Through our pasts and through our present, we are learning that each person has a story. And most of the time – there is more to the story than meets the eye (or ear). Life stories contain joy, heartache, pain, and triumph. Each day we encounter moms who are fighting to write a happy ending to their stories. Haiti is a challenging country and it is very easy to become frustrated with someone here, mostly because we could never truly understand the circumstances or situations that have forced them to the point of sharing their story with us. Choices have to be made between which child will go to school because there isn’t enough money to pay for all of them. When a child has to have new shoes for school, which family members will skip meals that week to pay for them? A hurricane just came through your town and tore the tin roof off of your house, do you fix the roof or buy the necessities your household needs for the month?

Sometimes, the suffering and the situations are almost too much for our hearts to bear. Our heads, hearts, and stomachs have known plenty – but we have also seen the grave reality of people who don’t have enough to make it from day to day. This heart breaking truth is enough to make you want to turn and run, back to everything safe and protected from dark parts of the world. As tempting as it is to run, we know we can’t. These moms, these children, and these fights, are now a part of our story. The Lord has called us to these stories, and He’s continually reminding us of that.

Although some days our old lives seem more appealing and more put together, the truth is that we are just as broken as the stories we encounter each day. Sarah Bessey wrote, “The funny thing about justice, about having your heart awaken to God’s heart for humanity, is that you set out to change the world and run smack into the truth that you yourself need to be saved too.” Because of His saving grace, we can enter stories that we feel we should run from - because that’s what Christ did(and does) for us. Through Christ’s call and our faithful supporters who make this work possible for us, a beautiful story is being written. The story is not always pretty and it does not always end the way we would choose, but it is beautiful nonetheless.

We consider it our privilege to live and work here, and we want you to see more of the story that God is writing in this middle-of-nowhere community in Northwest Haiti. By donating to our media trip, you will be helping us do that – display the beauty of what God is doing in someone else’s story.

Three wonderfully creative women (read more about them here) have already agreed to volunteer their time and talents; we just need help getting them here. We’ve already had $875 given towards the need of $2,500, and we would love to meet this goal in the next 24 hours! Help us tell our story and share our vision for Potter & Clay Ministries by donating below:

Someone Else's Story