Our Story

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 2^nd 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 5^th, 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 5^th, 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.