An Encouraging Haiti Day

Today was an encouraging Haiti day.  Unfortunately it's easy to get discouraged living in this country with all the government corruption, trash, lack of infrastructure, lack of medical care, physical poverty etc.  But today was one of those days that the Lord sent us to make our hearts smile :)

A few weeks ago IBESR (social services) brought us a lady who wanted to abandon her three small children here.  She was being kicked out of her current home and had no way to provide for herself, let alone her children. We talked to her about her children, being a mom, and other opportunities (or lack thereof).  This woman has actually abandoned previous children as well.

We had been needing to hire an additional wash lady, and after talking about it with her she gladly accepted the job in hopes of being able to keep and care for her kids.  We agreed to give her a small pay advice to secure the rent for a place to live, and the IBESR worker was happy with this solution.

IBESR has only been active in Jacmel for the last couple of years.  Our orphanage has to be licensed through them and they are in charge of placing children-in-need in homes.  I believe that these workers really care about the kids, but they lack major resources and staff to be able to do their job well.  They end up relying on us and other organizations in the area to help find places for children which can be rather draining as it's a whole other job entirely!

Anyway, back to this encouraging Haiti day:

Today the man from IBESR came over to check on this woman and see how things were going.  It caught us off guard, but we went and got her to talk to him.  After chatting for a while, he said that he was pleased with the solution of her taking the job, and that they were proud of her for following through and doing the job well.  Because of this, he gave her some supplies (from IBESR) to help her in getting her family back on the ground: a couple air matlas (mattresses), pots to cook with, some additional clothes for her kids and some peanut butter.  He also said that he was going to go check on her after her next pay day to assure the kids were being taken care of with the money and supplies.

Stephen and I were quite shocked!  It was beyond encouraging to see them out advocating for keeping families together and lending a helping hand in a situation that really needed it.  It matters to this family. We're proud of Haiti today :)  Praise God!

Our newest employee and the worker from IBESR