Because I Have Been Given Much

We today announce THE NEXT STEP in helping our dearly struggling brothers and sisters in Haiti. Our responsibility to give succor is far from finished.

For over two hundred years, much has been written worldwide about the American Spirit. It is not found in government but in America’s people. That’s you and me. The freedoms with which we are blessed with in this divinely inspired nation allows you and me to make a difference, to act independently, to give our ourselves and our money, to bless the lives of total strangers.

For many, religious faith is central. For others, it may be the inherent goodness that has come to be a hallmark of America’s people.

Today we announce an extraordinary nationwide citizen initiative – citizens, not government – to build the American Hospital of Haiti.

Today we announce the formation of a new non-profit IRS 501(c)3 tax-exempt charitable organization called Americans Helping Haiti – and a new website www.GiftHaiti.org where starting tomorrow (Saturday) you can contribute.

This is huge – there is nothing like it! And you are a key part of the team that will make it happen!

No contribution is too small; no contribution is too large. But each of us has something we can spare. Tomorrow please go to www.GiftHaiti.org and become part of this great American effort. Email, text or Twitter your friends, contact your Facebook pals, and invite them as citizens to also give. Imagine if each of us had 50 friends donate 50 dollars – we will be able to begin construction on time!

$50 dollars or more – that’s not very much to save lives. No amount is too small, no amount to kind. We all know lots of people – in our wards, our neighborhoods, our professions, our schools, our social network. Not one of them wants to be left out!

Many of you keep asking “What can I do?” Here is something very specific you can do right now: Ask fifty of your friends to donate fifty dollars. Of course, many of your friends can and will donate much more. Every time I speak at a fireside about our Haiti trip, people are asking how they can help – you’re having the same experience.

To design, build, and operate a hospital is no small task. This is an enormous and costly undertaking – but we can do it!

We have already engaged architectural experts who are working on the hospital design. It will be one story high, and have 130 beds – because there were 130 of you involved in the Utah Hospital Task Force!! We do this much in your honor! There will also be lodging, skills training, and community health education components – more later on that.

Each of us treated a patient like Bela, a beautiful 14-year old girl some of us met. Her mother, her father, her five siblings were all killed in the earthquake. The family home was destroyed. She has no food. We met Bela as she lay in a hospital bed, her left foot and right hand amputated. The last time we saw Bela was as she was wheeled to the curb and discharged from the hospital – set on the street to fend for herself. Not yet healed, no crutches, no family, no shelter, no food, no medicine – Bela left to find her own way. There is not a day passes but I don’t think about Bela, and wonder – and know that our special responsibility has not ended.

For Bela and well over a million others like her, we must do this. We MUST – because we have been given much.

Funds will be used to construct and operate a desperately needed new hospital in Haiti. We anticipate construction will begin in June – that’s just three short months away – and we are working to open the hospital to patient care on January 12, 2011, the one year anniversary of the most destructive earthquake in modern history. So we must move very expeditiously – we have no time to spare.

My personal hope is that on January 12, 2011 – every one of the original hospital team will again be together in Haiti, this time to celebrate the inaugural of the American Hospital of Haiti!

Together – as citizens – and maybe with a few of our generous Canadian friends too – we will build the AMERICAN HOSPITAL OF HAITI. Tomorrow go to www.GiftHaiti.org and get this ball rolling!

Our brothers and sisters in Haiti are experiencing incomprehensible suffering in what one U.N. official termed the worst human catastrophe in recorded history. Though the earthquake terror is now mostly over, the awful fear, the horrifying memories, the injuries and sickness remain, and a future marked by acute unemployment, homelessness, and disease lie ahead. With determination, compassion, unity, and a respect for the dignity of every Haitian, through our personal generosity and by enlisting your friends – we together will bless those in Haiti who are hurt, homeless, sick, and hungry.

Our abundance, born of the American can-do spirit in our free society, made it possible. President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, "The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough to those who have little." Hopefully we added something to those in Haiti who have so very little; many like Bela have absolutely nothing.

Reading the scriptures helped me to know what we must do.

"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." [Matthew 25:40]

"A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." [John 13:34]

"Succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees." [D&C 81:5]

Won’t you please – first thing tomorrow morning – go to www.GiftHaiti.org and help build a shiny new hospital as a place of safety and medical to replace collapsed hospitals and makeshift camp clinics overflowing with more homeless and sick Haitians.

I cannot say enough about the goodness of you who were on our recent Haiti emergency team, as you each constantly found yourself living what King Benjamin taught: "When you are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." [Mosiah 2:17]

I invite you to now, no matter where you live, no matter your circumstances, to help make the American Hospital of Haiti become a reality. Saturday, go to www.GiftHaiti.org and be one of those unseen ministering angels, one of those generous American citizens, who will work wonders in Haiti.

This is just taking off. In the next few days I will be email you more details. We have organized a Board of Trustees for the charitable foundation (as required by law), and we will be organizing a Board of Medical Advisors, a Construction Board of Construction Advisors, and other committees essential to making this all happen. We will also be opening an office sometime next week. Everything just takes too much time!

Please email questions you may have to info@gifthaiti.org . Our able internet guru Matt Pierce will make sure everything gets where it should be.

God bless you!

Steve Studdert