Tears roll down my face as I sit on my comfortable couch in my safe home watching the images of the horror in Haiti. I am simply overwhelmed by the raw emotion of the victims. I feel their grief as they share the stories of the loved ones they have lost, and I recognize how truly blessed I am to be who I am and to live how I do.
These precious human beings enduring the unimaginable have touched my soul. I can not sit idly by and simply watch them suffer. I have to help. My husband and I have decided to give until it hurts, literally.
We are going to cut our heating budget in half this month and donate the remainder to charities assisting earthquake victims in Haiti.
The weather here has been milder recently, which means the temperatures have been hovering around the freezing mark during the day and staying above zero overnight. That is a January heat wave in my neighborhood.
We heat our home with a pellet stove and normally use about two bags of pellets a day. That keeps our house in the upper 50 degree range. For the rest of the month we are going to use only one bag of pellets a day. That will drop the temperature in the house to the lower 50s.
I am already wearing 3 layers of clothes anyway, so I will just put on a 4th one.
I don't actually even mind, because the joy I feel from knowing that we can make a difference means so much more to me than any slight discomfort I might feel in the coming weeks.
So if you want to feel good too, I encourage your family to give until it hurts too! There are many wonderful groups helping in Haiti right now. Please donate to one of them. Every donation can make a difference. Water purification tablets only cost a few pennies each, so every DIME can truly save a life.
Here are links to the agencies we are donating to. I have personally seen both of these charities in action where I live following other natural disasters. They are truly angels ministering in the midst of suffering.
Convoy of Hope: http://www.convoyofhope.org/
United Methodist Committee on Relief: http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/work/emergencies/ongoing/haitiearthquake/
Blessings to you.
It is heart wrenching to watch. I commend you for taking action but please don't freeze! It's a good point about every penney counting!
ReplyDeleteWarm hugs,
Dawn
Bless you for being so warm spirited and a true Christian.
ReplyDeleteKaren
Hi,
ReplyDeleteSo happy to see that you are back to blogging and nothing bad happened to you. I checked here ever so often and thought that you had just stopped blogging.
Your post is so unselfish. I too am so heart sick over Haiti. We all can help in our own way. Our Priest was amazed at the contributions sent to the Red Cross.He mentioned it in Mass. Haiti needed help before this happened.Many Churches have been helping them for years. Maybe now we can fix the problems and not do the piecemeal patching that has gone on for so long.These people are in our hemisphere and we should help our neighbors.
Balisha