How long is the world’s attention span?

I guess it depends on what we’re talking about. North Americans seem to have an almost endless ability to follow someone called “Spencer and Heidi” or “Spidy” whatever that means – tuning in daily to find out who won the argument over whether to wear their green t-shirts or the white ones.  (??)   But judging from global disasters in recent years it would appear the shelf life for interest in great social crises such as the tsunami in South East Asia, the hurricane in the American Gulf… or the earthquake now just off the coast of Haiti – is about three weeks. In the first week there was intrigue and horror across our nation, in the second week – intrigue and response. But by the end of the third week there was a ‘moving-on’ as news coverage decreased, the fund raisers were over and this little thing called the Superbowl was taking place.
As you can imagine the Haitians are not likely having a hard time staying focused on how their lives have been forever changed.  Canadians?  We’re  thinking about how to get more snow up Cyrus mountain in North Vancouver. Should we use the green trucks, or the white ones..   Now don’t feel condemned here, the reality is there is no crises in the world large enough to keep anyone’s attention who is not directly effected by it. If anything proves that, Haiti does.
You know many times as a Pastor I walked a family through the loss of one of their family members. Of course for the first few days they hear from almost everyone they know as their home becomes a temporary headquarters for receiving sympathy and well wishes.  Then normally within a few days there is a memorial or a funeral.  Now a funeral is an amazing thing for many reasons – mainly it is seen as a time where friends and family can officially honor and celebrate the life of the one who passed on. But there is a stronger role that funerals play – it marks the moment where something called “closure” can occur.  Not that the family is over it or the grieving just suddenly stops… but because of this “closure” there is a functional ability to let go, accept… and begin to move forward.  But what if you didn’t just have one family member die but eight… and they didn’t die all at once but rather one at a time over a several month period… now add to that you have been evicted from your home and have no where to go, no job to go to and everyone around you is in as much need of help as you. When will closure come?
For many Canadians, closure on tragic events such as Haiti occurs simply because something else (superbowl, olympics, spidy’s shirt choice) takes its place and we can “move on” in a functional way because the earthquake victims are no longer in our site lines. That is where we’re at now on the Haitian issue.  So let me appeal to a specific type of person out there today… you weren’t the immediate reactor… you didn’t give gobs of money in that high profile first wave of fund raising the other week… you felt great empathy for what was happening yet didn’t feel it was the right thing for you to respond immediately.  So your friends looked at you funny when you said you hadn’t given yet and you wouldn’t dare let your coworkers know… listen -  you are just the right person now who needs to understand the significance of the role YOU play and the strategy of being on the secondary response team.
If I may borrow from the Pastoral thing again, a family who loses a loved one has two needs – the first impact strike of support and encouragement they get from family and friends leading up to and during the funeral, and the later secondary response that comes from those few select and special close friends who step in “after” the funeral is gone, after the masses of people have ‘moved on’… and after the family is left alone now to deal with their grief and devastation.  I can tell you first hand ‘that’ secondary response person holds by far the most powerful impact-opportunity of anyone.
Let’s use a completely different example… remember the Gulf wars?  Remember the “Shock and Awe”  campaign in the middle east?  Remember what that looked like… That impressive first-strike stage when fighter jets bombed the heck out of a region leaving observers to wonder how anything could possibly be left.  That first response was so big, so larger than life, so impressive in its visual impact…. and yet when the dust settled not only was there a society down there, there was an enemy still functioning in that region. Then came the ground force and although not as sensational and far less impressive than the bombing raid… we came to realize the big bombing raids by themselves cannot win the war, that its the secondary response that decides what impact this campaign will ultimately have.
Those initial impact hits on Haiti by the generosity of North Americans were crucial and effective… but now comes an even greater and ultimately more ‘deciding’ form of help; the secondary response team now needed desperately by the Haitian people. Those who become part of this team may well be those who ‘are’ slower to respond and I’m glad you were because although I wouldn’t want to build you up at the expense of the first-strike people, the fact is you have an opportunity now to be a difference-maker on a whole new level… and this is your time!  I relate to what I’m speaking of today because I myself am slow to respond.  I will almost always watch the majority run ahead while I stand back and think things through.  I know many Canadians have done just that.  Sometimes we end up feeling condemned – either from yourself or by others. But let me encourage you today that if you have been slow and purposeful in your response to Haiti, don’t let the fact the news coverage has slowed dramatically fool you, people are still dying in Haiti, millions are still without homes, there is still a desperate shortage of proper water or food… children are still trying to adjust to the fact their parents are suddenly gone and they are alone..  and for Haitians – there has been no “funeral”, no moment of closure…and no moving on.  They will wake up tomorrow to the same nightmare they have woken to every morning for a month now.
Feed the Hungry is still there, still doing what it does day in-day out… feeding, clothing helping people not only get through this but find dignity, find hope and find the resources they need to begin to rebuild their life and move forward. Feed the Hungry cannot bring “closure” to people, but we can help them see a future.  When FTH goes into a disaster zone it is not a “three and out” operation. We move in to be difference-makers for the long run – working through the community of Churches in that nation so perfectly positioned for such a time as this. I encourage Canadians today, all Canadians but especially those of you who by nature are ‘secondary responders’ to join the aftermath support team now. Call us, write us… let us know you want to be a part.
..don
Right back in the prairies this week where my truck battery has a competition every morning with the bitter cold to see who is greater.

Two words emerge from the Haitian rubble to confront the world.

In every global disaster there are two issues that rise to the surface for every humanitarian relief agency.  They are the same two words in every case and it doesn’t matter whether the work is in response to a flood, tornado, famine, hurricane or as in Haiti’s case; an earthquake. These two words are never absent from the glaring spotlight, nor are they ever substituted with a different word. And every good aid organization hopes that this is the crises that will alert the world to these two words. The first word I have dealt with to some degree in previous posts; it’s the word “infrastructure“.  The lack there-of has been the single greatest hinderance to proper and timely support efforts connecting supplies with people. As previously noted, that infrastructure exists only for those who care to acknowledge it and more to the point, use it; the Church.

The second word however is as crucial as the first but even more ignored; “Dignity”.  It is not enough that such a large percentage of Haitians have lost homes and jobs and worst of all, love ones… in the aftermath of a crises like this they lose something else as well, and that is their dignity. The earthquake didn’t take their dignity… it took their friends and loved ones, it took their homes and in many cases it took their income.  So what took their dignity?

Anyone keeping an eye on the already every decreasing news coverage on Haiti has noticed that the manner in which aid is finally getting to people is causing much added strain and loss of dignity to a people already attempting only to survive another day.  Food distribution outlets have been so poorly thought through that riots break out and sincere victims in need of help have to endure intimidating environments and in some cases violence in order to try to get a share of the relief supplies. Now personally all I have to do is consider another day of air-travel to make me want to just avoid any job or vacation involving that ‘herding” experience we go through at our nation’s airports.  Wouldn’t we often rather just go without than fight someone for a spot in line at the bank, the food store or a passport office.  Now those are civil lines (depending on your definition), imagine if you had to endure violence in those situations… would any of us endure the process?  Well nice on us for having choices, but what if we didn’t have a choice… if this was the difference between life and death for our family?

What is happening in Haiti right now is not new to the disaster relief efforts around the world – they are all like this. In an attempt to bring much needed relief to people, help is brought in such a way they are stripped of whatever dignity they might be trying to hold on to. If Haitians are not slugging it out with whoever used to be their neighbors over who gets to feed their family tonight, they are running like stray dogs after military ‘drops’ as helicopters simply fly supplies into an area and drop them to the ground from a safe distance up in the air.

A casual observer watching the news each night might scoff at this attitude and suggest the Haitian people should be grateful for whatever help they get right now. But let’s think about this… here we sit in the twenty-first century, we’ve raised a twazillion dollars to bring immediate aid into the country, we have the best of the military from several nations, the UN forces and a not-so-small army of agencies and organizations from around the world… but we can’t figure out how to give to these people without raping them of their dignity?

As a casual observer myself from many exposures to third-world, crises environments and poverty level communities in many different nations, I can tell you that as crucial as practical aid and relief supplies are to people, dignity is just as important – not only for the immediate caring of their very fractured lives… but for the long term effect this has on anyone who goes through such a thing. Think of it this way – we’ve all known someone who goes through an unfortunate season where they needed a little help. We’ve seen how easy it is to give to that person in a way that demeans them and we’ve all seen the lasting effects this has on those people. Imagine now it’s not a hand up we’re dealing with, but masses of people who have now been stripped of everything they have that even identifies them, let alone esteems them.  How crucial is it that we carefully steward the dignity of those we reach out to?

Yes… this is actually my point – that at a time when the world has all it can cope with just transferring aid from the tarmac to the people, we need to be very thoughtful and on-purpose about ‘how’ we get that aid to them. Why? Because it matters!  It matters to a child that they understand this was not their fault and they have not been reduced to animals in a cage where the strong survive.  It matters to a just-widowed woman who is beyond herself at this moment coping with her loss.  Remember that day you experienced not that long ago when so many things just went so bad that you could no longer cope with important decisions or even routine tasks?  So how is a widowed woman in Haiti today supposed to stand in line elbowing her way to the front where the handouts are?  It matters to that man, husband, father who has proudly worked hard all his life to put food on his family’s table.  Now his dignity has been reduced to who can run the fastest to collect food from the drop zone.  Imagine the man who wasn’t fast enough.. returning to his hurting family all looking up at him in the hope of something, anything… but he has returned empty. Do our hearts not break for that man… that woman… those kids?  Anyone today in Haiti who is desperate for food and supplies, is absolutely just as desperate to find dignity for their families.

In disasters like this, dignity is not really something that exists for the people. They hear stories of dead family members and friends being discarded ‘on top’ of land fills without being buried or identified. Their minds are filled with panic-stricken thoughts on where their family will find shelter and safety. Most of all they think only of where they will find their next meal or uncontaminated water. In all of this their only hope for dignity is if someone brings it to them. So this leaves us with this crucial thought;  there is a large difference between “giving” help to someone, and “ministering” help to someone.

Can I encourage you who are reading this today, please support an organization such as Feed the Hungry where “how” people are helped, is as important as “what” help is given.  Tour the FTH website to gain a clearer understanding of ‘how’ people are helped.  FTH does an amazing job of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and caring for the hurting… but more than that they are careful to minister their help to people, providing safe and careful environments where supplies are distributed, where help is given and where people’s dignity are elevated.

Take a look at this amazing verse from Proverbs 31:25… ”she is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come”.

Notice that strength alone is not enough?  We want to feed, clothe and protect Haitians right now… but we also want them to be able to laugh at the days to come. That can only happen when dignity is present.

.don

I have finished my time in BC and leaving now just before they finish trucking in all the snow for the Olympics next week.

Haiti is changing the way Humanitarian Relief work will be done.

Like so many other North Americans I can remember that by noon on 9/11 there was a solemn resolve in me that life as we knew it had just changed forever. Jan 12th 2010 is Haiti’s 9/11, a day that will change the way that country builds and lives from this day onward. But just as the impact of the quake affected more than just the Haitian region, the changes it is promoting are being felt in many nations around the world and none more so than here in Canada.
For two weeks now I have met with Pastors, community leaders and a lot of just real good Canadian folk across the land and I have witnessed an amazing three wave reaction right across the country. The first few days it was almost a money throw – a frantic sense that we must do something and do it now!  Before the first week was over, a major wave of frustration had been felt as people couldn’t believe that the resources and aid so desperately needed by the hurting inside of Haiti was sitting there at the airport, but somehow couldn’t get to the people.  Now as we pass the two week mark there is a third wave of reaction as people have calmed both their immediate emotions as well as their secondary frustrations and are taking a very introspective look at the process over all. 

What has stimulated this third wave is the gathering of international leaders in Montreal this past week where although a tremendous amount of common sense thinking has come out of this, it has left people with an almost fatal understanding that in the end, no matter how they give, how quickly they give, how much they give or who has done the fund raising – even stars of today – there is simply no way to avoid political process and international stumbling blocks.
I found myself wondering this week which reaction was stronger as an argument could be made for each.  The first ‘out-pouring’ response was unprecedented.  It was so passionate in its scope, amount and immediacy you could almost call it violent… certainly it qualifies as forceful. The second “out-rage” reaction was significant to behold.  There were many times in those few days where I was almost accosted by good people who were just so angry with the “stupidity” of the “sitting on the tarmac” syndrome that had befallen much of the aid.  But in the end my vote is for the third wave of “thinking people” response – while not nearly as demonstrative, before it’s over it will prove much more a powerful response than any other.
Here’s why I say this;  the best thinking political minds, leaders and politicians come together and publicly define and characterize not only what Haiti needs today but what they need moving forward and how long of a process this will be.  Estimates range from 4 years to over a decade. Many of the conclusions drawn from this global brainstorming session were exceptional parts and pieces of wisdom and planning. Someone should probably write a book cataloging all of the insight gleaned from those who gathered. Yet despite all of the direction and fine-tuning that comes from these discussion, one fact emerges unquestionably clear;  Governments are fine things… but at the end of the day there is no more helpful, effective or positive response to a disaster in our world than one person helping one person.
Yes Governments help. They can bring a sizable fortifying effect to our own efforts but certain undeniable facts have shown themselves… and people are noticing. That Relief work has now become as varied as television broadcasts and there is no way for one unified template to fit all. That despite the good will that generally exists between most relief organizations, each has their own specific agenda and it is impossible for all organizations to fit into the same box. That although most organizations – including Governments – have exceptional leaders at the top, there is no one person who can “take the lead” in any truly Global relief effort.  And, that no matter how powerful a Government is… they are not equipped, prepared or able to effectively minister to the people of an effected region hit by earthquake, floods, famine or other disasters.
It’s just not how God made us.  In Matthew 9 Jesus talked about the people He saw in every city and town He entered. The word in the original language denotes that He was “moved” or shaken to His core over what He saw.  He turned to His disciples and made this comment;  “The Harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few”.  It’s almost as if He was saying to his guys that ‘despite the terrible condition  of these people… the harvest they so desperately need – and God so deeply desires to release to them – really is in abundance.  What is a certainty is by saying these words He brought out two very important truths regarding the dignity of human life; That first and foremost, despite what seemed to be the case, there was no shortage of the Harvest God has for people… and secondly that God’s preferred method of getting His harvest to these needing people… was people. 
Jesus could have said “the harvest is plentiful, but we need stronger Government with quicker response methods”.  Instead He spoke of laborers. People are the laborers He was speaking about.  There has never been a larger visual aid for this passage than the two weeks following Jan 12th. The most effective relief groups in Haiti today are those working through the local Churches of that country. There are not many that operate this way, a few do… Feed the Hungry is one of them.  Now I appreciate Governments probably more than the average citizen – if the table talk at Tim Hortons is anything to go by. I am all for cooperating and coordinating our efforts with one another. But what is happening right now is not a fair contest… people helping people trumps governments helping people any day and in any situation.
So here are three things that are about to change forever.  Because of what we have all seen in Haiti this month, governments, being governments… will heighten efforts to bring regulation to the relief response world in order to bring parody and efficiency to future disaster responses. This will undoubtedly be as effective as any other Government program.  Secondly, we are about to be deluged by floods of star-led easy-technology (text etc) efforts to raise copious amounts of money because of the staggering truck loads of finance that came in this way over the past two weeks.  This will  increasingly be a target to the 15-30′s as the only group that will respond to these means down the road.  The third change is the overwhelming number of people across the country who are busy ‘thinking’ about what it is that really truly works in a time of crises. Canadians are already figuring out that the only way they can insure their investments actually make a difference, they have to actually know who is raising the money, how it is being used and what it is accomplishing. For that reason more and more people will send their support through agencies that they personally check out, organizations where they have a direct connection with their vision, and groups they know exactly what the process is and what the end result will be.
Let me encourage you to be one of those Canadians.  Make sure you carefully look into where you send your support and that you know and agree with the agenda, the process and the end results of those whom you support. I don’t have to tell you where to send your money, if all Canadians examine their investments carefully this will naturally eliminate most of the efforts that should never have been there in the first place.  If we do our homework there will be more instances of people helping people, and less product sitting on the tarmac. 
Don Sparman
Finally out of the harsh Prairie winter and warming up in the Rockies.  ??

Saturday, Jan 23

The fish, or the pole? This has been the age old dilemma of relief work for decades, probably generations.  Do you give people the fish, or do you teach them how to fish.  As the saying goes; give a man a fish and he eats for one meal.. teach him how to fish and eats the rest of his life. So what does Haiti need? The short answer is “both”!  At the moment there is no question they need the fish, and as much of it as possible. Feed the Hungry does an excellent job of getting that crucial ‘first response’  into the country. But the reason I bring up the question of the fish or the pole is even as aid organizations are working around the clock to address the immediate issue of survival, media groups are already presenting docu-ports on ‘what’s next for Haiti’… and ‘how do we rebuild from here’ and so on.  I also notice that much fund raising centers around the issues of ‘moving forward’ for this nation.

Now as much as I think this is a little premature I recognize the media loves to lead the circumstances with the news of tomorrow – after all, their teams have been there for 10 or 12 days now and you can only talk about the same thing for so long. But seeing as though it ‘is’ a legit question eventually, what ‘does’ Haiti need moving forward?  This is where the question about “the pole” comes in… as in; what is the pole that we need to leave there – and more importantly do any of the fund raising efforts even have a plan as to what the pole is?

This has been a crucial question in past disaster relief operations but there is something very different at work in this one regarding Haiti and we are about to see it come to the surface rather quickly.  Because of the new technology and methods being used to raise funds today, donating is as simple as a text message or a phone hit. Celebrities are coming together as never before to present the need – and because of the severity of the crises people want to help in record numbers. The result? We will see a dollar amount pour into this response that will dwarf all other relief efforts in disaster response history.

In just the first couple of days of airing the ‘Hope for Haiti Now’ telethon in the U.S., a new record for disaster relief telethons was reached bringing in over 58 million dollars. This is a figure that does not even include donations made by corporations and large private donors. This also does not include the money coming in from I-Tunes involvement and as of yesterday The “hope for Haiti Now” project is the biggest one-day album pre-order in iTunes history and is currently the #1 iTunes album in 18 countries around the world.

Imagine what a week will look like!

Now add to this the great work of our Canadian telethon, as well as untold additional fund raising sources and at some point you have to ask – what kind of fishing pole will we be leaving?  Who will decide how all this money will be used? What will be done with it? Where will it be directed? How will amounts of this magnitude be handled?

If I could, I would want to encourage people to ponder this question; which relief organization has a plan in place?  Taking you back briefly to my thoughts on getting aid from the airport to the people, I have pointed out that while many groups, governments and efforts do an amazing job of getting the relief supplies into the airport of the effected country, they really don’t have a plan from there… so much precious time is lost and the much needed aid sits on the tarmac. As you know, I was able to present the plan that FTH already has in place – working through a social network already in operation (the local Church) thus no time is ever spent by FTH trying to draft up a plan as to what we will do with the aid once we get it into the country… it is all systems go from the first moment that disaster strikes. That is what allows FTH to be so completely instant in its disaster response.

Well in the same way, which organizations have an actual plan in place for how projects will be determined and money spent?  Disaster after disaster, the mandate of FTH is unchanging and rock solid.  Our web sites are chalk full with the way our resources go out, how money is spent and what the plans are in the immediate response, the secondary response and the long term follow up.  Folks it has become fearfully easy to raise money today and break records as technology continues to make donating easier and easier… its another thing altogether to have a plan in place as to who spends that money, how it will be spent and when it will happen.  It is important for everyone who contributes to these disaster relief operations to also ask the question “what is the plan?”

Of course there are many exceptional organizations doing amazing work.  Like everyone else I find myself tearing up every time I see the way our nations are opening up their wallets and their hearts… you have to love it!  The reality is however, not all money raised is attached to an actual plan, and that… is a dangerous thing. With the response to the Haiti earthquake prepare yourself for unimaginable dollar amounts to be in the news every day for some time, but you might also want to prepare yourself for what will undoubtedly be the single greatest accounting dilemma in world relief efforts.

Most importantly, when you consider giving… ask if the organization you’re giving to actually has a plan.

Made it (barely) to Regina – good heavens these Prairie winter storms!!

….don

Brandon, MB

The “relief supplies crises” gets worse! What is happening in Haiti right now with the major breakdown of any kind of infrastructure to get supplies from the airport to the people is not anything new or isolated to Haiti.  In Myanmar, in New Orleans, in Darfur… really in every relief effort of recent history we hear the same thing; “why did it take so long to get aid to the people”?  The answer is simple; the world’s relief organizations, Governments and citizens have become exceptional at raising money and getting aid to the “airports” of the effected regions – but that’s where it stops. The reality that keeps coming to the surface each time the world experiences a disaster is as Anderson Cooper recently reported; “There simply is no infrastructure to get the aid from the airports to the people effectively”.

But actually there is – its called “the Church”.  In every neighborhood of every city of every nation on the earth there is a Church and there simply is no more effective social networking system on the planet than what the Church provides. And the Church is the network that Feed The Hungry works through in order to get it’s aid to the people.  Our organization is being bombarded with calls and response from people of all walks of life right now as frustration grows not only in Haiti but among those who raise and send the support – people want a better way to get aid to the hurting, people are demanding it and rightly so.

Feed the Hungry is not the largest relief organization, nor the one with the deepest pockets but it is the organization that is utilizing the Church as the main conduit for relief and supplies, allowing us to have actual distribution centers set up and functioning in crucial areas of the effected regions immediately following the earthquake’s hit. If you think about it, what could possibly be better than Churches?  Even people who don’t go to church are calling us wanting to send their support through Feed the Hungry as they understand how effective this is.  Churches are not only in every neighborhood, but they are also already established in the minds of people as centers of compassion and care.  Pastors and church leadership are already efficiently mobilized as ‘community-teams’ who know the people, know the streets, know the neighborhoods and know how to get immediate results when called upon in emergencies.

In the streets of Haiti today many millions of people are homeless, helpless and hurting.  They have no idea when the aid that has been pouring in will begin to reach them but what they do know is where the local Church is and in every crises in every nation, the Church is the first place people turn.

When you help the work of Feed the Hungry you can know that your support is making a difference almost the moment you give it. When hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans I happened to be set up in Indianapolis and working the phones helping to coordinate efforts between resources we had, and Churches that could distribute and serve. I remember how even before the storm came, Feed the Hungry trucks had loaded up with supplies and driven part way down to within a few hours drive of the effected regions. This allowed them to get into the hardest hit areas literally within hours of the hurricane happening. The result was Churches in ravaged areas, full of supplies and resource helping victims with food, water and other aid as people immediately sought help and refuge from local Churches.  The media made a lot of noise as to how long it took major aid to get into the region. Yet all through that time, the Church was being exactly what it was supposed to be – a place of help and strength for those in need.  Thank you Feed the Hungry for what you do, and to Lester Sumrall for being obedient to God’s direction many years ago as you built Feed the Hungry into what it is today.

Today I am not set up in a go-between station close to the disaster area, far from it I am stuck in a snow storm in Southern Manitoba and attempting to find my way to Regina by tomorrow afternoon. Yet from this place I appeal to all who can, to examine the web site and the work Feed the Hungry is doing and do your best to “pour” your own support into this great organization. Our Canadian Government is matching every dollar so please give now and know you are making an immediate difference to people who so badly need our help today in Haiti.

Don Sparman

Snow trapped in Brandon, MB

January 22.2010

One thing I’m hearing each day is there seems to be a sense that people are thinking of Haiti in the same way we thought of New Orleans following hurricane Katrina; that “we must now rebuild”.

 What people need to understand is that Haiti has been in a disaster state for many, many years. There is no ‘re-building Haiti”, as it was never really built in the first place. So then we ask ourselves, “what is the purpose here… what are we hoping to do”?.  Well here is what we know, the people of Haiti “will” now be allowing and embracing something new.  The question is, what?  This nation IS now saying we need to look to something different for our country.  As after shocks continue to hit Haiti, droves of people are seen kneeling in the streets crying and praying to God for forgiveness and declaring that they will change.  At Feed the Hungry it is not our position that this earthquake was God’s judgement, at the same time we see the resolve of these people to change their ways and look to something new. So we know these people are searching their hearts to find something different in their lives. It’s now just a matter of what influences will be there before them as they do.  This is why it is so crucial that we accompany our relief efforts with Christian resource and influence. A remarkable opportunity has come to Haiti. Though this earth quake is not a judgement of God, there is an unimaginable opportunity within God’s Grace  to see a nation come to Christ like at no other time in it’s history and quite possibly in the history of any nation. Please help Feed the Hungry make a difference now – every minute counts.

Pastor Don Sparman

Passing through Kenora Ontario

January 20, 2010

Continuing on my trek across the country to help bring awareness to the work Feed the Hungry is doing… Pastors and Church goers especially are concerned that in some way their relief dollars are working to not only help the immediate need but to make a difference in the work of the Gospel in Haiti. It is just so important to understand that aid that going into a nation through FTH is always followed up with ministry, Christian resource and also evangelistic efforts.  Work is done in each relief operation to fortify the Church and build up the pastors. 

Each day across the country I am hearing the same thing from Pastors, Church members and average citizen’s alike; “we are heart broken, what can we do”. Please let me encourage all to consider the work Feed the Hungry is doing as money and relief supplies in and of themselves are not yet enough to meet this unimaginable need.  Relationship and in-roads with the right people and means is extremely important here as is the combining of relief efforts with the message of hope that comes from Jesus Christ. 

Pastor Don Sparman

Passing through Timmins and Thunder Bay Ontario 

January 18, 2010

When Haiti suffered this catastrophic disaster I felt the need to do more than just feel bad.  I let my family know that I was stopping what I was doing and donating the next four weeks to bringing awareness to Canadian Pastors regarding the work Feed the Hungry is doing.  Even as I make my way across the country I am struck by the news each night that seems to exaggerate the very message we are trying to get out which is this; the main problem now is not how to get aid to Haiti, but how to get it from the airport to the people.  Amazingly this has become the underlying story of all relief efforts.  Tonight (Jan 21st) CNN reporter Anderson Cooper reported that the infrastructure to get supplies from the airport to the people “just doesn’t exist”.  

THIS is why Feed The Hungry is such a crucial relief organization. All of their relief work is done through local Churches in the effected areas. That immediately means two things;

1. That FTH is utilizing the greatest and most effective social networking web on earth today – the Church – and

2. Just as important, in providing aid in this way FTH is building and empowering the Churches during this time of great need.

FTH has well established relationships with many Churches throughout the nation and from the start have had distribution points set up in and through them.  These points include the hardest hit areas as well as the poorest areas of the country. 

Pastor Don Sparman

Passing through Barrie and Sudbury Ontario