By Bishop Joel Jeune
GRACE INTERNATIONAL HAS A VISION TO BRING HOPE AND RESTORATION TO THE NATION OF HAITI
Hurricane Matthew’s death toll has reached more than 1000 in Haiti, and now cholera is taking lives. Locals exclaim, “That storm was the most terrifying thing that ever happened here.” The Haitian government estimates that at least 350,000 people need some kind of assistance in what is likely the country’s worst humanitarian crisis since the devastating earthquake of January 2010.
Rural open air clinics overflow with patients whose wounds (including broken bones) have not been treated since the storm hit. Food is scarce and several dozen people have died of cholera, most likely because of flood water mixing with sewage.
Grace International has stepped out in faith with a Restoration Plan for the nation of Haiti. Targeting 12,000 families, we are providing assistance in the following areas:
1. IMMEDIATE RELIEF EFFORTS: Prayer and spiritual comfort, food, water and medical relef to be distributed to the families
Thanks to the generosity of friends and supporters concerned with the health and safety of the Haitian people, as well as spreading the good news of the Gospel of Christ, our emergency relief program has begun in the country’s Southest. Several prayer groups from our churches have been sent to the devasted regions to minister the love of God with prayer and the comforting Word of God to each hurting family. Using our two trucks, we have been delivering family nutrition and hygienic kits in Grand-Goave, Thiotte, Anse-à-Veau, Morency Cayes, Chardonnière of Jeremie district and some of the other towns most ravaged by the storm.
Our main focus is ensuring the safety of children and families. Food, water, and medication for Cholera and infectious disease are urgently needed to provide relief during this difficult time of recovery. We at Grace International, working with our school and church partners in these areas, are supplying food to sustain people while we work to help restore their destroyed homes, crop lands, and children’s futures. Just $75 cover one food kit, hygiene kit, security and transportation––and provides $10 in cash to the family for the purchase of cooking materials.
2. SHELTER AND HOME REPAIRS/REBUILDING HELP
Every $1,000 we raise provides materials to restore the roof of a small house devastated in the storm. What a blessing to the family to have shelter from changing weather again!
Our building Mission Teams also go out to help restore the church, school roofs and walls where needed. We are continually adding to our volunteer workers so that we can address the great need before us.
Grace International has stepped out in faith with a Restoration Plan to assist 12,000 Haitian families.
3. MEDICAL CAPACITY AND PRESENCE IN THE HARDEST HIT DISASTER AREAS
Grace Haiti Pediatric Hospital is already equipped with a dedicated and motivated medical Team to give care to the children of Haiti and all infected people who come to our hospital, as well as to travel ot to disaster areas to meet the needs of those who cannot come to us. We estimate expenses of $40 per family per trip to the most damaged mountainous regions. These monies provide medicine, medical team transportation and lunch. We are inviting doctors, nurses, church groups and other volunteers to join with us in this effort to end the physical sufferings of these people.
4. FARMING ASSISTANCE FOR REBUILDING FOOD PRODUCTION: Supply of seeds, fertilizer and small farming equipment.
Soon the emergency food relief will stop; the greatest help we can give the people of Haiti is the ability to grow their own food. We estimate $300 per family will provide them with all they need to replant a garden capable of sustaining their family and maintain it.
5. CHILDREN’S EMERGENCY RESCUE
Hurricane Matthew is now considered to be the most devastating storm Haiti has experienced for decades. One of the results was the creation many hundreds of new orphans. Orphans and children that still live with their distressed family in a displaced home environment need urgent assistance. We invite you to sponsor a child for $25-50 per month today. Your sponsorship will provide for their school tuition and rebuild their future. As you read this article, we are working to complete the Girls Transitional Building, which will allow us to help even more orphans.
6. FAMILY EMPOWERMENT: Help with skills training and small business development
The only way to win the battle against poverty, chronic dependency and starvation is to teach people how to fish instead of giving them a fish every day. God’s people, if we work together, we can do it! In Haiti, just $250 per family will help them start a small, sustainable business that will meet their current family needs and provide opportunity for growth.
7. THE LORD’S KITCHEN: Five day per week feeding program
As nearly 50% of the country’s food production was destroyed in the storm, we expect an overflow of people to come to the city. Without any job, home or assistance, their situation looks dire. God’s people must not close their hearts or their hands! Let us feed them as the Lord provides.
This is just a brief summary of the steps Grace International feels led to take to help our nation. We invite you to join our effort to bless, relieve and restore the people of Haiti.
Prayers and donations are much needed. We are not just an emergency relief organization; we are a long-term mission focused and committed to impacting lives. I thank you very much on behalf of the Haitian people––and especially the suffering children.
Questions? Please contact Bishop Jeune: 954-394-8929 or Jonny: 305-776-0650. Email: grace@graceintl.org
To send love gifts to Grace International, Inc., mail to: Grace International, Inc. 20401 NW 2nd Ave. Miami Gardens, FL 33169
* * * * *
Everyone loves a great adventure story––all the more so if it’s truth not fiction. The spiritual journey of Grace International is replete with the miracles that attended a man born of humble circumstances who, with inspiration from an even more challenged father, found God and allowed his spirit to be transformed by the presence of Christ.
Bishop Joel Jeune’s destiny was prophesied by God to a father whose own life had been transformed from poverty and violence to salvation and purpose. At two years old, Joel fell ill and died––only to be resurrected when his father challenged God about the truth of His prophetic promise. Through one trial and tribulation after another, he prevailed in a country bedeviled by Voodoo.
Joel’s steadfast resistance in the face of obstacles of all magnitudes earned him a following and reputation befitting a man of God. When the battle lines with the devil and his Voodoo converts were drawn at Bois-Caiman, the man of God drew thousands of supporters both in Haiti and around the world. Life threatened, thrown into jail, vexed by Voodoo magic tricks, Joel, now Bishop over a multitude of churches, soldiered on. The Haitian government of that time sent gangs of thugs to disrupt and destroy the anti-Voodoo rally at Bois Caiman. Amazingly God set ablaze the Voodoo Tree, sending its worshippers fearfully fleeing into hiding or a resultant death.
After January 12, 2010, perhaps the greatest challenge faced Bishop Joel and Grace International’s nearly four decade long ministry. Approximately 25,000 survivors of a 7.2 level seismic earthquake sought refuge at Grace Village within the sheltering confines of the Lamentin and Waney campuses. Many years ago, Bishop found 15 girls, orphaned, homeless because of a devastating hurricane named Alicia. Bishop rescued and brought the girls home with him. This was the beginning of their first orphanage. From this modest beginning the Jeunes sheltered thousands of “orphans of the storm,” displaced by a cataclysm of unprecedented magnitude that killed hundreds of thousands and left more than a million homeless. Where there was but a 20-acre compound, a town of tents and tarps soon sprung up, offering hope, health and food. Though limbs were lost, lives were saved, and diseases spawned by devastation were defeated!
The road to normalcy may be long, but Haitians are strong–– a people historically born of hope, who have survived enslavement, exploitation, dictators and degradation. Their land once known as “The Pearl of the Antilles” can, with a little help from its friends, once more become a thing of beauty, a model of miracles, a success story written with the creativity and toil of its resilient people and the Word of God manifested by His grace.
