By Brian Blackwell, Baptist Message staff writer
CAP HAITIEN, Haiti (LBM) – Louisiana Reach Haiti ministry leaders recently welcomed a 12-year-old Haitian girl who had been just freed from slavery.
The transformation of Esther from a girl held captive to one who now experiences the love and compassion of Christ has been yet another blessing for a ministry that in 2023 had to seek refuge in Cap Haitien after gang-ravaged Port-au-Prince became too dangerous as a homebase.
“When I met Esther after she was brought to us by her rescuers, Haiti’s child protective service, she shared about her love for the other children and her new life here,” LRH President Darrin Badon told the Baptist Message. “We’re just loving her and sharing the Lord’s goodness with her.
“Our calling is to help any child that we can and ultimately reunite them with family,” he continued. “While reunification won’t happen with Esther, we can show God’s love to her for the many years she will be with us and prepare her, spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally for the future.
“I know God has placed her with us because He knows that we love our kids and that we can defend those kids against the evils of the world. Their spiritual health is vitally important to us, and we want to expose them to the Gospel and to the church. Ultimately, little Esther’s got to make her own decision about Christ, but we are praying that she one day will accept Him as her Lord and Savior.”
BACKGROUND
In 2015, a Louisiana Baptist team felt led to create a permanent presence in Haiti and partnered with Pastor Odvald Louis and his members at New Evangelical Baptist Church in Croix-Des-Bouquets. The Haitian congregation and Louisiana mission teams combined to complete a Children’s Village in Croix-des-Bouquets. They also teamed up to dig a well and built a church building and school in neighboring Canaan.
However, the facilities in both cities were overtaken and vandalized by gangs in early 2022, Badon said.
LRH then refocused its ministry on multiple fronts.
In February 2022, escalating gang violence forced the Children’s Village to relocate to the Florida House, a Florida Baptist Convention-owned home for missionaries in Port-au-Prince. The facility housed 21 children and six staff members. After more than a year at the Florida House, the gangs started closing in on this area as well.
Meanwhile, God opened doors in New Orleans, allowing LRH leaders to help relocate Pastor Odvald Louis and his family from Haiti, which he fled after surviving an attempt on his life.
Additionally, LRH began partnering with Connect International Church, a congregation in New Orleans that in April 2022 formed and hosted an international church (led by Haitian American Pastor Dawest Louis, a graduate of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary) that reaches out to Haitians and other nationalities.
Then, on the evening of July 4, 2023, Badon met the children and staff as they arrived in Cap Haitien after traveling all day to get out of Port-au-Prince, the capital city that had become too dangerous because of gang activity.
FUTURE PLANS
Now that the Children’s Village is in a more secure location, Badon is optimistic that mission trips from the United States to Haiti can resume next year. If so, this would be the first time since 2020 that the ministry has taken a mission team there.
Badon, who visited the Children’s Village in June, plans to return in November or December. He said that gang activity is primarily confined to Port-au-Prince and its immediate environs, far away from Cap Haitien.
“The areas in the north where Cap Haitien is, are safe places to be,” he said. “A lot of people fled from Port-au-Prince to escape the atrocities of the gangs. Now there are organizations who have started sending staff back to safer areas in the city, and we are excited about one day sending teams back there, too.”
Badon asked Louisiana Baptists to pray for financial provision to the ministry, an end to the violence in and near Port-au-Prince, and the continued safety of the children and staff members at the Children’s Village.
“We pray that our kids would come to know the Lord and have a deep relationship with Him,” he said. “And pray that God would grant us wisdom for the decisions that we make — that we would not do anything that is not in step with His will – about our kids.”
For more information, visit louisianareachhaiti.org
