When you spend 45 years in Haiti, you learn a lot along the way. Every day brings a new need. A new project. A new problem demanding attention. There is always something pressing.
Something that feels urgent. Something that feels like it cannot wait.
My dad used to remind us often that there is a difference between what is urgent and what is important.
Not everything urgent is important.
And not everything important needs to be rushed.
I’ve spent most of my life leaning toward urgency.
The Urgency That Built Me
I was 9 years old the first time a baby died in my arms from malnutrition. By 12, I already knew I wanted to open a pediatric clinic. Everyone else in my family went to Bible college.
I did not.
Back in the 90s, my schooling looked a little different—teachers sent me with months of assignments, and I completed them while in Haiti before turning them in stateside.
Unlike my brothers, I was actually an A student. 🙂
By junior year, after losing another baby I loved deeply, I went before the school board and asked to graduate early. They kindly explained that one more year wouldn’t take away from my calling.
“College may still be there, but some of these kids won’t be.”
(I was approved to skip my senior year.)
That urgency shaped me.
It’s what built the clinic.
It’s what kept us moving, responding, and doing what we could with what we had.
When Focus Began To Shift
For years, that urgency served us well. But recently, our medical staff came to me with our usual six-to-eight-week medication request.
Only this time… I didn’t have it.
For perhaps the first time in a way that truly stopped me, I had to sit with the reality that when the clinic needed me most, I wasn’t prepared to meet that need. And that was deeply convicting.
Some of our staff gently but honestly shared that at times, they’ve felt neglected. They reminded me that many of the very programs we now pour ourselves into were first born because of the needs we first encountered through the clinic.
The clinic has always been our front line.
-Where we first see the problems
-Where deeper burdens reveal themselves
-Where many of our solutions begin
And they weren’t wrong.
Where Princess Camp Was Formed
Several years ago, something in me began to shift.
I grew tired of watching children come through the clinic carrying burdens no child should ever know—pouring into them for a moment, only to send them back into situations that continued the very cycles we were trying so hard to interrupt.
That’s where Princess Camp was born.
Without sharing too much publicly, 116 girls have now come through this program. There is something deeply meaningful about watching a girl arrive guarded, detached, and unsure… then slowly begin to soften. Not every story ends the way we hope. This past year has held some incredibly difficult ones.
But even in the hardest moments, I still find peace in knowing: We showed up. We tried.
That same urgency, though, has a way of resurfacing. Only this time, it came through the unseen realities, growing responsibilities, and heavier financial burdens that often accompany providing safer futures when deeper, (different) kinds of intervention become necessary.
In many ways, this year has been one of beautiful expansion. We’ve stepped further into schools, strengthened outreach, created new opportunities for prevention, and worked to reach vulnerable children earlier.
But expansion carries weight.
And somewhere along the way, I allowed those urgent and heartbreaking needs to keep borrowing from the very bridge that has carried this ministry for decades.
A Hard Realization
If I’m being fully honest, the last few fundraisers we’ve shared haven’t really landed the way I hoped they would. And over the past several weeks, I’ve had to sit with that.
Somewhere along the way, I started believing that if I could successfully raise enough support for the newer work—the expanding programs, growing outreach, additional children, and deeper interventions—then there would eventually be fewer gaps left for the everyday ministry we’ve always carried.
But I’m realizing now that isn’t really how this works.
Because there will always be:
Another story
Another child
Another burden that feels urgent
Another need that pulls deeply at my heart
And there will never be enough resources to meet every urgent need all at once.
That realization has been both humbling and deeply convicting. Over these past few weeks, I feel like the Lord has been gently but firmly reminding me: These children, these programs, these stories—they were never mine to carry as though their survival depended solely on me.
I have to keep turning them back over to Him.
Again and again.
Returning To What Carries Us
Because while these girls matter deeply—and this work matters deeply—I’ve also had to step back and remember something my dad taught me years ago:
Urgent and important are not always the same thing.
And for much of our community, the clinic remains the first line of that urgency.
The everyday needs.
The medications.
The children already living here.
The care families rely on long before they ever step into one of our newer programs.
Sometimes slowing down what feels urgent in one area is necessary to protect what has always been essential. That doesn’t lessen the value of the newer work.
It simply means I’m learning, again, how to steward both wisely.
The Ask
So today, I’m asking a little differently. I’m not asking you to help us create something new.
I’m asking you to help us protect and strengthen what has always been essential.
Little by little, while responding to urgent needs, I’ve stretched resources thinner than they were ever meant to go.
And now, I need help restoring the strength of what so many families already depend on.
I need help closing the gaps that formed while we were working so hard to meet so many others.
Maybe you’re someone who understands the quiet importance of stepping in before something vital begins to give way
Maybe you’re a gap-filler.
How You Can Help
If you feel called to step in during this season, we would be deeply grateful. Your support helps strengthen the foundation of this ministry by covering:
- Daily care for the children already living here
- Clinic medications and medical outreach
- Core campus needs
- Teaching materials that help us walk into classrooms prepared
- Foundational ministry support
When there is more, we absolutely can do more. But we cannot afford to keep trading what is important for what simply feels most urgent.
To give directly toward these needs:
Give Online Here
Designation: Mole Ministry
Checks Payable To:
NWHCM
PO Box 586
Lebanon, IN 46052
Designation: Mole Ministry
More than anything, we ask for your prayers.
Pray for wisdom.
Pray for provision.
Pray that we steward both the urgent and the important well.
“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”
— 1 Thessalonians 5:11
Thank you for helping us keep the bridge standing.