Cleanta aka Madam KK was amazing in the kitchen. It was her cooking that taught me to love Haitian Creole cuisine…her rice, beans and chicken …oh my goodness.

In addition to her culinary expertise she was such a kind person. She received our endless compliments with a sweet smile. Of course, I was only acquainted with her because she worked at Mission Bon Berger. I knew nothing more about her until one afternoon in January 1989.

Imogene Dixon founded the mission at least a decade earlier. She was getting ready to retire but someone had a different plan for her life. She couldn’t turn her back on what she’d seen and experienced in Haiti and thus the mission with the schools and feeding centers. She invited me to take a walk with her into the town of Milot . It wasn’t long before we arrived at Cleanta’s home. By Haitian standards it was pretty decent. It was a long time ago, and I don’t remember the exact numbers but I’m sure that she had four or five children of her own. What I discovered that day was that she had taken in a similiar number of children from the community. I know that at least a couple of them faced physical and mental challenges. It’s a moment I’ll never forget.  As an American, I feel like I’m doing some good when I send money to a developing country to help a child in need. Yet here was a woman IN a developing country who took multiple children into her own home. She not only shared the space of her home but she shared the love, time and attention that otherwise would’ve gone to her own children. And this was for children that no one else wanted. Her home sorely needed a significant addition to house the children.

Next we walked a bit to where Christian lived. By now he was about 20 years old and lived on his own. I believe it was an aunt who left a small home to him. He’d been trying to communicate to me that there was a problem with the roof and that when it rained the water came down on him in his bed. So I came to see if I could help. It was a pretty standard old Haitian home replete with a rusted tin roof and baked mud walls…painted brightly blue and pink. The dimensions were perhaps 9’ by 25’. In general the house was very dilapidated. What I learned next amazed and dumbfounded me. He lived in a small room on the left side of the house perhaps 9’ x 6’. Through an interpreter I asked what about the rest of the house? He said a Haitian family lived there. I wondered if they paid him rent. The answer was a simple no.

Many people think that we go on mission trips to bring Jesus to someone else. I learned a long time ago Jesus is already there and I’ve encountered him in some of the poorest and most desperate places on our planet in a profound way. That afternoon I might as well have walked through Milot with Him.

As we walked back to the mission I knew that I could never forget what I’d seen and heard that afternoon. That evening I shared what I had experienced with our team of adults. Before the day ended we had a plan in place to make a difference for some beautiful Haitian people.

I returned that summer with a youth team. As I recall, the addition to Cleanta’s home was completed and a brand new home for Christian was well on its way. That was 30 years ago and that’s the same home that Christian  lives in today with his wife and children. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

When I returned in August I purchased my first home in Westmont. My father, always a generous man helped me with the down payment. I love the parallel and the symmetry of Christian and I moving into our new homes the same year…with some assistance.

In retrospect it’s hard to put a finger on exactly when it happened…but it was around this time that Christian stop calling me Pastor Paul or Jean Paul (long story)…and simply called me Papa Paul. Which is what he calls me to this day…