(Note: Inspired by and written for the Center Of Hope Haiti, on our 20th Anniversary gathering and celebration, October 30, 2024. In 2001, I had the privilege to travel to Haiti for the first time. On a hot summer day, I left where I was living in the center of affluence in Fairfield Country, CT, to land in the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. What I found in the people of Haiti, though, was a richness in faith, love and hope. In serving along with many partners to fulfill the dream of our friend and colleague, Pastor Emmanuel St. Juste, the lives of many children and families have been changed, as have our own. Currently, the Center of Hope Haiti school has over 170 students and a staff of 33. The first graduating class started school after a massive earthquake decimated Port-au-Prince, graduated from 9th grade as COVID swept the world, and have not let the current political chaos derail them but have stayed focused on their goals for advanced education in fields like nursing and medicine. For this and more, we say, "Thanks be to God." -bguffey)
O God, whose name is love,
thank you for another day in your world.
Thank you for another day full
of opportunities to learn to see
your beauty in the faces of others.
Thank you for another day of abiding
as servant-partners with your creation.
Thank you for the power of healing, of honest
confession, and of sharing with others, all
of which can bring us joy and has the potential
to mend that which creates and has created trauma, too.
Thank you for the opportunity to breathe
the same life-giving air, which reminds us
of our dependence on that which we
cannot control and without which none
of us would survive.
Thank you for the experiences you send our way
that remind us of the importance of living our
callings through our vocations and through
our friendships, and partnerships.
In this season, and especially on this special
night of honor and celebration, remind us that
no matter our station or the manner of our birth
or our accomplishments, we all depend on the same
need for love and the same need for nourishment
of body and soul and emotion and meaningful service:
we stand equal before you.
We come together this night out of love seeking
to join our minds, hands, and financial resources, to
be enrolled in your “as in heaven so on earth” project
on behalf of the children of Haiti and all who love them.
Protect them, we beseech you.
Give them peace.
Give all the world’s children peace.
Oh, and us, too.
For all of this we are and shall be
grateful.
Amen.
© 2024 Robert Guffey / bg@lightreading.org / bguffey@freemasonstreet.org
(Photo: Center of Hope Haiti / centerofhope-haiti.org)
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