John Foppe is a writer and speaker who is well known worldwide for his testimony of overcoming every challenge that life gave him without arms.
When he was a teenager, he went with a group of young people from his community on a mission to Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world. Arriving in Port-au-Prince – Haiti’s capital – he stayed at a local Catholic health center. There, John discovered the true face of poverty.
There were only 2 stretchers and scarce medical equipment, the people attending to the sick were very worried because they did not know when the situation would improve. At one point, John came across a sick child who, upon seeing him, held out his arms, like a child who wants to be carried.
He did not understand, why God gives him the objective to help the poorest and does not give him the tools to do it? why God is so unjust? And God, who listens to us in each of our tribulations, gave him to understand that his mission did not consist in his lack of arms, but in his transforming testimony.
John Foppe is currently the director of a non-profit organization called Society of St. Vincent De Paul, has a Master in Social Work, as well as decades of experience as a speaker.
St. Vincent de Paul says “If you want to know Christ, go to the poorest,” and so in January, John Foppe and his family and friends decided to go on mission to Tijuana, and were warmly welcomed by our entire community.
John, upon seeing our mission, was deeply moved by the presence of Christ with the poor. In his words:
“I never felt so close to Christ as being face to face with the poor, inside their homes.”
Thanks to John Foppe, our community and volunteers have learned that “there are no problems that cannot be solved, there are only problems that have not yet been solved”.
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