David Leventhal

Below is a post I wrote for Hope for Orphans blog explaining a little bit about the Haiti Orphan Relief Team.  I’m headed out with this team on Sunday for 11 days.  In addition to the specific requests below I would appreciate your prayers – for me & for Missy & the kiddos.

Hope for Orphans is proud to be a part of the Haiti Orphan Relief Team (HORT).  HORT is a cooperative effort of disaster response experts and U.S. based ministries that have joined together to respond to the orphan crisis in Haiti.

The first deployment, which I will be a part of, departs on February 14th with the specific mission of supporting the churches of Haiti to care for the orphaned children in their communities. HORT will collaborate with and train Haitian ministries to sustain this effort beyond the deployment period.

The primary goal of this first initiative is to better enable Haitian churches to reunite children with their families or to keep children within extended family structures. For children that have no other options, HORT will help Haitian churches to provide direct care in home environments, as opposed to institutional orphanages.  The focus is on long-term, sustainable orphan care through the local church.

U.S. churches are also part of the solution and are being recruited by HORT to come alongside these Haitian churches in church-to-church partnerships to initiate, strengthen and grow their outreach to orphans in their immediate communities. These partnerships will also work towards the self-sustainability of the orphan rescue and care efforts in Haiti.

A couple of things you can do:

• Pray like crazy that this team would:
  • Exalt Christ as we look for long-term orphan relief strategies
  • Remain unified & focused on the goal – we want to set aside logos & egos for the purpose of glorifying God as we care for the least of these
  • Be protected physically & spiritually while in Haiti.  We deploy on 2/14.  Some will be returning on 2/24 & others on 2/28.
  • Be able to identify churches on the ground in Haiti & in the U.S. that will be able to partner with us and one another.
• Advocate: Spread the word via
  • Facebook (www.facebook.com/haitiorphanreliefteam)
  • Twitter (@haitiorphan)
• Support the HORT effort financially through the website below
• Educate: Learn more at www.haitiorphanrelief.com