John Arroyo, the host of the Monster Ball dinner event, shares his story about what inspired this special Water for Haiti fundraising event:

It was the 2016 summer mission trip to Haiti that it was originally put on my heart to raise money to dig a well in Haiti.  I went on another mission trip to Haiti in July of 2017 but came back disappointed with myself.

When we arrived in Haiti I had brought a sizable amount of my own funds to donate to a project because I was thinking I know I can’t drill a well but I’ll just give what I have. So we went down there and we were asked to build a chicken coop at a church in a town. We had the resources to it and the manpower. We got there and arrived at an empty dry field and they showed us where they had attempted to drill a well and where the location was to start laying the foundation for the chicken coop. I longingly thought about the water well and how in the Bible it says we’re supposed to bless the people coming and going.

The chicken coup project took about a week.  When we would arrive at the work site each morning we would bring bags of water and cookies for the children. There was so many kids and they loved to watch the work that we were doing. They were all over the place so every once in a while I would tell them to move here or there. Every day while we worked there was a little girl that I noticed. I didn’t know her name at the time and but I called her the Cookie Monster because she loved the cookies.

That little girl would yell back at me in Creole and say “you” and then in Creole she would say something else and everybody would laugh. I had no idea what she was saying. So we did the work every day and were truly blessed. The last day while we were working little Miss Cookie Monster yelled at me and said, “you!” and then the second phrase and everybody laughed. So I finally asked, “What is she saying?” and one of the guys translated and told me she’s saying for you to give her more cookies. So I got her more cookies before we got packed up as the work was done. The work had been tough but very rewarding. We built them a chicken coop and we packed up all the tools and all the tubes that were around the truck.  Then the little girl came up to me more serious asked me not for cookies this time, but for water.

In that instant I realized that I had let her down and I had let the Lord down by not giving my best to raise the money to dig the well in this community so that we would leave her with water instead of a cookie.

Not only that but I had thought that I could give enough for these people and I realized at that moment that even if I given everything I had, my all, it still wouldn’t have been enough on my own to fulfill the real need.  What I can give on my own doesn’t compare to what the Lord can do and does for us. I looked at the little girl and I said to her “I don’t have any more water but I’m going back to New York and I’m going to come back with water.