Let your light shine
14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:14-16 NIV
In a little over a week twenty-three youth and adults from the church will be traveling to Les Cayes, Haiti. As you have probably heard we will be helping to build a home for girls with disabilities, building bunk beds for kids, and doing children’s ministry at the church we attend. This is our third trip to Haiti and we are looking forward to making the journey.
A few months ago Mary Burt came to to me and told me about solar lights that her daughter had found. She wanted to know if that is something we would be interested in taking with us. She thought we could get church members to buy them and we take them and distribute them. Honestly I was a little hesitant because it seemed like every Sunday we were asking people for money for Haiti. We already had to raise over $16,000 to help build the home and to help get us there (we raised $500 a person which left each member of the team to pay $1,000). But I told Mary I was willing to give it a try and see how it went.
There was no doubt in my mind however that the lights would be needed in Haiti. In Les Cayes electricity is spotty at best. It’s on during the day most of the time but goes out in the evening almost every night. We’ve been told that because most people can’t pay for electricity the government turns it off sometime around 9:00 each night to conserve energy. That’s where these lights will be a great thing. They are solar powered so during the day you set them out in the sun to charge. They are inflatable and waterproof. When you inflate them and turn the light on they offer pretty good light at night, kind of like a lantern. Our plan is to give them out to the children we deliver beds to and to give the rest to the church to distribute them.
Thanks to Mary’s suggestion I was pleasantly surprised that the church saw the vision of the lights as well. We were able to order 110 lights to take with us. They will be helpful for us during the week and we will be able to give them all away to kids in Haiti. We hope to be able to let our light shine in Haiti in a few weeks. Both literally and figuratively!
