Charity Announces Mission Trip Giveaway Winner
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Stephanie Han of Portsmouth, R.I., wrote the winning essay. | |
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COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (March 25, 2013) – As Christians prepare for Easter, a time of renewal, Stephanie Han of Portsmouth, R.I., received an answer to her prayers. On March 12, Han was notified that she had been selected to travel to Haiti in July 2013 as Food For The Poor’s second annual Mission Trip Giveaway winner.
“Getting your phone call yesterday was one of the most beautiful experiences I have had in my entire life,” Han wrote in response. “I felt like time stood still, and the Lord had just reached out His hand to me saying, ‘Come follow me.’ I felt also like I had really been chosen.”
Contestants were asked to write a short essay as to why they wanted to travel on a mission trip to Haiti with the South Florida-based nonprofit. Han’s essay was selected from hundreds of applicants.
Han said she views the mission trip as an opportunity for her heart to become transformed.
“My prayer is that I might be truly open to receive all that the Lord wants to give me on this trip,” wrote Han, a support staff worker in the Applied Math department at Brown University.
Han’s winning essay reads:
To visit a land so full of faith and love for God, and yet so afflicted with poverty, would be an encounter with Jesus himself. Over these past years, it has been my fervent prayer to Christ, that He would assist me in the ability to truly love, and also to be able to receive love. To be given the opportunity to join hands with these graced people, I believe, would provide the answer to this prayer. In all my life, I have not been exposed to the poverty which afflicts so many parts of the world. I realize that the comforts I enjoy are only experienced by a small fraction of this world’s population. The rest of the world struggles each day not only for their food, but for the hope that they have not been forgotten by God. Yet, there are pockets in this world where those who suffer with poverty have such a vibrant faith in God; Haiti I believe is one of those places. To be immersed in their faith and to reciprocate by my love would heal my soul. This is what I believe.
Han, a wife and mother of four children, has traveled outside the United States before, including a trip to Spain in college, and a pilgrimage to Medjugorje in Bosnia.
She worships at Portsmouth Abbey on Narragansett Bay, R.I., and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Bristol, R.I.
The next Mission Trip Giveaway will be promoted in the fall on Food For The Poor’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. You can learn more about Food For The Poor’s mission trips at www.FoodForThePoor.org/mission or by emailing [email protected].
More than 8,000 people have traveled with Food For The Poor to the Caribbean and Latin America. Each mission trip provides an opportunity to witness the desperate living conditions of the poor, and to learn how through the generosity of donors, Food For The Poor has worked to alleviate the poor’s suffering.
Food For The Poor, named by The Chronicle of Philanthropy as the largest international relief and development organization in the nation, does much more than feed millions of the hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 96 percent of all donations going directly to programs that help the poor.
Jennifer Leigh Oates
Food For The Poor
Public Relations
954-427-2222 x 6054
[email protected]