Someone said, “the social-economic situation” in Haiti is deteriorating day by day.

The majority of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Unemployment affects a large percentage of the population. Extreme poverty is more evident in rural areas, where there are no jobs, and the people depend on the soil and depleted trees. The people live in small, small “thrown together,” shacks, made of dried palm branches, walls of mud, and dirt floors… no running water and no clean toilets.

Now, imagine a mother of five to seven children, unemployed, abandoned by her husband, without a place to sleep with her children… and nothing to feed them. She will now be “looking for another man” to live with her and help her and the children… But this means that the new “man” wants her to have children. Birth control is rare, because “the new man in the family wants kids to show that he is a “man.” Secondly, the country is 90% Catholic, and thirdly, even if they wanted to take birth control, where is the pharmacy in the mountains, and how do you get the money to travel down to the pharmacy? (This would cost more money on a moto than they spend in a week on food!)

We can sit in our air-conditioned homes and go to restaurants and criticize the poor women for not taking birth control, but as the Haitians say, “only the shoes know if the socks have holes.” You will never know the pain of what is going on unless you are the “socks.” That is why God put us here… to do what we can do to save these children from a slow death of starvation.

For those of you, precious widows who give their “last little bit,” great is your reward in Heaven! To those who are ordinary people, doing everyday ordinary stuff and giving with your heart, God bless you abundantly… For those of you whom God has richly blessed, and yet, you are rare with your giving heart, we love you and thank God for you! It takes everyone, working together to save a child, one at a time!

God bless you.

Sherry

If you would like to see stories of the LAC children, whose lives you have helped to save, be sure to read the 6:00 pm post each night. We love you. Sherry