{"id":102,"date":"2010-02-02T10:06:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T10:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/02\/giving-money-to-haiti.html"},"modified":"2010-02-02T10:06:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T10:06:00","slug":"giving-money-to-haiti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/02\/giving-money-to-haiti.html","title":{"rendered":"Giving Money to Haiti"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Peter and I, like many Americans, have talked a lot about Haiti recently. We&#8217;ve wondered what we can do to help. And the answer is pretty obvious: pray, and give money. The prayer part I know how to do (which doesn&#8217;t mean I&#8217;m particularly faithful in doing it). The money part is a little more challenging. With thousands of institutions offering aid to Haitians, where do we send money?<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Our conversation made me think about the Greek word that is often used in the Gospels to describe Jesus. In most English Bibles, this word is usually translated &#8220;Savior,&#8221; which makes us think it is a spiritual term. But the word, <i>soter<\/i>, could just as easily be translated &#8220;Healer.&#8221; Similarly, whenever the Bible reports Jesus telling someone, &#8220;Your faith has saved you,&#8221; it could read, &#8220;Your faith has healed you.&#8221; Salvation and healing are one and the same, or at least so intimately related to one another that the language didn&#8217;t distinguish between the two.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Now, I am not in any way saying that I want to send preachers to Haiti to tell people about Jesus as their medical and physical needs go unaddressed. And yet I would love for people in Haiti to be treated as whole persons, with physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs. I would love for them to experience healing-salvation, a restoration to health for the whole person and the whole community.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As to the question of where we&#8217;ll send our money? I brought it up with a group of friends from church last night. Some recommended <a href=\"http:\/\/standwithhaiti.org\/haiti\">Partners in Health<\/a> (and I also recommend the book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Mountains-Beyond-Farmer-Random-Readers\/dp\/0812980557\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1265123656&amp;sr=1-1\">Mountains Beyond Mountains<\/a>, by Tracy Kidder, for anyone who wants to learn more). Others <a href=\"http:\/\/donate.worldvision.org\/OA_HTML\/xxwv2ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?section=10324&amp;item=1958776\">World Vision<\/a>. One friend said, &#8220;All things being equal, that is, assuming that a specifically Christian organization is doing an equally effective and excellent job as a non-religious one, I&#8217;d give my money to the Christian organization.&#8221; He recommended <a href=\"http:\/\/www.crossworld.org\/home.html\">Cross World<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/worldrelief.org\/Page.aspx?pid=192\">World Relief. <\/a>I tend to agree, again, not with hopes for proselytizing in the streets, but with hopes that a Christian doctor would not only perform an amputation, but also pray for her patient. So, the check is going in the mail, and I will continue to pray for the healing-salvation of individuals, families, and the nation of Haiti. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Peter and I, like many Americans, have talked a lot about Haiti recently. We&#8217;ve wondered what we can do to help. And the answer is pretty obvious: pray, and give money. The prayer part I know how to do (which doesn&#8217;t mean I&#8217;m particularly faithful in doing it). The money part is a little more&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Giving Money to Haiti - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/02\/giving-money-to-haiti.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Giving Money to Haiti - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Peter and I, like many Americans, have talked a lot about Haiti recently. 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The money part is a little more&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/02\/giving-money-to-haiti.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-02-02T10:06:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Giving Money to Haiti - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/02\/giving-money-to-haiti.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Giving Money to Haiti - Thin Places","og_description":"Peter and I, like many Americans, have talked a lot about Haiti recently. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}