Sixty-eight-year-old Richasson Israel, a guard at HAFF, recently told the following story to HAFF missionary Carla Wilson.
Richasson remembers, “After Mme. Lila Clark (the founder of HAFF) and the other missionaries started setting up schools and people learned how to read the Bible many more people went around preaching the Bible and that is why you see so many Protestant churches today though there is still just the one Catholic church in our community… Haitians who passed through Bohok-LaJeune were attracted to come live here because people here were healthy and at peace. That was because there were so many Christians here. Life here was better than it was before with the evil spirits. People ate better, saved money, were healthier and at peace.”
HAFF has made a big difference in the community and in my life personally. It built a school, which didn’t cost a lot, and even gave scholarships and lunches. Two of my kids have graduated from IPB and another is in 11th grade. HAFF has helped them with work-study scholarships.
The ambulance at HAFF has helped my family in so many ways. About 12 years I was very sick from typhoid… The HAFF missionaries got the ambulance for me. The doctor told me to return and tell those people that it was because of them that I was still alive. If I hadn’t come to the hospital, I would have been dead in 5 hours or so.
Over the years my family has been able to go to the HAFF clinic and see Mme Telius many times without having to go to a bigger hospital. There we find people treat us with respect as neighbors and the medicine is not so expensive as it is other places…
HAFF has also helped my family and the community by providing jobs… to all sorts of people. People could find a little money and slowly they passed out of their misery…
In December a son I had from my first marriage died. His wife had abandoned him and her own mother to take care of the children. Now I need to send money to feed the three grandchildren who live with their other grandmother. I am responsible for all the rest of their needs as well. And prices just get higher and higher…
But I do not despair. God took a lot of our suffering on the cross to save us, but he said that there would still be suffering left for us. I see it is God who has provided HAFF and also my church where people have prayed over my wife, helping her stay alive.
I do not know what God will do in the future for us, but my wife and I did not think that we would have this last year together and he has given us that. God is good.
Besides God, no one has helped me more than HAFF.”