Thirty Years of Hope in Haiti
Thirty years. My, how time flies. Looking back over the years since we at Hope for the Hungry began “Sharing the Bread of Life with a starving world,” it is amazing to see what God has accomplished in people’s lives through the ministry of our staff and volunteers. Men, women and children from many backgrounds and denominations have made decisions to reach out to the poorest of the poor in our world to lift them out of the despair and hopelessness of spiritual poverty.
Dr. Rex Kirkley, Dan Kirkley, Rev Edner Paul & Family
Circa 1984
Dan Kirkley & Paul Family
February 2012
I’ve never been really big on keeping up with numbers or tracking statistics but I feel strongly about the children and adults we have loved over the years. Immanuel, one of the first eight children to come to our children’s home in Guibert, Haiti, is now a police officer in downtown Port au Prince. Another of “our boys”, Jean Jean, is a police officer in New York City. Magalie graduated from medical school in the Dominican Republic last year. Her two sisters are nurses and her brother is in business in Port au Prince.
Thirty years of memories include those times when God miraculously provided for children in need. Ermanita from Guibert, Haiti, and Lupka from Ferrier, Haiti, both received life-saving heart surgeries in the United States. In the process of receiving their physical healing, they both met the Great Physician, their Eternal Healer.
Recently, I attended the funeral of Ruth Paul Caudle in Chicago. Ruth, the sister of our Haiti ministry’s director, Jean Alix Paul, died at the age of 39 after a courageous battle with cancer. Ruth and her husband, Brian, have for many years been champions for the cause to help alleviate poverty in Haiti. While I was in Chicago for the funeral, all but one of the Paul children (twelve) were able to attend. Visiting with them together as a family and seeing how God has been working in their lives was a marvelous testimony of their commitment to the children of Haiti and God’s desire to see the nation of Haiti come to Christ.
Evidence of God’s working in Haiti all these years and the need that still exists came clearly to me last year when I went to the tiny, isolated community of Village Madame Bellizaire. I was reminded of the Haiti I flew into thirty years ago. Bellizaire has eighty four families living in it, in tiny homes made of stick and mud walls with thatched roofs. There was no school or church there and I met one twenty-two year old young lady who was literate. Compared to the eight villages where churches are thriving, schools with over eight hundred children and Godly men and women sharing Christ with the neighbors, Bellizaire stands as a reminder that the work is not finished. The encouraging news is that the Haitian church is now rallying its forces to minister to the people of the village, bringing to it both a school and church.
Over the years, as our friends and champions of the cause have invested their time and resources in the lives of children in Haiti, I have often been reminded of the promise of Jeremiah 33:3: “Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” (NAS). God is winning the battle in Haiti just as He does everywhere, one soul at a time!
Dan Kirkley, Founder & President
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