Naming your organization after a word in a foreign language
is a bit of a gamble. Mispronunciations,
questions, “huh?” are typical responses from most people. I’m not mad – I get
it. It’s a tough word!
But, it is a word that is meaningful to me. It takes me back to the very first time I
traveled to Haiti. I didn’t speak any
Creole and I hadn’t been on a mission trip.
Suddenly I was in a remote village passing food and visiting homes - trying
to process everything I was seeing. Really
desperate conditions, extreme poverty, sickness. It was on that village tour that a little
girl followed me around for about an hour saying the same thing
repeatedly. I couldn’t really make it
out but she said it enough times that I caught grangou. I didn’t know what it meant so I just smiled
and went on with the visit. At the end
of the day I asked a translator what she way saying. He said Grangou means hungry, she was telling
you that she’s hungry. Stop.
That was the first time I ever had heard a person who was
actually hungry, try to tell me so. I
thought about the fact that people on my trip were praying in this village and sharing
the gospel but that we were trying to fill empty bellies with words. It broke my heart. These people perhaps needed the gospel, but
they also needed food. They needed the
very basics first. How could we ignore
their physical need, expecting they would listen while they were literally
starving? It struck me that we are called to minister to people however they need to be
ministered to, not how we want to do it or how we think it should be done. Sharing a meal with a hungry child can be
just as impactful as preaching a message.
We need to meet people where they are.
So flash forward and my husband and I were walking the loop
where we lived a few months later trying to think of the name of our new
organization we were starting. And my
husband says, “What about Grangou? What
about that little girl?” And I was like “done”! So, we settled on Grangou immediately with
absolutely no further thought and the rest is history.
Grangou is the
Haitian Creole word for hungry and the name of our ministry dedicated to
raising awareness about the extreme difficulties of life in Haiti as well as
feeding the hearts, minds and bodies of Haitians in need. Our desire is to
reach a nation hungry for hope and change; one child at a time.
It is pronounced gron-goo btw.
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This picture is from that first trip. This is that little girl. We did everything they say you aren’t
supposed to do on mission trips on that trip.
Every single thing. But it
changed my life and now the lives of many, many children for eternity. God uses open hearts for His work. More on that later!
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