Beautiful Rescue.

When her head hit the pillow tonight I wonder what she was thinking.  I wonder if she could figure out her emotions…was she scared?  Exhausted? Happy?  Confused?

Did she feel free?

I hope she feels free.  The freedom to sleep.  The freedom to eat.  The freedom to live.  To sleep in a safe place now.

Freedom is SO much of a gift and even more so when someone has experienced the darkness of bondage.

The beauty of this rescue from child slavery runs deeper.   It runs SO much deeper than I could have ever hoped for or imagined.  Why?  Because God is MOVING.  He is teaching and people are learning.

Our sweet and sassy friend and employee here, found out her sister who she hadn’t seen in almost 5 years was living as a restavek in the next town over.  As she found out more and more about her situation she knew she had to do something.  She discussed the situation with another one of our friends and coworker, Tachi.  As Tachi encouraged her to take action, she came to me to discuss the situation.

Sadly, a typical situation for a restavek.  She woke up between 3 and 4:00am…washed the car, made coffee and breakfast, packed the other kids lunches and walked them to school…came home and cleaned, did laundry, cooked and ran errands…she would be up until almost 11:00pm doing all of this work.

As she expressed her concern about this terrible situation for her sister, I could FEEL the Lord working.  I looked at her and asked, “So, what do you think we should do?”  Praying silently, I could feel her spark flaring as she said clearly, “She can’t stay in that situation any more, I have to get her out, even if I rent a house and she lives close to here, I have to get her. But I want her to go to school too, can she go to your school?”  Smiling at her righteous anger, I said…”Go get her and bring her back here…you know we have room!”

As we discussed the situation about 16 year old Diana, the story got a little more disturbing.  We learned that the wife is actually in the states now having her baby and that because of this we might not be able to get her birth certificate since they were holding her captive using it as a means to keep her from running away.  Finally, we decided that it was more important for her to get released without her Birth Certificate then to stay just for a piece of paper.

As Diana walked into our house this afternoon, God kept shouting one word.  FREEDOM.

FREEDOM!

I hope she feels free.  The freedom to sleep.  The freedom to eat.  The freedom to live.  To live in a safe place, now.

 

God of ALL comfort.

Today, there are no words.

One of our 6th grade students passed away abruptly last night in a “hospital” in the next town over during a routine procedure.  He was a gifted soccer player on our team and he was #1 in his 6th grade class at Respire Haiti Christian School.  Beauvoir’s friends adored him and spoke highly of how encouraging, gentle and loving he was.  He lived in Gressier with his mother, Madame Carroll, who sews our school uniforms, and his older brother, Carrollson who also attends our school and plays soccer.

There are no words to describe our sadness.  Our school is devastated by this sudden loss and even though we don’t understand or know why this happened, we do know that he is face to face with Jesus and are comforted by that.

Thank you Jesus for BEING our comfort.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of ALL comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in ANY affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Lenz Beauvoir

 

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Beauvoir with his 6th grade class during Field Day in November.

 

“For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”  2 Corinthians 1:5

 

Please pray with us for his family, our students and Respire Haiti’s vision for building a Medical Facility here in Gressier specifically for our students and their families to prevent this type of loss in our community.

Lenz

December 18, 2001- January 8, 2013

 

 

 

A New Normal

The longer I’m here, the harder it is to write, not because things get less interesting or because life’s busy (although it is busy)…it’s just harder to pick out only one story to write about…or my stories are so harsh and real that I am even shocked when I write them down. 

 

Life here has become my new normal.  But nothing about it is “normal.”

 

It’s not NORMAL to have people knock on your gate to tell you they are starving and haven’t eaten for days. 

 

It’s not NORMAL to visit a family that’s living in a tent in the middle of the road and unable to feed their young baby and two other children living with them. 

 

It’s not NORMAL to have a 16-year-old show up at your house with a 3-month-old daughter and tell you her life story of growing up as a Restavek and being abused then and now.

 

It’s not NORMAL to have to always jump in the midst of children fighting, or adults hitting children and explain that this is NOT a way to discipline.  (Especially when two children are fighting and an adult goes to break it up by hitting the kids that are hitting….oh, the irony).

 

It’s not NORMAL to have to fight with an orphanage director for one of your students (who is a true orphan with no parents) birth certificate so she can take her school tests.

 

It’s not NORMAL for a precious 11-year-old student to look you in their eyes and tell you that they have a bad life or a 9-year-old student to tell you about how their younger brother was killed by a Voodoo priest.

 

These things are not “NORMAL” in my old world.  They are not NORMAL compared to how and where I grew up.  But here’s the reality.  All of these things I wrote above are “NORMAL” here in Gressier.  In fact, many of them are the USUAL for MOST of the world.

 

As much as my idea of normal continues to change, I am reminded how completely BLESSED I am to be involved in God’s amazing plan for this community. 

 

I am BLESSED to be apart of the way God is changing the NORMAL here in Gressier. 

 

I BELIEVE that it will NOT be NORMAL for people to be starving in Gressier, for babies to die from malnutrition or neglect, for abuse and violence to be the answer, for Voodoo and confusion to rule this city.

 

I BELIEVE in the vision from God for freedom, education and victory for this community.

What we’ve been up to lately…

The last month has consisted of a trip to the states to share about what God’s doing with Respire Haiti, returning back to amazing building progress on our Secondary school and much more with our school and other projects!!

Since it’s SO much to write about I figured some pictures would do a better job at telling about the month of November!!

Had the amazing opportunity to speak in front of numerous groups and churches about what God has done and is doing in Haiti.
In Nashville, TN with the AMAZING 147 ladies during the fundraiser that they put on for Respire Haiti’s Medical Center! Blessed to know these beautiful women of God 🙂

 

Respire Haiti Christian Schools first ever FIELD DAY! Fun day of games, races and more! 🙂 The children LOVED it and so did we!!!

 

Every Friday at Respire Haiti Christian School is MOVIE DAY for a special class. This picture is from 3rd grade and they had PERFECT attendance for a whole week…40 children (I know HUGE CLASS) but 40 out of 40 were present EVERY DAY for a week!!!

Thanks to an amazing team, we have playground equipment! Swings, Monkey Bars and Tether Balls!! SO exciting to see the children play at recess and after school! BIG Thanks to Mr. George, Mr. Paul and Mandy!!!
One of Respire Haiti Christian School’s Soccer Team warming up!
Secondary School…SO close to being finished! Block is done and the roof will be going up soon! 4 more classrooms almost finished, which will mean a total of 14…FOURTEEN classes on Bellevue Mountain 🙂

What our Secondary School will look like soon! Beautiful design by Kyle Fishburn!

We are SO blessed by all that God is doing here in Gressier, and we are CONSTANTLY reminded of HIS vision here for Respire Haiti.  Thank you for your support, encouragement and most importantly your PRAYERS! 🙂

The following link is to our Holiday Gift Catalog, if you are looking for a way to support Respire Haiti OR give gifts on behalf of friends or family, please visit our Gift Catalog to see how you can support us by buying things like shinguards, blocks, shoes, medicine, books and more for our children here in Gressier!  Thank you! 🙂

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