Why We Keep Going

We are planning our next trip to Haiti, from Nov. 6-12. It is such a whirlwind. We need so much. We have to find medications and supplies. We need money. We need nurses (especially pediatric nurses). I find it amazing that this will be Ke Nou's (and Missouri Haitian Relief Fund's) fifth trip.

What keeps us going? Why do we keep going back?

On the one hand, that answer is easy: the need is so great. The people we serve don't stop getting ill once the cameras are no longer trained on them or their country. The earthquake was terrible, but the need was tremendous before the quake, and it continues as the rubble still is being cleared.  We see that every time we go.  We save lives on every trip.

The second answer is that we are trying to build something: Each time we go, we want to leave the clinic and hospital in Fond Parisien  more capable of responding to the need. Also, with each trip, hopefully one more team member gets the bug to return to serve again.

Third, it is personal: to me once I've seen the look in one child's eyes, I cannot unsee it. Once I have opened my heart to these people and this place, it always is with me. I really have no choice. I need to go back.

Here's the thing: We don't do it for thanks. We don't do it for recognition. We go because our lives don't make sense if we don't go. We do it because when we are there, in this desperate place, all the pieces come together, and we know we are exactly where we were meant to be, doing what we were made to do.  We are alive.

People here in the States will come up to me and thank me for what I am doing. I understand why they do. I recognize that I am doing something that many are unable or unwilling to do, and people recognize that our work is  needed, but I always feel a little awkward when I hear the "Thank You" or when someone is trying to tell me what a great person I am for going on mission trips.

  Thanking me for going on mission trips is like thanking me for breathing oxygen. I do it because I have to.  Ask anyone who truly has it in their heart, and they will tell you the same.  Praise for what I do, in a strange way, makes me feel more humble. I often tell people, in reply, that I am only a vessel. I only play a very small part, doing the work that has been given me.  That's all I want to be.  I don't need this to feed my ego.  In fact, I have seen, unfortunately, people for whom it is one big ego trip.  They are tourists.  That is not what I want to be.  I want my work to mean something.  My name and face can disappear in the wake of what I have done.

And yet....it does make me happy when people see that our work is worthwhile. Because the more people are behind us, the greater chance that someone will be moved to help out: with money, with supplies, with volunteering...anything that keeps this machine going. And we need it.  Fundraising was easy after the earthquake. Now we are operating with less and less of a cushion. So if you feel gratitude for what we have done, recognize that you do not have to be a spectator.  You can share in our mission.  Maybe you can join us physically in a future mission.  Maybe you can join us by sharing financially.  Any gift can extend our common reach and can allow the mission to live on.  Always, we are working so that we can continue to work.   And we will continue to keep going.  Because we have to. It is how we are made, why we were made.

Doug

Ke Nou Haiti
c/o  Missouri Haitian Relief Fund
PO Box 873
Jefferson City, MO 65102