Does it really help Haiti when Americans send tons of peanuts? That is not an easy question to answer! The extra peanuts definitely help the hungry schoolchildren who will eat them as snacks. The peanuts might even help save their lives. But does foreign aid help Haiti in the long run? Can you actually make things worse by helping in the wrong way?

In the Bible, Jesus tells his disciples to take care of the needy. He said that when they fed needy people, it was just as if they were feeding Him! The people of Haiti have been hungry for a very long time. The drought has just made their problem worse. We are right to want to help them.

Sometimes helping others, really helping them, isn’t easy at all. It might feel good to us to give a hungry person food. But if we walk away from them without thinking about how we can help them get more of what they need, we might not have helped much at all. People in Haiti need lasting solutions to their problems. They need more water for their crops. Could someone help them build better irrigation systems? They need a more honest, stable government. Could someone teach them how good government works? Could Haitians be better helped by people who work alongside them to make lasting change?

Haiti needs many things right now. It needs people to offer immediate help so Haitians do not starve. It needs helpers who will work with them to make changes. It needs Christians who will pray for poverty in Haiti to finally come to an end. Will you be one of those people?