Help for Haiti

On Tuesday, January 12, 2010, at 5:10 p.m. Haiti was hit with a 7.0 earthquake that leveled areas in and around Port au Prince, leaving thousands homeless and an untold number of lives lost. Survivors are in desperate need of basic life-giving resources. LifeWind's donors are calling and asking, "How can we help?"

Prayer is our first and foremost response. In addition, LifeWind’s participation will be threefold:

Immediate relief will be distributed by trusted Community Health Evangelism (CHE) groups who work in the earthquake zone.
During the recovery period, LifeWind will empower further work of CHE in the area around the earthquake zone.
Across Haiti, we will empower CHE teams. They help community members work together to address the key issues of poverty, disease, and infrastructure, bringing resilience through community organization when facing disaster. And as the message of CHE is taught, participants hear and receive the gospel of Jesus Christ, the One who brings HOPE http://www.lifewind.org

Stones Along The Path

There is a legend about an old fellow called Time who delivered packages of trouble to every new born baby with strict orders that everyone had to carry them through life and sooner or later open them. Now, of course, nobody liked what was in the packages and naturally nobody wanted to carry them. But they wouldn’t burn and they would not sin and there seemed to be no way to get rid of them. But the interesting part of the legend is the various ways people carried those packages.

Some of them opened them, took one look, and tied them up again. Then with a long string they tied the packages around their necks so that they hung down in front. Of course they were very heavy, so the people who carried them that way were all bent down, missing all the beauty and seeing nothing but the ground. Then a kind fellow named Experience suggested these bent over people put their troubles behind them. Of course the weight of the package straightened them up with such force they walked with heads erect, eyes uplifted and people looked at them with wonder that they could bear their burdens with such grace.

Some people would open the package, take out the troubles and spread them along the road of life, then proceed to stumble over them. When they reached the end of their journey they were bruised and sore because they had stumbled over what had never been intended as a stumbling stones at all.

Other spread them along the road and stepped on top of every trouble that came their way. So they made stepping stones of what they found in the packages.

Some took out one problem at a time, examined it at great length, then tied it around their neck so there friends could see it. They discussed it endlessly and their friends and neighbors got utterly weary and worn out looking and hearing about that problem. We can do this until we become a crashing bore and a burden to both friends and ourselves. This way our problems become millstones.

Or we can take a problem, one at a time, and put it by the roadside to mark an event in our lives, then look back on the road and see all that we have passed by and will never have to pass again. In this way, our problems have become beautiful milestones. We all have our share of troubles. How we carry them, determines what we become.