For our FIRST Know Better, Do Better interview--I interviewed Co-Founder, Carrie Gibson of Grangou.
Grangou is the reason we went to Haiti.
In 2014, my husband, whom I lovingly call Dr. Dan, and I had an orphan care ministry in our church and Carrie’s dad visited with our group one evening. He talked about street children in Haiti and how his daughter, Carrie, had felt called to start a home for abandoned and vulnerable boys. That evening, he said one thing that stuck with me and ultimately led us to start HUGG:
“The street children are seen like cockroaches on the streets. People don’t care about them.”
I imagined dirty boys covering the sidewalks and streets trying to wash cars, hustle and beg for food. Can you imagine being so rock-bottom that you have to beg for food?
That day, I decided to care.
Years before, Carrie had made the same decision to care. Before she went to Haiti, she felt God stirring her heart towards a cause. In her words, “God started preparing my heart for this work several years before Haiti. I had this thing that said ‘“you’re supposed to be doing something different than what you are doing.”’
From recycling to a backpack ministry to praying about adoption. She knew God was preparing her to CARE BIG about something.
Watch how the story unfolds here and learn how Carrie’s obedience to that still small voice led her to do something big for a group of street children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Carrie’s story resonated with me because that was EXACTLY how I felt before I started HUGG. For me, it was a sense of holy discontent. I learned about how so much of the world’s chocolate is harvested by enslaved boys in parts of Africa. I learned how the people of North Korea were suffering. I remember one time Dr. Dan came home and found me crying in the midst of clean laundry on our bed. He thought I was crying about our kids but instead I shared about Indian women who shaved their heads so that we could have hair extensions! For real--it was heavy and my poor husband wasn’t exactly sure how to help.
Looking back now, I see that God was preparing my heart to care for something so that I could be used for His purpose. In my first blog, I share how Pastor Pierre told me that the boys we worked with were also being prepared for the ministry that would come.
God stirs our hearts before He calls us to action. We don’t always know where or what He is prompting us to do but if we move towards that stirring and pray--He will lead us towards a deeper purpose. Maybe you are caught in the stirring right now. Perhaps your heart is burdened by SOMETHING but you have yet to know what it is.
Keep praying and believing that God will slowly move you in the right direction--even if it takes jumping into a ministry to figure out that is NOT your ultimate purpose. The point is that He stirs you to care as a way to prepare you for your next steps. Trust Him and trust your heart, friend.