How did you respond when you heard
about the magnitude 7 earthquake that rocked Haiti in January? For
Maribel Landis, simply offering a prayer wasn’t enough. A registered
nurse, Landis grabbed her scrubs, medical kit and Bible, and boarded a
plane bound for the impoverished country.
It didn’t take long for her to join in
with other volunteer doctors and nurses treating wounded people at the
Harvard Humanitarian Relief Initiative/Love a Child field hospital in
Parisien, Haiti.
“It was painful to hear the screams of
burn victims who had undergone skin grafts to get their wounds
cleaned,” Landis says. “But I tried to show them God’s love by treating
them and praying for them.” She says she left the country “humbled” by
the resolve of the Haitian people.
Landis, wife of pastor Randy Landis of
Lifechurch in Allentown, Penn., is no stranger to Haiti. Lifechurch
operates Rescue Children Orphanage in Port-au-Prince, where the
majority of the estimated 230,000 earthquake-related deaths occurred.
Fortunately, all 11 of the ministry’s orphans made it out alive as
their home crumbled around them.
