Heart for Haiti was founded in December of 1981
by Dutchman Johan Smoorenburg, a missionary of 36 years. He
started his work on the island Martinique. After 10 years there,
he left Martinique and went to Haiti with his wife and two children
with a vision to do something for young people.
Johan Smoorenburg received this vision when he took a trip
to the island two years before. He visited an orphanage resembling
more of a pigsty than it did a home. There were more than
50 small children—all of them malnourished and sleeping
on the floor.
Johan Smoorenburg started a work on faith and God began doing
wonders. With support from the Netherlands, he realized his
dream to build a children’s village. His goal was to
allow underprivileged children to receive good care and education.
Heart for Haiti in Bon Repos also has a church,
linked with the church in Martinique where Johan Smoorenburg
worked for ten years as an evangelist at the beginning of
his career as a missionary.
Little by little, the village started to grow; and, in August
1983, the first 40 children came to live there. Many of the
children had been abandoned at birth and came straight from
the hospital.
Over the course of many years, some hundreds of children
were given a chance at a successful life.
Jenny Tryhane, founder of UCT worked in partnership
with Pastor Pierre
Banes Laurore the Haiti Kids EE National Coordinator trained
12 English speaking interpreters in preparation for Don and
Carla Thompson, the Kids EE Caribbean Coordinator's visit
to Haiti later in 2009.
In January 2009 Jenny visited Heart for Haiti
for the distributed hundreds of
Make Jesus Smile shoeboxes to the Heart for Haiti Children's
Village.
Thanks to Robert en Durkje de Vries who helped
distribute the gifts and thanks to the children of the Abundant
Life Assembly Sunday School that once again this year
prepared hundreds of Make Jesus Smile shoeboxes which were
distributed all over Haiti.
Based on our convictions, the vision of the Heart
for Haiti foundation is to relieve need wherever it’s
necessary. The goal of Heart for Haiti is to reach the poor
with aid and the Gospel. Through the current and prospective
work and proclamation of the Gospel in Haiti, the social, public
and evangelical standards and values are being actively carried
out.
The young people in the children's
village and adults are being offered the opportunity of a better
future through schooling and proper nourishment. The senior
citizens peacefully enjoy their old age. The children's village
in Bon-Repos, together with the projects in Leogane are and
will remain an 'Oasis of Hope'.
Seen here Jenny from United
Caribbean Trust distributing the Make Jesus Smile shoeboxes
to the children of the Heart for Haiti school.
Click to view more school children collecting their gifts
The school is a building with
2 floors containing 15 classes. The teachers have all had
secondary teacher training, training that can be taken in
Port-au-Prince. The teachers follow a program prescribed by
the ministry of education from which they are not permitted
to deviate.
Click
to see the school children receiving their Make
Jesus Smile shoeboxes.
This school has been totally destroyed in the recent
earthquake praise God no one was killed.
All of these children are available
to be sponsored through Heart for Haiti.
