One of the happiest moments for me at Have Faith Haiti is my arrival each month. That’s because the kids spill out of classrooms or the dorm or come running from the field just to give me hello hugs.
But over this past weekend, I had a different sensation. A different set of hugs. It was Thanksgiving, a break from college, and here came the “little kids” I remembered, exiting cars and making their way up the porch in the November cold.
Here came Djouna and Junie-Anna, who used to hug my knees, now in their first year at college, dressed in sweatpants, their hair braided beautifully.
Here came J.J. and Kiki and Edney, who used to chase each other all over our concrete yard with a half-inflated soccer ball, now muscular and sporting whiskers, bounding up the steps.
Here came Manno, who used to study under the light of a single bulb, swatting mosquitos with a dull pencil, now wiping his feet and carrying his computer, which contained his work as a medical school student.
All told, eight young men and four young women — all of whom I used to refer to as “kids” at the orphanage — were walking through the doors of my home in Michigan, ready for a Thanksgiving meal.
Haiti North.
Coming home for the holidays
For our four newest students, the weekend was an overwhelming experience. Their first Thanksgiving. We do it pretty large in our family, hosting all my relatives and my wife Janine’s relatives, plus friends from all over the country. This year, counting our Haitian guests, the count reached 81.
So, amidst the noise of that many people, we had to do some explaining about what stuffing was, why the sweet potatoes were mashed up, and why we called a certain dessert of chocolate chip cookies and whipped cream “Motown Mash.”
We had to introduce them to this uncle, this cousin, that longtime friend. We had to explain to Nahoum and Widley, two freshmen, that helping themselves to seconds — or thirds — was perfectly fine.
The first year we had any of our kids up for Thanksgiving, I worried about the abundance of it all. From a nation where hunger is a daily issue, where clean water is luxury, and where the violence and gang warfare make every day about survival, a feast like Thanksgiving, for the average Haitian, might seem incongruous.
But the idea behind the day is gratitude, and that is something our kids understand very well. So when Janine and I stood before our guests and talked about the countless things we have to be grateful for, and how much we miss the loved ones who no longer fill seats at the table, I saw the kids nodding slightly in recognition.
And when, on Friday, we took everybody bowling, and I watched the kids shriek as they knocked down the pins, I knew they were having fun.
And when we sat around watching a movie Saturday night, the kids flopped over the couch, the pillows, or the floor, I knew they felt at home.
Djouna and Esterline make work on breakfast
And when we gathered for breakfast Sunday morning, and they helped me make two dozen eggs, and they asked if they could have them “Haitian style,” which is code for very dry and overcooked, I knew they brought Haiti with them, as they do wherever they go.
And when we sat around the table afterwards, all 12 of them, and they spoke about their challenges at college, the good, the difficult, the people who have embraced them and those few who have made them feel uncomfortable, it was honest and real. And in its way, was no different than the countless talks we had at the orphanage after nightly devotions, or on Saturday afternoons, or just sitting on a balcony in the humid Haitian evenings.
At one point we took an old photo from nearly 10 years ago and recreated it, subbing in our friends Jim and Jane McElya with Janine and myself. When I looked at how much the kids had changed, I felt a lump in my throat.
Before and after by 10 years (with Janine and I subbing in for Jim and Jane McElya)
Going back home for good, to do good
My father used to sing a song called “Sunrise, Sunset.” I’ve mentioned this before. He sang this song at family events (he had a great voice, operatic, really, and was always being asked to perform) and I used to watch my older relatives cry at the lyrics, which I have mentioned in this space:
Is this the little boy I carriedIs this the little child at play? I don’t remember growing olderWhen did they?
I’m beginning to know why it made them tear up. I had that same sensation watching our kids make the eggs at Thanksgiving, or cracking jokes in Creole while eating around the table, or playfully shoving each other the way brothers and sisters do when they are happy.
All of these young men and women are heading back to Haiti when college is over. All of them will work at the orphanage for two years, as a way of giving back to the place that gave them wings.
And all of them look forward to it. Which may be the truest sign that they are growing up.
Nahoum and Widley at the skating rink
It is a privilege to watch. A joy to behold. I remember telling Nahoum, when he was six years old, that one day he could come with me to America, but only after he finished high school.
That night, I found him under the covers with a flashlight, reading the Bible. I asked what he was doing and he said “I want to finish high school by Wednesday, so I can go home with you.”
Well, it took longer than Wednesday. But he finished. He’s here. More importantly, he has a future.
He has a future, because, thanks to all of you, he is getting educated. He is part of the one percent of Haitians who ever go to college, and even less than half of one percent who get to do it in America, and come home for Thanksgiving break.
When we said finally goodbye Sunday afternoon, it was snowing outside. We were about as far from Haiti as you can get. But it many ways, we were all still there, exchanging hugs, grateful for the day, and filled with hope.
It is the best day of our year, and you can feel it the moment the sun breaks through the early summer sky. There’s a buzz amongst the kids. Showers are taken with particular energy. Clothes are chosen that are rarely worn the rest of the year. The teenagers dress with flair: the older boys tuck in button-down shirts; the older girls put on a little makeup.
It’s Graduation Day, a day of passage. And in a country where you are forced to stand still so much of your life, moving forward is a blessed relief.
This year we graduated four students from our bilingual academy – Djouna, Junie-Anna, Widley and Nahoum. All four are excellent students. The truth is, they were ready to go to college a year ago, but had to wait their turn.
So they spent an extra year of study, and by this point they are chomping at the bit to see what comes next.
But first what comes is the pomp and circumstance. Literally. We play that march composed by Sir Edward Algar over a single speaker that sits in the grass, powered by a long extension cord. The kids line up with their teachers. They walk across our yard, enter under a rented tent, and move down the aisle, past their brothers and sisters and towards their future.
And we sigh.
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
For many years after taking over the orphanage, we never spoke of completion. Every day was a new challenge that led directly into another one. Once you took care of the water situation, you had the food situation. Once you took care of the food situation, you had the gas situation.
This kid came down with an illness, you addressed it. Another kid had a behavioral issue, you addressed that.
Life at the orphanage was a loop. Nothing finished. It just got bigger and more complicated.
But as we read in Peter Pan — or sing about in “Puff the Magic Dragon” — a moment comes when kids grow up.
And you are forced to consider how you got here.
The first graduation from our school, three years ago, was a single student, Edney, who made a speech holding his cap on his head against a hot summer wind. Edney attended Madonna College in Livonia, Michigan.
The next year we graduated four students, who all received scholarships to Hope College in Holland, MI. They all came through freshman year well, with several on the Dean’s List.
This year, four more donned the cap and gown, two with scholarships to Hope, two more with scholarships to Hillsdale College.
And as each one stepped to podium to address the group, I saw in my mind the childish version of the young adult I was looking at:
I saw the wide and silly grin of a little boy named Nahoum, who was already in the orphanage when I arrived in 2010. Now here he was, 18 years old, with a deep voice, saying, “It is a great pleasure to stand here as a graduate, a brother, and a leader. I have been looking forward to this day – and here it is.”
I saw the big eyes and braided hair of a skinny little girl named Junie-Anna, who now was a fully grown woman of 18, with long flowing locks, who spoke without the hint of an accent in her English: “As I stand before you clad in cap and gown, I look back on my years in school. Some days, I was on top of my game. I got good grades. But other days I slacked off and I struggled. But if I am here today, I must tell you. I did not make it on my own…”
DjounaDjouna and Nahoum, 2023Nahoum
Blossoming even as we gaze
I saw a shy little boy named Widley, who was covered in scabs from bug bites and needed special cream applied to his legs and arms for years, and now here he was, one of the most brilliant students I’ve ever met, elocuting as if he’d grown up in Cambridge:
“First and foremost, I want to honor the presence of our esteemed directors, our wonderful teachers, and our ever-growing family…I feel immense gratitude to all of you for helping me overcome the trials and troubles that I faced in the past…”
And, finally, I see the goofy smile of a little girl named Djouna, who came to us at five years old and has blossomed into an intelligent, sensitive 17 year-old who writes incredibly well and is brave enough to say this in front of a crowd:
“As I stand here before you today…I am thinking about my father. Yes, I have one. ‘Well where’s your father, Djouna?’ I don’t know. ‘Where is he?’ In Haiti somewhere. Alive, I believe. I haven’t seen him in 13 years.
“But if you ask me what if feels like to have 60 plus people replace this one single person called my father, I would tell you why even ask? It feels really good. It feels like my life has meaning. Because without his new family, I wouldn’t be standing here today…”
WidleyWidley and Junie-Anna, 2023Junie-Anna
One season following another
My own father used to sing a song at family events like weddings. It’s called “Sunrise, Sunset” from the musical “Fiddler on the Roof.” I used to think it was the hokiest song ever. I cringed when he sang it.
But as I age, I recall the words, sung in my Dad’s powerful baritone voice, and they hit me like a smack to my face:
“Is this the little girl I carried?
“Is this the little boy at play?
“I don’t remember getting older,
“When did they?”
That’s what Graduation Day is for me, for our staff, for our kids. The little ones from the endless loop have grown up. In a few weeks, they will be leaving our orphanage, heading north with me to start college and a new chapter in their lives.
They will be nervous. They will be anxious. They will be excited.
But the best part — and the reason Graduation Day is such a special day for us — is that these kids will feel hope.
Hope. Without it, we are parched. We wander aimlessly. So much of Haiti lives without hope, and is desperately thirsty for it.
We are so grateful to those of you who allow us to spread this hope, to experience the sunshine of the graduation morning, the cheers of the other kids when we announce “You are graduated!”, or the pop song that the teenagers sing, arm in arm, as they let go and wave goodbye to the ones who will be leaving.
“As we go on
“We’ll remember
“All the times, we had together.”
Moving forward — in a country where backward is the common sensation. Best day of the year. Thank you for helping to make it possible.
At the end of every day I spend in Haiti, I make a mental tally of what went right and wrong.
Some days are better than others.
We’ve spoken a great deal about the bad parts of Haiti lately, the danger, the insecurity, the violence that had our kids scared and hiding. But almost by the very nature of the nation’s endless challenges, every day that Haitians survive is a day to be celebrated.
And to be thankful.
Photo: Theresa Finck
Our orphanage is no different. Let me share a few moments that show how our little corner of this hot country is surviving and thriving, thanks to your help:
We needed to raise a good amount of money for security in the past two months. We did. The effects were immediate.
Suddenly, we have security guards not only at each entrance, but at the bridge near our ravine, and up the ravine, on both sides, and behind the structure we call “the white house” and near our border walls with neighbors.
Just seeing so many people devoted to keeping our us safe makes us feel a bit relieved and makes our kids much more relaxed.
Photo: Theresa Finck
Speaking of the kids, they have adjusted to circumstances, as they always do. They run daily drills at the sound of an alarm. They know where to go and how fast to get there.
We’ve also beefed up our actual perimeters, thanks to the funds we received. There are yards and yards of new fencing, and the old barriers have been raised, reinforced, and lined with barbed wire.
We also now have plans being drawn not only for a fortification of a “safe floor” with protective doors and windows, but also for an actual “safe room,” beneath the floor of an upcoming new structure. This safe room would be big enough for all our kids and staff to handle any worse-case scenario.
Photo: Theresa Finck
Meanwhile, we go on. Final exams are coming up in early June, and we are preparing once again for one of most cherished days — graduation. This year, four more of our high schoolers will wear the cap and gown, make shorts speeches, and be cheered wildly by the other kids and our staff.
All four have earned college scholarships to the U.S. That makes 13 to date, with one heading to medical school in July. If that doesn’t make you proud, I don’t know what will.
Photo: Theresa Finck
Music classes continue, with teachers coming to us, despite the dangers they face in traveling. Our kids are learning foreign languages from Spanish to Korean. And, miracle of miracles, two of our kids, Moïse and Bradley, who have been battling serious health issues, have been granted permission to see doctors in America, and will be doing so very soon.
The sun rises, the sun sets. The streets remain hot with anger, but our yard and gazebo remain shaded and cool, an oasis of rest and love and peace. For all you have done to keep these precious qualities going at our orphanage, we thank you. At the end of the day, it’s always a good day here.
A Year of Thanks & Giving
November: Kitchen — Goal Achieved
December: Safety Car — Goal Achieved
January: Nursery — Construction Goal Achieved
Construction funded; Ongoing costs to support the hiring of a director for early childhood development and nursery supplies can be supported here.
The phone call came in the middle of the morning. The voice, a member of our staff at the Have Faith Haiti orphanage, was hushed and scared.
“There might be someone on our property.”
She was calling from the third floor of our school building, where our kids and workers were already huddled and hiding, the doors locked, desks and chairs pushed up against them. Outside, our security guards were circling the exterior.
There’d been a call from a neighbor saying a man on the run might be nearby. Even though it would prove to be a false alarm, when that happens, we go into preparation mode. We sound an emergency alarm, all kids come running, their teachers and counselors account for all of them, and we race to the highest and safest ground.
It is no way for children to live. Yet it is part of daily life these days in Port-au-Prince, where a gangs vs. people war has escalated to daily confrontations. I have been to Haiti every month for 13 years. It has never been so bad.
You’ve probably read about how gangs have choked off much of Port-au-Prince, shutting down essential services, blocking roads, extorting money, stealing homes and committing random murders.
You may not have read how the people are fighting back. Tired of waiting for overmatched and overmanned police, they have reluctantly accepted that the rest of the world doesn’t care enough to intervene, especially, disappointedly, the U.S., despite being Haiti’s closest big neighbor.
So they have taken matters into their own hands.
It has become bloody.
Katherine Graham Photography
We’re addressing immediate safety needs with this GoFundMe campaign. Click to learn more.
In recent days, a van full of suspected armed gang members was captured by police in the Canape Verte area, which is close to our orphanage. Somehow the citizens took control of these men, killed them and burned their bodies in the street.
It was, like similar recent acts, a message from the people, that they will not be overtaken, they will not accept gang rule. They are worn out. Exhausted by the terror. But they are fighting back – with violence, with beatings, with burnings, with guns.
And we are in the crossfire.
Katherine Graham Photography
Our children have been beyond brave. They know this life. They accept their country. But they are still children, and when they hear gunfire, they are frightened.
When they see security guards circling, or police cars arriving, they are frightened.
When they have to stay inside a single space for hours, no school, no play, no eating, they are frightened.
As one of our kids, a 14-year-old girl, wrote after the incident: As the gunshots rained in the air, I felt frightened and weak. But with one of my younger siblings wrapped in my embrace, it reminded me that I had to be stronger than this.
That’s beautiful, but tragic. A 14-year-old?
We are not vigilantes. We are not warriors. We are an orphanage.
When I tell these horror stories to Americans, they say “How can people live like that? Why don’t they leave?” Many Haitians are desperately doing that. Tens of thousands are running away, applying for asylum in an overbooked U.S. system, or heading for the Dominican Republic.
We’re not running. We can’t run. Not with 100 kids and staff. Our mission has always been to give the most needy children a chance to change the narrative, so that they can one day make their country the flourishing place it deserves to be. We are not giving up on that.
But given the current dangers, we are temporarily realigning our fundraising to focus strictly on security.
Photo: Theresa Finck
We currently have a decent force of guards. We need more. The joy of our new home is the space it provides the kids to learn and grow. The downside is the size. Protecting seven acres of property requires greater manpower than we have. There are effective, armed security operations here in Port-au-Prince for hire. But they cost money.
We also want to build a “safe floor,” an area in a building that is bulletproof, secured by steel doors and window coverings, and equipped with the essentials inside. We want to do it for the worst case emergency, and because it’s smart. This can be done quickly. But it costs money.
Watch our campaign video
Lastly, we want to establish full lighting, motion detectors, alarms and remote cameras around the perimeter of our property. The key to stopping any trouble is spotting it before it happens. We need to see and alert. But it costs money.
We pray this will not continue forever. We are grateful that we have never had a breach. But we want to keep it that way. We want our staff to be secure. We want the volunteers who join us to feel secure. Above all, we want our kids to be safe, every day, every night, every minute.
You can hear the gunfire from our playground. The outside is always close. In Haiti, you can hide but you cannot run. And so our orphanage family must say what almost every Haitian family is saying these days:
This is no way to live. Please help us.
How you can help: Support “Help Us Build a Safe House in War-Torn Haiti” any way you can
Dear Readers,
Since the launch of “A Year of Thanks & Giving,” we’ve asked a lot. And your generosity has showed up time and time again. We’re asking once again, but know that any level of support is welcome: give at GoFundMe if you can, share this on your social media profiles, email everyone you know. Every bit helps.
**If you need to give offline, checks may be sent to Have Faith Haiti Mission c/o A Hole in the Roof Foundation / 29836 Telegraph Road / Southfield, MI 48034 with “safe house” in memo line. For institutional giving, DAFs, and more questions, contact erika@havefaithhaiti.org.
You know the Greek myth of Sisyphus, punished by the gods to push a giant boulder up a hill, only to have it fall back on top of him, again and again?
That is the story of our medical care in Haiti.
When we first began the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage, our “doctoring” consisted of vitamins, antiseptic, bandages and Tylenol, all of which we brought down with us.
We could clean a wound if a child fell on the chunky concrete. We could bandage it up. If a teenager had a fever or a headache, we had the Tylenol. And every day we gave the entire population vitamins.
Beyond that, we were pretty helpless. If one of our kids developed a more serious medical issue, we took them to a hospital. Care there was hit or miss. Depended on the doctor. Depended on the problem. Often, we’d have to move the child to a second or third hospital before finding a qualified person or the right medicine.
“This can’t go on,” I said. “We have to be better prepared.”
So we hired a nurse, a Haitian woman with some experience. And we increased the medicines we brought down with us. Fungal creams, ointments, cold medications, dental care items.
Pushing the boulder up the hill.
When the climb gets steeper
The cabinet of supplies that stands in for a clinic
As the years passed and our population grew larger, we hired a second nurse, to be there when the first one could not. We also cleared a small alcove in the orphanage office and put it in a rack of shelves. We stocked them with the various pills, gels, syrups and bandages we’d accumulated.
We established a connection with a Haitian doctor, who worked out of a Port-au-Prince hospital. We arranged for her to come assess our kids every three months, and if a problem arose in between, we paid her to be on call for us.
Pushing the boulder higher.
Then the gangs took over. The streets became dangerous. Making a house call, in certain areas, meant taking your life in your hands.
The hospitals we’d come to rely on were soon without staff, or without medicine. When one of our kids suffered a seizure, we were told we’d have to go find the medication somewhere, then bring it to the hospital for them to administer it.
Another time, after discovering a new child we’d taken in had tuberculosis, we were told to come get him out of the hospital just days after brining him there, because the place was closing down due to the violence in the streets.
Our on-call doctor can’t get out of her neighborhood. Medications are scarce. All the progress we felt we’d made suddenly feels like no progress at all.
The boulder comes falling back on us.
More hands can push farther
Haiti is a series of adjustments. If this is the new state of affairs outside, then we need a new state of affairs inside.
We are hoping to build our own medical clinic, on our grounds, staffed by a doctor and two nurses and stocked with all the medication we can legitimately acquire and administer.
ManesKnox and Gaelson, both of whom have had dealt and continue to deal with health challenges
We want our kids’ first stop to be within our gates. We already have kids with ongoing issues that we could address. Knox and Ziggy must deal with cerebral challenges that require regular therapies. We could do that in a clinic. Not long ago, Manes dislocated his kneecap playing soccer, and needed surgery and long rehab. He’s had to do it in the boys’ bedroom. We could do that in a clinic.
And then there is Bradley.
He came to us last summer, at three years of age. He weighed 10 pounds. That is not a typo. We don’t know how he was alive. His mother had nothing to feed him. She told us she’d already lost two other children in their infancy.
So we took Bradley in, and began a guided feeding program to pull him back from the brink. He is a joyous, curious child, but after being starved for so long, he has serious challenges. With a space to deal with them — right now he is in a small bedroom — we can take care of him. Somebody must.
So we are pushing the boulder back up the hill, but it’s a different hill now. It’s our hill. If you are able and inclined to help us, we are hoping this month to raise $65,000 to build out, stock and furnish the clinic and pay the salary for an on-site doctor for the first year, after which we will find a way to fund it ourselves.
One man pushing a boulder is likely hopeless. But many hands and a strong will might just get it over the top. Then at least it doesn’t come crashing back down on our children.
Make your check payable to “Have Faith Haiti Mission” and send to
Have Faith Haiti Mission
c/o A Hole in the Roof Foundation
29836 Telegraph Road
Southfield, MI 48034
Have Faith Haiti is operated by the A Hole in the Roof Foundation, a 501(c)(3) org (TAX ID# 27-0609504). Donations are tax deductible.
About the Mission
The Have Faith Haiti Mission is a special place of love and caring, dedicated to the safety, education, health and spiritual development of Haiti’s impoverished children and orphans. You can learn more here.
