Today I want to share the story behind the story. This past
spring, we felt God clearly communicate to us that He had work for us helping
the children of Haiti.
In our first few blogs, we've shared the WHAT of our work
with Global Orphan project to advocate and fund raise for the children of Léogâne,
Haiti but I've never taken the time to write about WHY. Why us? Why now? Did
this come up out of the blue or had we been planning it for a while?
The short version is we feel like God called us to this work,
and we are going to be obedient and follow Him trustingly.
It’s hard to pinpoint when He started working in us towards
this. In fact, I know He was doing it well before I can try to guess. So, we’ll
start with March 1, 2012. On this day,
God swooped in to our life with a surprise.
Derek got a surprise phone call at work from the Air Force Personnel
Office “offering” him a unique AF assignment in St Louis, Missouri. We had less
than 3 hours to make the decision about whether to stay in GA (like we wanted
to) or take the leap of faith that God was ready to “move” us. Even in 3 hours
of praying, deliberating, pro/con list-making, and maybe a little bit of “I
don’t wanna move”, God was faithful in providing us an answer: a peace in our
heart and a scripture verse, Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my
ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” He
followed through by faithfully providing us all we needed to move to St Louis,
including just the right rental house and the right church. And, he used our time in St Louis to introduce
us to the Global Orphan Project.
Our
St Louis church, Crosshaven Church, is a vibrant church that lives out its
mission through serving the community that we lived in. In particular, one
Sunday in November the church celebrated Orphan Sunday, and our pastor had
invited a local couple to come speak. This couple shared the story of how they
had built an orphanage in Haiti and fund-raised to support the livelihood of the
40 children who would be living there. They had done it with Global Orphan
Project, and each year, they go back to see the kids and worship at the church
there. I believe God gifts us with imaginations, and this idea excited Derek’s
imagination immediately. He couldn't stop daydreaming about it! We were so
stunned that “you could just build an orphanage in Haiti” and we began to
research it through the Global Orphan project website, goproject.org. We had been feeling God’s tug on our
heart more and more towards helping and loving orphans, especially as we've experienced such great joy in this wonderful family He has given us. Even as
we’d felt that tug, we hadn't felt called towards adoption or fostering. Now we
had an idea in front of us that excited us: it was very tangible,
it was hugely impactful for current and future orphans, it was something we
could do as a family and involve our kids in, it would be sustainable (based on
the way GO Project models its programs for the long-term), it did not depend on
where we lived, it was a place we could visit periodically to truly connect
with the kids…and the list went on!
We didn't stop thinking about it through the winter holiday
season and at the beginning of January, we contacted the family, Randy and
Tiffany Wild, who had spoken at our church and invited them over for coffee. We
had so many questions, and they graciously spent almost 3 hours of their Sunday
afternoon with us, sharing stories of the Wild House of Hope and their Haiti experiences. As we ended they gave us the
number for Adrien Lewis with the Global Orphan Project and urged us to contact
him when the time was right. Our excitement was deterred by the worst sick and
flu season our family has ever had. God’s timing is perfect and in March, we
contacted Adrien to tell him that we would like to get involved.
In our first conversation
with Adrien, we explained that we were interested in building an orphanage, or
more accurately, a children’s home in Haiti like the Wilds did. He asked us
lots of tough questions about our reasons and specifics about what we felt God
was calling us to do, which were very helpful to encourage self-reflection.
Ultimately Adrien explained that they did not need any new children’s homes at
the time and did not have any church in Haiti ready to support a new one. He
asked if we would pray about getting involved and financially supporting other
construction needs one of the existing villages might have such as a security
wall, a bathhouse, or repairs on existing structures. We left that conversation
open minded and confident we would get involved somehow, but also a little down
because we’d been excited about the idea of building an orphanage. As we ended
this first phone call, Adrien urged us that he felt the Holy Spirit telling him
to tell us that “this is going to be bigger than you think it is”.
The next time we got in
contact with Adrien a few weeks later to learn what specific construction needs
might be suited to our help. He told us that he’d be happy to tell us about
construction needs but that he had something different he wanted to tell us
about. He wanted to tell us about orphan prevention. He explained that Go
Project had learned a lot in their years of church-led orphan care in Haiti,
and that one of the things was that education and food (or lack of ability to
provide these) are two of the main reasons that a desperate family might
abandon a child into orphan care.The parents’ might give up a child hoping to
get him or her a better life. Knowing this, GO Project was going to start a new
initiative to help prevent orphans by fully funding the budget of their
church-based schools. Almost all schools
in Haiti are private and too expensive for local villagers’ children to attend.
By fully funding the schools that already existed at the GO Project sites, the
churches could provide scholarships to the
children of needy families in the community. GO Project could also improve the
quality of education through teacher training and consistent staffing. The plan
would also involve feeding every school child a meal during the school day. In a country
where 2 meals a day is a luxury, a free meal at school is a BIG deal. Adrien
explained that approximately 6 schools in Haiti would be the first to really
implement this concept in the fall of 2013, but that those 6 schools were not
funded yet. We were intrigued by the idea of orphan prevention and asked a lot
of questions, including the big one, “How much money do you need to raise to
fund a whole school?” The answer made me gulp…$3000 per month was the
approximate amount needed, for a grand total of $30,000 each year. I asked
another question in a small voice, “Adrien, can we fund half a school maybe?” His answer was spot on, “Yes you could fund
half a school. There are no specific rules, and we’d gladly use whatever money
God prompted you towards. But should you?” Before we left the conversation,
Adrien shared a personal story and gave us some wise advice. He explained that
often in a big decision, one tends to pray for God to give clarity on the right
path. He challenged us instead to pray for conviction. That we would just know in the core of our being that God was convicting us to act in
one way or another even if the exact details were still not clear at all.
We took that advice to heart
and began to pray for conviction. That Thursday night, Derek prayed for
conviction and then opened his eyes and chuckled that “nothing happened yet”.
And yet, God works mysteriously and quickly. When Derek woke up the next
morning, he felt a huge joy and excitement about raising money for orphan
prevention. In addition, he felt strongly that we should not only commit to
raise the amount for the school’s annual budget but also fully adopt an orphan
village such that we would also financially meet construction-type needs as
they arose. Derek said “It’s hard to describe something as supernatural as the
working of God’s spirit but as a left-brained fellow, I haven’t felt like this
often”.
It took a few more days for
God to really get ahold of me as I was praying, but when He did, I felt it most
as if He was asking me the question “What are you afraid of Cori?” (This was
actually a very similar feeling to how I knew He was calling me to quit my job
and become a stay at home mom 2 years ago). Well first, I was afraid of the
huge amount of money. It’s interesting that when we wanted to build an
orphanage , the “price tag” was an amount that I could imagine the end of how
we could fund it. It would have been a “stretch” but my planner-self saw it as
“big but do-able”. This new number of $30K per year was my big hang-up, and now
my husband was telling me he felt like we should add in construction needs too!
I’m classically good at trying to do things on my own strength, and God made it
clear that He was going to give us a goal so big that I knew from the very
beginning that there would be no way to do it without His hand on it the whole
time. Two key verses gave me hope. John 14:12-13 “Very truly I tell you,
whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they
will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so
that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” and Philippians 4:19 “And my God
will meet all your needs according
to the riches of his glory in Christ
Jesus.” The 2nd thing I was afraid of was timing. I kept telling
God, “This is a crazy busy time! We are about to move and we have to find a new
house too. Surely you don’t want us to do this right now”. I felt Him answer that I’d have to trust him now with
my capacity, my energy, and our future housing. (Sitting now on the other side
of this, I’m so thankful for how God provided enough energy to get us through
starting this and moving, and He faithfully provided a wonderful home for us
here in Niceville and renters for our GA house as well). Finally after
wrestling with these questions and fears, I felt a peace and excitement and a
knowing that this was right and now was the time.
On April 5th, we
called Adrien again to tell him our good news, that indeed we felt convicted
and wanted to move forward to sponsor a school in Haiti and the corresponding
orphan village too. After hearing us describe how God had been speaking, he
added his part to the story. He explained that he had sensed from the beginning
and continued to feel God leading him that “this was going to be bigger than we
thought it would”. He said he had never interacted with a family quite like he
had with us. Typically he would connect the dots between an interested donor
and a need but that he had never felt led to push someone to consider something
so different and so much bigger than what they’d initially come to him with.
God was at work! For weeks, scripture felt so alive as it seemed like
everything we read and songs we heard all seemed to relate to Haiti and confirm
our decision. As we talked with Adrien on April 5th, he described 2
orphan villages and churches to us to pray about, and ultimately that’s how
Eben Ezer Léogâne became the village that has our heart and our focus.
6 months later, we've seen
God provide so much towards the goal and surprise us in the ways and timing by
which it has come in. Almost $19K has already been donated (61%) of the total
goal. This money has fixed damaged roofs for the children’s home and has begun
to fund the school. This year 225 children attend Eben Ezer Léogâne school
compared to 160 last year. All grades are staffed, including 3 kindergarten classes,
and the teachers have access to new training and consistent pay. 15 Haitian
adults have jobs as teachers or staff members at this school. All of these kids
are not just learning key skills to give them hope as Haiti’s future but they
are hearing the gospel of Jesus regularly! We’re praying that indeed orphan
prevention is happening, and that there is even the potential that some of the
orphans living in the children’s homes might be re-united with family now that
school costs are no longer a burden. The food program is still in development,
and we’re praying it will start soon and work well to feed the children.
I've told you our story now.
I've wanted to for a long time. Will you make it part of your story? Will you
consider giving to help these children continue to go to school or to help the
orphan village continue to meet the needs of the fatherless? If you are
interested, you can donate and learn more on our website here or you can send
us an email so we can give you a call.
