Happy World Humanitarian Day!

Humanitarian:

1. having concern for or helping to improve the welfare and happiness of people.
2. a person actively engaged in promoting human welfare and social reforms, as a philanthropist.
3. a person who professes ethical or theological humanitarianism.

They are everywhere I look:They are the Davids and the Frantzos in Haiti. The ones who live and work among the world’s forgotten orphans. Each day, working to make sure there is enough food, safety, love and trust. Together with their wives and the tireless staff that surround them, they work to make sure that hundreds of children are safe from the dangers of slavery, exploitation, starvation and disease. They do it on a budget that is almost inconceivable sometimes in it’s limitations, and they do it with grace and love – always motivated by kindness. They reach out to restaveks, earthquake orphans, street children, and abandoned kids. They are true humanitarians, living out the fullness of the human existence each day.They are the Garcias in Dominican Republic. The ones who pick up their family and move to a community because they realize there is no other hope for those people to ever be educated and move forward. They recognize the challenges and frustrations, and yet they choose to stay rooted there, believing that hope and compassion can change a community and that education that free them for the future. And they are right. They work hard to build something that will last and will shape the future, and their commitment is not forgotten.They are the Kru Nams in Thailand, fighting the tide of human traffickers each day, continually working to free stateless children of the bondages of slavery, sexual exploitation and abandonment. Inspiring their fellow workers to be dedicated and always motivated by love and compassion, they work quietly and tirelessly to bring freedom and hope to hundreds of children, one precious life at a time.They are the Andrews and Dawns in Mexico, selling their possessions and moving to the middle of nowhere because they believed that they could help to shape the future for countless migrant workers in a forgotten corner of the world. As part of the LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) staff there, they work tirelessly to find families in need of adequate housing and hope. Each day they pour their hearts out and do so with kindness and grace, unknowingly challenging many people to aspire to the same end.They are the staff I work with, like countless thousands in other organizations around the world, that are motivated not by a pay cheque, but by something much more intrinsic: they are motivated by a passion for change and the compassion to see it happen.They are the hundreds of incredible people that join us on our Hero Holiday trips, volunteer on our road teams in Canada, and are motivated by love wherever they are. This is what it is to be a humanitarian: to live in the fullness of one’s human experience by living a life motivated by hope. Some of us are specially qualified and trained, some of us are willing to do whatever it takes, all of us are part of a bigger picture that is making a difference.Thursday, August 18 is World Humanitarian Day. If you are motivated to bring hope and change to the world and are actively doing something about it, then Happy World Humanitarian Day. Have you hugged a humanitarian lately?”By compassion we make others’ misery our own, and so, by relieving them, we relieve ourselves also.” ~ Thomas Browne, Sr.