Madam Brunet's Sewing School

I have to say that while we started Fish Company with the intention of helping widows and orphans I always kind of knew that the original plan of building orphanages would evolve into something more.  How fitting is it that a ministry that is so rooted in sewing would end up building a sewing school for young girls.  

When Hannah came back from her first trip to Haiti she was filled with excitement not only about what God was doing there, but who He was using to accomplish His work.  Hannah had the blessing of leading a team of Southeastern University Students on this trip where they worked with Schools For Haiti's Matt Perry.  When Hannah first met Matt she knew that somehow our ministries were supposed to be tied together.  

She came home filled with excitement and couldn't wait for us to meet Matt to discuss how Schools for Haiti and Fish Company could work together to save the world.  

 

All it took was breakfast at First Watch and a little bit of "What if?" conversation and the idea to build Fish Company's first sewing school was born.  

Madam Titus Brunet is a wonderful woman who worked as a cook at School's for Haiti's Rock School who had three awesome things going for her, she was an amazingly gifted seamstress, she had a huge heart for teaching others, and she was a personal friend to Matt Perry, who also happened to know of a certain ministry that knew a lot about sewing.  

Two weeks later we were on a plane bound for Port Au Prince to meet Madam Brunet in person and discuss the future of Montrouis' own sewing school.  It was a lifelong dream of Titus and her sweet husband, Pastor Simeon, to have a school where they could teach young women a life skill that could not only provide them with a good career but help these young women support their families in the future.  The dream was so solidified in the minds of Titus and Simeon that they had spent the last several years preparing to build the school in their own backyard.  Every day on his way home from work Simeon would gather cement blocks from the rubble of buildings destroyed in the earthquake from 2010.  He would carry these blocks along with buckets of sand as he made the long steep hike up to their home that sits on the side of a mountain.  I could only stare in amazement as I took in the sight of that pile of cement blocks he had gathered in the hopes that one day God would build them a sewing school.  The idea that God would use us to fulfill the dreams of someone so faithful humbles me.  With tears in our eyes, we wholeheartedly agreed to help them build their school.  

Two months after that we started fundraising for that school and almost a year to the day, we were back in Montrious with a small team of people putting that dream into action as we put the finishing touches on the building that will help change the lives of the women in Montrouis.  

We are so incredibly blessed to do what we do.  I am so grateful as I write this and think about each person who gave their fish to be a part of this project; the donated finances, sewing machines, fabric, tables, chairs, scissors, the hands that helped build the building, construct the walls, even carry the blocks up the side of that mountain.  I am reminded that we don't have to serve God, we get to serve Him and sometimes that means that we get to serve others.