Holding on to Faith for Haiti

By Christine Webb, Orlando, Florida

As appeared in

Leogane Plain, Haiti. Tuesday, January 12, 2010, almost 5:00 p.m.

My fourth day in Haiti with the Florida-based outreach group New Missions. We’d been up before sunrise visiting villages, handing out shoeboxes filled with toys, school supplies and other necessities. Now it was almost dinnertime. I sat in the New Missions dining room—a screened-in porch with rows of wooden tables and chairs.

There were about 40 of us on this trip, mostly high school students and some churchgoers from Orlando.

One of the students, Faith, had just met her sponsor child and we were getting to know the family. I captured as many moments as I could with my camera. It was only four days into my first-ever mission trip, but already I knew I’d never look at things the same way again.

Faith was about to sing for us when boom! A powerful primal force surged beneath our feet. The roof shook. The concrete floor rippled like it was made of water.

“What do we do?” Faith cried. I did the only thing I could. I held on to Faith. Literally. I grabbed her and ran outside. The force threw us to the ground. I desperately tried to shield Faith’s body with mine and began to pray.

I’m a reporter and anchor for News 13, a TV station in Orlando, but it wasn’t a story that brought me to Haiti. It was a billboard. Crazy, right? That’s what I would’ve thought a year ago if you’d told me I’d be going on a mission trip abroad.

Story continues below ad

Download Your Free Copy
Positive Thinking 2012:Rediscover the Power of Positive Thinking with Norman Vincent Peale Read more

Free eBook!

Your email address will never be sold or shared

I was committed to volunteering, but there was so much to do in my community. I didn’t need to go to another country. Then last fall I got a sense God wanted me to go farther to help people. I prayed, asked him for signs.

One day in December I was driving down Route 441 when a billboard jumped out at me: “Share a little Christmas with Haiti. shoeboxdrive.com.”

I didn’t know much about Haiti, though it was only 700 miles off the coast of Florida and some of my coworkers were from there. It looked like a group called New Missions was sending shoeboxes of supplies to Haitian children. That might be a good story to cover, I thought.

Reporting is my passion. I’ve known that since I was a girl growing up just outside the Bronx. My parents were handicapped. We didn’t have a lot, but they had an amazing faith.