We Moved Part 4: Jessica’s Perspective

So we had a place we could now feed the kids and still get them some tutoring each day after school.  Because we now knew Audancin was capable of anything, we were not comfortable bringing the kids into Hope Rising without some kind of consent from parents or family members.  Our girl’s cousin immediately got the word out for us.  For the next 3 days, there was a constant stream of visitors at our door.  We were meeting with many parents and relatives of kids who came from an extremely dangerous area of Port au Prince called Cite Soleil (known for it’s violence and gang activity).  We were learning more and more about the situations the kids had come out of.  Over the next few days, God gave us the opportunity to sit down with parents and relatives of kids, tell them how much we love their kids, and tell them the truth about what had happened.  We did not know at the time, but God was already working toward the next step for the kids which was bigger than we realized.  He was giving us a chance to share our hearts and our desires for the kid’s futures.  By Saturday of that same week, we had a plan in place and consent for the majority of the kids to take part in it.  This was exciting and scary all at the same time.  Yes we had a place to see the kids for a few hours each day and feed them.  This just wasn’t enough.  Audancin was so unpredictable at this point that I was terrified about what he would do next.  He had proven himself to be such a greedy man that I had thoughts running through my head of him selling off the kids or even prostituting the girls out.  I realize these things sound harsh and terrible but none are things that I think were out of the realm of possibility.  Keep in mind he had just made a decision to cut off his own children from their food supply because of his greed.  That same Saturday we got word that he had piled all the kids into a vehicle (don’t know how he came up with one) and took them to another orphanage in Leogane (the closest city).  I am sure he was trying to find other Americans who he could tell a sob story to and exploit the kids for money.  It scared me so badly to picture the kids in that scenario and the thought of them going back to a life of exploitation was more than I could stand.  While the new plan seemed good it wasn’t enough.  We had people telling us to get the kids out and get them out fast.  We knew we had to do something quickly the question was what?