Stevenson (one of Sister Jean Larose’s children), born into poverty in Haiti, now facing even greater challenges with his father gone
Wherever Heaven’s Family staff members travel around the world, we often encounter very poor families who don’t have enough to eat, something that is unfamiliar to most of us who live in developed nations.
The causes of food insecurity vary. Whether because of a natural disaster, a barely-functioning economy, greedy political leaders, foolish economic policy, war, or the death of a family’s primary wage earner, hunger always breaks our hearts. What if it were us in such a situation? we ask ourselves.
When we meet fellow followers of Christ who are facing hunger, we know we have to do something, recognizing that it is Jesus Himself who needs food. Thus the reason for Heaven’s Family’s Food Fund.
Last summer, a team of 20 led by Heaven’s Family staff member Jeff Trotter, visited Haiti. Several of their days in Haiti were spent with two special saints with whom we have worked closely since Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake—Pastor Dupuy Saint Juste, and his wife (whom everyone addresses as Sister Dupuy). Our ministry this time focused on the many children of Barbancourt, a small community about an hour’s drive from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
At the end of the team’s busy week, Sister Dupuy, who has a very tender heart for the needs of those in her church and community, pulled Jeff aside to ask if his team could assist two families in desperate need. She and Jeff then walked five minutes to the “home” of a sister in Christ named Jean Larose. Jean, her children, and a few others live in a two-room stone-and-cement home with no tables or chairs, no water and no toilet. The bare rooms, each roughly 7 feet by 8 feet in size, sleep about 10 people at night. (Jeff will tell you that you’d have to see it to be able to imagine it.)
As Jeff talked with our sister Jean, he learned that her husband had abandoned her. She had no means of providing for herself and her children. And the story was similar at the home of Josaiva, a few minutes walk in the other direction. Josaiva wasn’t at her “home” where she and her children live because she was out searching for food or work. Her children were waiting, with hope, for her to return.
It is times like that when Heaven’s Family staff members praise God that there is money in the Food Fund. Before long, packages of food were arriving at both homes, and children were happily eating again. Jeff left enough money to feed both families for a month while we work with the Dupuys to find a more permanent solution. Thanks for making that urgent provision possible through your gifts to the Food Fund.
