Mission: Haiti

One thing that I love about our church is how involved we are with missions.

We have taken on supporting and doing projects for Haiti. Our main project each year is putting together Christmas bags for the children in Haiti. Each bag consists of a coloring book, pencils, a small toy, some candy, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. And they are thrilled by this!!!! Makes me feel guilty when I think about all the fun stuff that my kids get under our Christmas tree...and even though they like it all, I am sure they don't appreciate it as much as they should. What would they think if that is all we gave them one year?

Another main way we support Haiti is by sending mission teams each year to do various projects. This year my husband and I have the opportunity to serve together on one of these teams. Can I be honest with you? This is stretching me WAY outside my comfort zone! I like my comfortable life that I have here in the States. And that is exactly why I NEED to go!!! When my husband first asked me about going with him (actually I am pretty sure he told me I was going:-), I honestly didn't want to go. I heard all the stories about tarantulas crawling into your shoes. And the outhouse facilities...they sound downright scary! I mean when they tell you DON'T shine your flashlight down the hole because you don't want to see all the bugs moving down there...why would I want to go??? But God worked in my heart and changed my attitude about going. I am looking forward to seeing how God is going to use it in my life and how He is going to change me as a result of this trip. Even though I am excited now about going, there is still that small part of my heart that is scared. We are leaving our 3 kids behind and going into a third world country. As a mom, this really makes me worry. There was a major earthquake there just a year and half ago. What if something like that happened again and we didn't come back to our babies? As excited as I am about going, this fear has a grip on my heart. I know that there will be many people praying for our team as we travel and I know without a doubt that God will protect us as we serve His people. I have the head knowledge...let's hope that heart knowledge catches up quickly:-)

Now I want to share something else that is on my heart. A few months ago, we had a couple who head up a mission group from FL come speak at our church. He was inspiring and I loved seeing the passion that he spoke with, but one thing stuck out to me more than anything else. In his slide show presentation, he showed their "eye clinic". It was just a table lined up with different glasses in different prescriptions. No fancy machines to check their eyes and see exactly what prescription they need. Basically they just have them try on different ones until they can see better. What struck me was how I take for granted something as simple as going to my eye doctor each year. I know there are many more things that I take for granted, but this one hit home. Mostly because my eyes have been terrible since I was in 2nd grade and I grew up wearing glasses. I never thought anything about going and getting a new prescription filled. My eyes were so bad that I couldn't see our alarm clock from just across the room. It was just a red blur. Yet there are people walking around in many other countries only seeing a blur. I never thought about it this way before. They don't get to see with clarity all the wonderful things God has created for them. Now I realize that I am not an eye doctor and I can't do much, but I wanted to do something!

What I am asking is for you to help me spread the word, gather as many glasses together as you can, and then mail the package to me before October 21st. Sounds easy enough right? I was telling my mom about this the other day and telling her how I wondered if anyone would even care about helping me with this. She encouraged me with this thought, "You just might be surprised at how God will provide." I am putting it out there to see if you would allow God to work in your life by helping me send glasses to people that don't have the conveniences that we do.

If you are collecting glasses, please email me and I will send you the address of where to mail them. My email is insidebrucrewlife@gmail.com
Here are some ways that you can help spread the word.

1. Ask your friends & family to donate any used glasses, then gather them and mail them to me.
2. See if your church/small group would let you announce it, collect them & mail to me.
3. Post it on your Facebook page or even post about it on your blog.
4. Pray that God will work in many hearts.