Donna Fazio lives an admittedly lavish life in beautiful Louisville Kentucky.  She is a successful business owner, happily married and has spent seven weeks in exotic Belize and Nicaragua in the past three years. She appears to lead a glamorous life at first glance. Closer inspection reveals those seven weeks were not spent in resort communities but rather participating in immersion trips with Louisville based nonprofit Hand In Hand Ministries. “My work with Hand In Hand Ministries defines me more than anything else I do”, says Fazio. The mission of Hand in Hand Ministries is to serve the poorest of the poor.

For Fazio it all began back in 2006 when her sister signed up for an immersion trip to Belize. Fazio told her sister, “One of these days I’ll join you”. It dawned on her she had been telling her sister that for seven years.  Fazio recalls watching a thirty minute infomercial on Hand in Hand Ministries late that night. “I watched that show and was in tears. I said if they would let me go (past registration deadline) I would go tomorrow”. She joined her sister in Belize for that trip. “I had a lot of apprehensions; leaving the country, what if I got sick or injured?” She says, “The minute I stepped off the plane all my apprehensions melted away”.

That first trip Fazio participated in the Building for Change program which builds modest homes for families in Belize.  It was there Fazio met Althea, a mother with fourteen dependents including children, grandchildren and a disabled brother. “We stood in front of her shack as I held her 6 year old son DD. It broke my heart to know he was forced to live in these deplorable conditions. He clung to me. I could feel the hope and excitement in his arms knowing we were going to build him a home,” says Fazio.

“I knew in that moment I couldn’t just climb back on that plane, pat myself on the back and be done at the end of the week; this was just the beginning.” They built Althea a home and as customary conducted a house blessing before handing over the key. Fazio recalls, “We were all crying tears of joy. I was inventorying my own life in that moment and there was nothing in my whole life that could compare to the sense of purpose and accomplishment.”

Fazio confesses, “I could not prepare to comprehend the change it would make in my life. I went home a different person and it hasn’t worn off”. It was through this experience Fazio says she became present to gratitude and with it gave up what she calls “a cloud of entitlement”.  DD is now nine years old and Fazio visits him each time she returns to Belize.

Fazio’s most recent immersion trip to Belize was July of 2008. She’s haunted by what she wasn’t able to accomplish for a woman named Myra who lives under a shack in a three foot crawl space with her six children. Myra has secured scraps of tin at the entrance of the crawl space to keep other people from forcing their way in. Fazio crawled in to visit with Myra.  She described the mud floor, years of trash, and a filthy mattress in which rats nested. She saw marks on the children where the rat had bitten them as they slept. “I sat there wondering to myself what can I possibly say to this woman who lives in conditions I wouldn’t allow a dog to live in? What do I say to myself about how lavishly I live? I still don’t have the answers to those questions”, says Fazio. Myra and her six children still live beneath that shack. “I think of Myra and her children every day and I email weekly asking how they are doing”, says Fazio.

“Coming home after a trip is always difficult. I have my meltdowns; crying, kicking the dirt up because I don’t want to leave this work undone. Before the trips I knew about poverty in my head and would write a check. Having been on these trips I now feel it in my heart and I have to be in action or I feel I’m being neglectful. I can still celebrate the victories. I know Myra and her children will get a house, it feeds me to know I’ll be a part of it”.  

When asked how long she will continue to do this work Fazio said, “I’ve always had this restlessness; these trips are the only thing I’ve found that satisfies that longing and quiets the restlessness. So, I’m not stopping!”

“My attitude towards work prior to the trip was out of balance. My whole focus has shifted from maintaining security for myself to what I can do for others.  Seeing third world poverty face-to-face changed my life, my goals, and all my decisions. My work is still very important to me, but it’s no longer my reason for getting up in the morning.”

To learn more about Hand in Hand Ministries, watch their video or go to www.hhministries.com .