It’s sometimes hard to remember important anniversaries. The news never lets us rest from one disaster to the next, so it’s easy to forget that  one of the worst human disasters of all time – the Haiti earthquake – occurred six months ago today. The news stories will most likely reflect on how much is left to do and how so many are still without the basics for living. While these stories are true, there are also hundreds of stories of hope that you’ll never read about. Mission of Mercy thankfully got to play a small part in bringing hope to some.

Just a week after the earthquake, Mission of Mercy’s Medical Mercy team landed in Port-au-Prince and provided hundreds with urgent medical care. Mission of Mercy’s projects in northern Haiti were not damaged, but our church partners were taking in refugees from the capital. We immediately purchased and delivered food, water, and necessities from our base in the Dominican Republic, while organizing a shipping container of more supplies to deliver in April.

A second Medical Mercy team went back to help address the needs of the refugee families staying with our partner churches. They also served two temporary camps in Port-au-Prince, focusing on both the physical and emotional needs of several thousand people living in camps that had received no aid. Trained counselors addressed the emotional trauma of loss as well as deep seated fear that more destruction was inevitable.

The Lord opened the door to provide desperately needed shelter for these two camps: Fort National, a community of hundreds living on what was left of a basketball court, and Camp Dubuisson where a local church was trying to help hundreds who fled the city for the outskirts. With local support and manpower, we helped provide temporary shelters and latrines for both locations in addition to basic food supplies. We are also assisting in building classrooms for children in Camp Dubuisson and the surrounding community. Starting this month, 300 children will begin attending school. Local teachers have volunteered to provide instruction.

On July 4th, two more containers of food – roughly 280,000 meals – arrived in Port au Prince and are in the process of being transported to our projects in the north. Together with some locally purchased high-nutrition supplements, the meals will be used to combat the malnutrition issues facing the children in our projects and those refugees who have decided to settle in these communities.

On this anniversary, you’ll most likely read about the need that still exists – a need so vast that our efforts seem small in comparison. But for the nearly 2000 men, women, and children who otherwise had nothing – the efforts aided by your prayers and support are a sign that God has not left Haiti. They feel like now they can work to rebuild their lives. So let’s not let this day go unnoticed in our prayers and in our memory. Let’s all mark January 12, 2011 in our calendars now and ask God to make that an anniversary of hope, progress, and thanks for allowing our lives to be touched by what we have seen Him do in Haiti.

To read more about the areas God has led Mission of Mercy to minister, click here.