s brochure. 

Last year, my then first grade son chose Haiti as his country project for school, and we all worked together on gathering the research and making the poster. So when I told the kids about the terrible earthquake that shook Haiti to its core this week, they felt a special connection to their Haitians brothers and sisters. 

I have been touched by the genuine concern they have expressed for a country they have never seen and a poverty they have never experienced. Their certainty that their piggy bank money can and will make a difference has brought me hope for the prospects of my own humble donation. Their complete trust that their prayers for the children and the injured are making a difference has reinforced my faith in my own prayers. 

I still feel very small in the face of human suffering on this scale. However, I am grateful for my children, who are comforting, teaching and ministering to their mom in profound ways.

And a little child will lead them … Isaiah 11:6.

Food for the Poor
Catholic Relief Services

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)