At first glance, the lake near the remote Haitian mountain community of Founasho appears beautiful. But look closer, and it becomes clear that the beauty is an illusion.

The lake is used for virtually everything; bathing, swimming, washing, a trough for cattle, and a place to use the restroom. The people of Founasho have had little access to education, and scant understanding of basic hygiene. Many suffer from sicknesses caused by the polluted water.

A Samaritan’s Purse team from our Water, Sanitation and Hygiene program visited Founasho, and conducted an impromptu meeting at the shores of the lake. Community leaders and representatives shared their needs and vision—even the cattle attended.

The community’s desire for clean water and improved health matched our vision to provide much needed latrines and fresh water, and we committed to a partnership to provide basic sanitation for Founasho’s most vulnerable members.

Chloë Contarino, a blogger, Team Samaritan’s Purse athlete, and wonderful young Christian woman, took advantage of a fellow blogger's invitation to spread the word about one of her favorite projects. This is what she wrote.

For those who don't already know, change the world tuesdays is where Sarah posts each week (obviously on Tuesday) about a charity she's recently heard about, and thinks deserves to be featured on her blog. This week, she opened to floor to all who would like to feature a charity, and I was more than excited to be able to participate. For my first ctwt highlight, I knew it just had to be a project that is close to my heart: Team Samaritan's Purse.

Team Samaritan's Purse is comprised of athletes who take their personal fitness goals to a different level by using them to raise awareness and funds for any of SP’s ongoing projects around the world. It's your choice. You can chose to raise funds for World Medical Mission, Children's Heart Project, Operation Christmas Child, Turn on the Tap water project, or any of the smaller projects Samaritan's Purse has going on continually.

For example, if you want all funds to be specifically donated to their continuing efforts in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, they will. If you want all the funds to go to projects going on in India, they will. Or if you want all the funds to go to a small orphanage in Honduras that they sponsor, like I did, they will.

Not only do they offer so much freedom, but the staff is so very helpful, and ready, willing, and quick to respond to any and all questions.

Team Samaritan's Purse is more than raising money. It's also about showing those around you that you care enough to do something about this world we live in, and opening doors for people to see and understand the suffering all around us. Not all of us can serve as missionaries in third-world countries. But many of us can make the sacrifice to give much of our time and plenty of effort in the name of Jesus, and for His precious children around the world.

Or as they say on their website, "Our mission is to provide athletically-minded individuals a mechanism to take their training and competition to another level, impacting the world with the love of Jesus Christ, and supporting the ministry of Samaritan's Purse."

I know we're not all athletes. But for those of us who are, this is a priceless way to change a little corner of the world, raise funds for something your heart feels burdened for, and truly grow closer to God in the process. I know from first-hand experience.

Thanks for reading!

grace&peace.

Interested in competing for Team Samaritan's Purse? Click here for more information.

Kristan Simmons, a home-schooling mom of two girls and a fan of Operation Christmas Child, blogs about a special birthday party she is planning for her daughters.

How many moms and dads honestly look at their kids' play rooms or toy closets and say, “Wow, my little angel(s) could use a few more toys, so let's throw a birthday party?” Not me. So what do you do about birthday parties where kids feel it necessary to bring gifts, you know, 10 or more new toys to add to the mess lying around the house!?

My solution this year is to make the party fun, yet about something more important. I am planning an Operation Christmas Child shoe box packing party for Olivia and Sarah’s birthdays (joint because both girls' birthdays are so close together).

I have really cool ideas about making it fun. Samaritan's Purse provides a whole party pack for just such packing parties. They include stickers, bookmarks, coloring sheets for the kids to color and fill out a short note to put in their boxes.

Soooo, instead of the kids bringing gifts for the birthday girls they will bring shoe box items for a child specified on their invitation. We will have a wrapping station where the boxes will get decorated by the kids, a packing station, a letter writing station where they can do their coloring sheets and write their letters, a photo booth where the kids can have their picture taken to put in the box, and a video station where they can see the video of kids receiving boxes.

We will wrap the evening up with prayer over the boxes and some fun and games—a pinata maybe with additional items they can collect to put in their boxes, a scavenger hunt where they can hunt for items to put in their boxes, other prize-winning games where the prizes are added to the kid's box.

Now for anyone worried about the girls not getting birthday present—don’t! I can guarantee family members will not let them go without. I know Nanny and Poppy, and Grandma and all the aunts and uncles will make sure the girls are spoiled rotten on their big days, but I really want their parties to be fun and meaningful.

Now to be thinking of a really cool cake for this party—maybe a shoe box with the lid sitting off the side and it filled with small toys and such!!! Hmmmm....

Want to host an Operation Christmas Child-themed birthday party? Click here to order party packs or other materials.

Images and stories from the earthquake in Haiti moved business leaders in Maine to want to help. They banded together and formed a group called MaineLine to help in rebuilding efforts.

The coalition grew to 40 businesses, all motivated to make a difference in the lives of people who had lost everything.

“We regard our mission as meeting a humanitarian challenge with a distinctly Maine response, rooted in the innovation and resolve of our character,” MaineLine said on its website.

They looked for a partner organization already on the group in Haiti to work through, and chose Samaritan’s Purse. MaineLine is helping us build 10 schools outside Port-au-Prince.

The first school will be built in the village of Cabaret, according to a story in The Forecaster of Falmouth, Maine. The building will not only function as an elementary school, it will also be a community center, have a soccer field and include vocational training for adults.

“Samaritan's Purse already has built 100 shelters in Cabaret,” said Darcy Pierce, a senior partner with Envoy, a Maine-based company that connects the business world with NGOs working in the developing world. “They've already invested in this community.”

Pierce said people from all over the region are coming to Cabaret because some progress has been made there. The shelters, which are made of wood with tarps wrapped around the outside and tin roofs, are better than the homes many Haitians are currently living in.

“These shelters are probably going to be a lot more permanent than they intended,” Pierce said.

WCSH, an NBC affiliate in Portland, Maine, also reported on the partnership between MaineLine and Samaritan’s Purse. Watch the video below.