Mission Emanuel

- post by Anna Bolton on haitiancareteam.blogspot.com

When we are open to seeing how God makes connections and uses our experiences, we allow ourselves to be blessed, and even delighted. This week’s delight came on Tuesday when the Haitian children in our feeding and literacy program opened the gifts they had received from children in the US. Eager faces burst with delight as each child, clutching a photo of a North Carolina pen pal, opened a package with his or her name on it. Inside was an outfit of clothing selected for that child along with a Spanish language beginner level reading book. Yokasta just couldn’t wait and had to put the lime green dress on right over her school uniform!

Because Mission Emanuel has so many generous supporters in the US this scenario hardly seems worth mentioning, except that in this case the donors are Latino families who have immigrated to Winston-Salem NC and are members of the El Buen Pastor mission church there. These are families who have been hit hard by the economic downturn in the US, families who struggle to feed their children and send money back home to parents in Mexico, El Salvador, or Puerto Rico. These are families who understand what it is to be in a strange land in desperate circumstances, and they are families who understand God’s economy. Immediately after the Haitian earthquake these folks began asking their pastor how they could help, and they responded with enthusiasm to Anna’s request for pen pals and clothing for the Haitian immigrants in Bayona. Their generosity was only limited by the airline’s weight limit, as the mamis packed two suitcases full for Anna’s parents, Jon and Mary Bolton, to bring us. Mary is the Director of El Buen Pastor Latino Community Services, and Anna is well-known by the families there – the result of many hours of tutoring, teaching Sunday school, and hanging out there during her time in Winston-Salem.

As Mary and Jon return to North Carolina with cards of thanks and photos of the children here receiving their gifts, we are left with our hearts warmed by the generous out-pouring from one immigrant group to another, knowing that the givers shared not only from their limited material resources, but also from their wealth of hope…the hope that their children will have a positive and secure future. Isn’t God’s economy beautiful?

2 Corinthians 9:10-15: Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!