Celebration can look dramatically different depending on where you live. We’ve been thinking about this recently as Mission Église Chrétienne Rédemptrice, our church in Haiti, just celebrated Haitian Mother’s Day. In the US, we celebrate moms with flowers, cards, or a nice meal—something special to mark the day. In Haiti, many mothers spend Mother’s Day carrying heavy bags of food supplies home, sometimes walking miles so they can provide a meal for their children. While cultures may differ, one thing remains the same: a mother’s God-given desire to care for her family.

When our church was founded twelve years ago, one of the first things we did was host a Mother’s Day food distribution. This involved supplying food bags packed with rice, beans, tuna, cooking oil, and other miscellaneous items that moms could take home and use to feed their families. These food bags weren’t simply gifts; they were an opportunity for mothers to meet a very practical need and demonstrate love to their children. Our desire has always been to support families in our local community because God has designed the family to be the backbone of society. We extended another Mother’s Day invitation to the community this spring for this reason.

Our recent distribution was encouraging in more ways than one. We were able to provide 250 food bags to mothers in the local community, and each bag was filled with practical staples like rice, beans, cooking oil, canned fish, spaghetti, and other kitchen essentials. This kind of tangible aid goes a long way to help a family in need. Even more significantly though, the outreach created another opportunity for our church to build meaningful relationships with families in the area. This is what it looks like to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

The community is beginning to see us as a place of hope. It’s encouraging to see the church starting to make an impact in a very impoverished and spiritually dark area, building a presence as a place that is open and happy to engage people. We are excited to see what opportunities God has in store for the church in Haiti as they continue reaching out to those in need.

To learn how you can be praying with us for the ministry in Haiti, visit Prayer Requests.