All proceeds from the picture book I Wish It Would Rain are being donated to the Eben-ezer Clinic in Haut-Limbé, Haiti, located in the north near Cap Haitian. The purchase of one book will fund a hospital visit and medicine for two children, says Wegner, a member of Hope Community Covenant Church.
In the book, extreme heat compels a young North American boy to “wish it would rain big, splashy drops” while his family visits Haiti. “Instead of rain, what he encounters reveals to him the wonders and beauty of Haiti,” says Wegner.
Those wonders include lizards whose tails break off, mangoes that fall from trees, fire ants, and even big splashy rain drops. The end of the book contains facts about Haiti and all that the boy sees.
Wegner says the incidents happened to her own children or to others during a mission trip her church took to Haiti in 2002. The book came about from watching Dr. Emmanuel Mareus operate his clinic.
“Watching him was like watching Jesus with people,” Wegner says. “When we left Haiti, my husband and I had decided among ourselves that we were going to support the clinic.”
Wegner wasn’t sure how that was going to happen, however. Then, she says, “I woke up from a dream where God told me to write this book. I laughed because I had never done anything like this before. He’s just brought it all together.”
That includes linking her with illustrator Alice Roder. Wegner had been reading another book the illustrator had worked on. “I looked her up online and wrote her a letter.” They quickly became partners in the project.
Wegner has sold 600 of the 2,000 books she has had printed. She is especially pleased that the project is bringing more exposure to the clinic. Roder’s church is now considering supporting the clinic, Wegner adds.
The book also includes comments from Mareus, who writes, “We just want to teach patients that they deserve to be treated well because they are human beings. The people have been denied this basic right for so long, they’ve come to accept their reality as natural. They do not dream about another life since they have never been given a chance to taste something different. We want the clinic to taste of something different for all the people that are coming to it.”
To purchase a copy of I Wish It Would Rain, visit the online Covenant Bookstore.
