Breaking the blogging drought because this matters.

I haven't had much to write about that mattered.  So I just haven't been writing.  Daily musings seem silly.  Stories about what the kids are doing or not doing hasn't struck me as blog worthy this past summer.  I'm just wanting to live it.  Not blog it.  I'm sure I'll get in the groove again at some point, but first, this...

Yesterday came an exchange over email with Josie.  In case you don't remember, Josie is the director and by all intents and purposes the mother to 21 children at House of Love and Hope in Haiti.

We write back and forth regularly.  After four trips to Haiti and countless emails, I consider her my friend.  I always ask about the kids and this time I asked when school started for them and if they were going to be at the same school as last year(kids sometimes switch between schools for a variety of reasons-cost, location, etc).
Her reply back was joyful and hopeful and prayerful, but in and amongst that was this:

The kids aren't going to school because they don't have the money for books, uniforms or transportation.  

Truth is and it's a hard truth to wrap my own over-indulged life around...they are struggling to feed the children at the orphanage. Josie had never asked for help with food before this summer. Kim and Cassie took money down in July for them.  But it's food.  It goes away.

So school gets set aside for basic human need.  And it's stated so matter of fact because sadly it's the NORM.  Imagine, if you will, you have three children, $2 a day(sometimes), no vehicle, and very little to no education in a country with no social services.  
You are now the average Haitian on a good day.  
Now imagine you have 21 children to care for, no vehicle, an education, but your job doesn't pay enough to feed that many children, let alone send them to school.  
You are now Josie.  
So what do you do?  You pray A LOT.  You work A LOT.  You love A LOT.  You hope A LOT. And if someone asks, you tell them, yes, we don't have money for school, but you don't ask for help. You just say thank you for aid already given and pass on your love.

I'm in a bit of a predicament. I struggle with rallying people around "my" cause.  These are my friends and my loves and who am I to ask for you to give to where my heart resides?  The reality that sits heavy on me is we hope that two of those children are some day ours.  

And when it's your child that isn't getting enough food or can't go to school then you do things you may not do normally.  So I'm doing something out of the norm.  
Maybe it's tacky or tasteless.  
Maybe I'll offend someone. 
I don't know.
I'm straight up asking for money.  
And a lot of it.  
They need a vehicle.  
$20,000 would buy them a large enough one that all the children could cram into and get to school and church.
So there it is.  
$20,000.  
Maybe you have a few hundred laying around.  Maybe you can go without fast food for a few weeks and donate that.  Maybe you can sell something. Maybe your church has a mission fund that they could put towards this(I'd love to come and talk to your church!). Maybe you know someone who knows someone who knows someone who has $20,000 sitting around.  
There are a lot of maybes.  
The thing about giving for most of us is we can give our money away and in a few weeks, we'll get more.  The next paycheck comes in, bills get paid, money gets saved or invested or spent. That's our "first world problems" in a nutshell.  And yet, I still hang on to my first worlded-ness like a stubborn child.  I don't want to give up a thing.  I know how it goes because I do it.  I can justify any purchase, any expense, because in our bubble some things are "necessities."  I get how hard big giving feels despite having seen and touched the need firsthand.
So, the truth is I don't know how that much money could even be raised.  I don't.  But I'm trusting that God does.  
Maybe you could share this with your people and they could share it with their people and God could move big mountains and we could collectively do something amazing.  

If you have a maybe in mind and want to donate, go to http://hope-for-haiti.net/waystohelp.htm and donate through PayPal or by sending a check to this address below:  Just write in the comments that it's for a vehicle for House of Love and Hope.

Hope4Haiti
PO Box 99365,
Troy, MI 48099-9365

Thanks, tribe.  Pray for this.  Above all else, pray for this.