We Moved Part 5: Jessica’s Perspective

In the midst of our prayers, confusion, and fears, we saw God do something amazing. We had no idea what to do next but God already had a plan in mind. After the first couple of days doing meals and lessons at Hope Rising, Cara mentioned to me the thought of moving the kids temporarily into the Hope Rising Guesthouse. It sounded wonderful but I didn’t know how serious the offer was. I will never forget asking Cara how serious she was and her replying that they were very serious and just needed to check with their board. They got the go ahead from the board and I was ready to move the kids in as quickly as possible. I am the type of person that steps into action. If there is a problem and a solution has been found, I see no point in waiting around. Matt is the exact opposite. He likes to process and think over things for a much longer time than I would like. In this way we balance each other out. For about a day we talked hypothetically about moving the kids into Hope Rising the next Saturday and then both realized we had to stop talking and just do. I know this was hard for Matt but I also know he knew it was right.

We began to try to formulate a plan to move the kids in that Saturday. To say there were a lot of moving parts to the plan is an enormous understatement. We had to get a representative for each child there, tell them our plan, and get them to agree to our plan. This was not easy. Many had to be tracked down and found. The trickiest part of all of this was that we had to do it without Audancin finding out. We were scared that if he heard the plan, he may take the kids somewhere else or worse. I have also not mentioned that Matt and I would also now be moving into a room in the Hope Rising guesthouse to take care of the kids. In the midst of everything else, we were packing up the home we had known at Christianville and trying to quietly move things over to Hope Rising a little at a time. We knew that if Audancin even knew about this, it could be bad and word travels very very quickly in Haiti. Keeping this all a secret made things that much harder. My parents had planned a sponatenous trip to Haiti for that Wednesday to Sunday not realizing we would be moving the kids but just knowing we needed people there to support us right now. It seemed as though everything was coming to a head.

We knew we needed to tell the sponsors of the kids but even that scared us that things could somehow get back to Audancin. Any spare time that we had was spent packing up our house and nights were spent in worry rather than sleep. I lived with a constant pit in my stomach. On Thursday of that week we sent out a call to arms to our sponsors. We knew that Saturday could not be successful without the people that love and support our kids praying and that’s just what we asked them to do. We knew that nothing could happen in our power and that the only way would be through God’s Power. I have heard about miracles but never witnessed one first hand until that Saturday and I know for certain it is because people were praying.