Herbison’s Future
I know that we have been advertising a lot for our matching funds initiative, and if you missed our announcement, we have a new $6,000 matching funds grant! If you would like to take part in our matching funds grant, just click the donate button or go here. At the same time, we did not want to continue pushing back our series of blogs about our kids’ future. So our first blog is for our oldest boy…Herbison.
At 18, Herbison is the oldest kid living at All Things New Orphanage. He is also the best athlete (actually one of the best soccer players in our area) and does really well in school. In a different life, Herbison would be a senior in High School, starring for his school’s soccer team, and deciding which college to play for next year on scholarship. That last sentence was really difficult to write because of how true it is. However, it is not our job to look back longingly at a life that could have been but to look forward to a life that still has immense potential. We met with Herbison back in May to talk about what he wants to do with his life and what he hopes to accomplish both short-term and long-term.
In the short-term, Herbison would like to continue going to school at Christianville where he is currently in 9th grade. Haitian school goes to 13th grade (it is called Philo) so Herbison will graduate in about 5 years. This would be a great achievement as only a very small percentage of Haitians have the opportunity to graduate High School. He would also like to find a club soccer team to play on, and he may have found one in a nearby city called Leogane. He also has a side business of selling souvenirs to teams that come to town and he takes our trash and the trash from the kids’ house to a local dump 2x per week as well. He is staying busy, and we were very happy that one of his main goals is to graduate from Christianville school.
When we asked Herbison about his longer term plans, he definitely had some ideas of what he hoped to do. He has a real desire to attend university and to study either theology or law and possibly work as an attorney. He definitely has the potential to do either of those 2 things, and we will do whatever we can to help him attain his goal. In his school last year, Herbison averaged over a 7 in his classes (grading here is much different, but in simple terms a 7 is really good) and played on his class soccer team. Please continue to be in prayer for him and his future because he is a very talented young man.