Haiti: Obedient and Joyful Heroes

These are the faces of heroes.  Obedient, faithful, joyful heroes. 

Getting to know them and to learn from them, was one of the greatest privileges of our lives. 

Smith and Katia are "momma and poppa" to 52 children.

They run the orphanage, lead the nannies and the couple who direct the orphanage, organize the bakery, and teach the kids about faith.  They run the guest house, and cater to mission teams who come once per month. 

Katia is "the general".  She is vibrant, strong, obedient and joyful.  When she speaks, people listen.  She has a story.  That story includes loss, being forced to serve family members practicing voodoo, being kidnapped, and surviving an earthquake, hurricanes, and floods.  She is a trained chef, and a women of great wisdom.  Her faith makes ours seem small.  She DEPENDS on the Lord.  Every day she prays for the strength and provision to handle that day.  Her life has been redeemed. 

Smith is the new image that will come to mind when I think of God as Father.  He is a quiet leader with a gentle and joyful smile.  He speaks very little English, but communicated volumes to us about obedience, love, perseverance, faith and parenting.  He is a former truck driver turned poppa to many.  He now serves orphans and street children with a rare servant's heart.  He shared the story of a time when the kids at the orphanage were stranded without food due to a mudslide and flooding.  Eight days after the flood, he arrived carrying food on his head, having walked through chest high water.  He loves them, so he preserved.  

Smith and Katia were once kidnapped and held for ransom money. 

They endured the earthquake, and when it would have been much easier to walk away, they never stopped serving the kids.

One tiny blessing for them was a porch that our team built onto their home.  This two room home sits right next to the large concrete guest house (which they never slept in again after the earthquake).

Smith and Katia have trained their children to be disciplined and to have fun.  They play games (above was a Haitian Creole version of "Red Light, Green Light!").  They dance, they chant and they laugh.  They parent with a joy that challenged our own parenting. 

Djelot ("Jello") is the son of Smith and Katia. 

He was our buddy and our translator all week.  We talked late into the night as he helped us prepare for VBS.  He attends school in FL.  When asked what he plans to do after "university", he simply responded,

"Come back to Haiti and help the kids."

Dan is obedience in its finest form.

He is the leader of Faith Missions International and the founder of the
Gift of God Orphanage.  Several years ago, Dan came to Haiti and was forever changed.  Soon after, he felt called to sell his business and start an orphanage.  He met Smith and Katia, helped them become Christians, and forged a friendship and partnership that would impact the orphans in Haiti in the biggest of ways. 

Each night in Port au Prince, we sat under a pink pavilion, eating delicious food, and sipping homemade tropical juices.  As we sat under the whirring of fans and the big Haitian sky, we listened to Smith, Katia and Dan. 

Time seemed to stop and we knew that we were experiencing the sacred.  As they spoke, we drank it all in, aware that we'd never see life in the same way again.  How blessed were we?

The faces of Smith, Katia, Djelot, Dan and those 51 kids are the face of Haiti to us now.  No longer can we fail to acknowledge the injustice, the poverty, the needs and the beauty of Haiti.