A Hero in Haiti

It was seventeen years ago that I first met Danita. We’d just moved to Florida, had begun attending a huge church and she was the first woman to reach out to me, a one-on-one encounter amidst a sea of people. Over lunch one day I got my first glimpse of this extraordinary woman. Gentle, soft-spoken, with caring eyes and a quiet spirit, she took whatever time necessary to listen…really listen to someone who, at that time in life, needed a soft place to fall.

For the next two years, I watched this woman live.  She never ceased to amaze me with her selflessness and sacrifice, her integrity and virtue, her tireless servant’s heart, her godly character and genuine compassion. Trust me, I have a story, at least one, for every word I use to describe her. She is the epitome of beauty and strength. I watched, up close and personal, and I saw…her grit, her guts, her grace…but most of all, I saw her God.

In 1998, just after we had thrown a house-warming party to celebrate her moving into a home of her own, Danita made a bold and brave decision to leave everything she’d known; the familiar, the comfortable, the secure…and move to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, the impoverished nation of Haiti …alone.

Saying goodbye to family and friends, she made preparations to leave. A woman who does whatever it takes, she also prepared for the future by asking my son to teach her how to drive a motorcycle, knowing it would soon be her only means of transportation. I’d seen her do a similar thing once before, driving a U-haul to load some long-stored belongings, transporting and selling them to have money to give to women less fortunate. But now she was preparing to care for those less fortunate still, the most distressed and helpless of all…the orphans of Haiti.

Now, these many years later, this month she celebrates fifteen years of service in Ouanaminthe, Haiti. For seventeen years now I have watched and admired.  In countless ways she has proven to be a doer, not just a hearer (James 1:22), one who loves not just in word and tongue, but in deed and truth (I John 3:18). When I say that she is the definition of a hero, I mean it literally, for heroes are people who transform compassion into action. They go beyond rhetoric and actually rescue.

My remarkable friend Danita is giving her life to do this very thing. Why? It’s because she knows the One who took action on her behalf, the One who gave His life to rescue hers. It is because of this One that she can now rescue, love, and care for orphans and impoverished children…

she can be a hero in Haiti…

because she has a Hero of her own.

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. James 1:27

Go here and watch the videos located on the sidebar, and like I did years ago, you’ll get your first glimpse of this remarkable woman and you’ll get a chance to see the magnificent work God has accomplished through one woman’s life.

Linking up with Five Minute Friday for this week’s writing prompt, “Hero”