About the Trip
30 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
in Haiti Trip 2012 Tags: 410 Bridge, Chadirac, Haiti, mission trip, Stones Crossing Church
So I am excited to tell everyone a little about the mission trip to Haiti. Stones Crossing Church is partnering with 410 Bridge and Chadirac, Haiti for at least the next 5 years. The church is planning on having at least two trips a year to Chadirac, so that a good solid relationship can be formed. This is a week-long trip at the end of February in which our primary goal will be creating or repairing a system to get the people of Chadirac clean water. This thought struck me last night as I was bargaining with Mr. Wonderful about who would go downstairs to get filtered water from the refrigerator because I don’t like the taste of our perfectly clean tap water. Wow! I think I choked a little bit on that dose of humility!
410 Bridge is an organization that facilitates the relationship between churches and communities, and seems like a really great organization that is very forward thinking in how they operate. I urge you to check out their website, as I’m sure that I won’t be able to adequately explain their philosophy, but here is what impressed me. When they sit down with community leaders to discuss the possibility of a partnership, they ask the community leaders to take the lead in the partnership. After a lot of years of mission trips going to developing countries and the people handing out clothes and food and books and toys, we have discovered that those are limited resources that make little difference in the lives of the people we are trying to help. Instead of helping a community, those types of trips leave them dependent on “wealthy Americans” to take care of their most basic needs. So instead, 410 Bridge sits down with the community leaders and asks, what does your community need, and then how can we help you get there. So here is what Chadirac has identified as their primary needs:
- Clean water
- A school for their kids
- Re-planting coffee trees to create a self-sustaining industry
- Health Care
Mission trips from Stones crossing, as well as other churches across the US that have partnered with Chadirac, will follow their lead over the next several years to help them in these four areas. We will offer the education and training, support and guidance, helping hands and feet, and most importantly Christ’s love, until they are able to support themselves in these things. Our goal is not to fix their problems for them, but with them. Our trip leader told us that the poverty-stricken people of Haiti don’t view themselves as poor because they don’t have the things that more wealthy countries have, but because they don’t have the ability to better themselves. Our goal is to bolster them to give them that ability, so that they can in turn bolster the people in and around the community to do the same.
