Update

If you build it they will come.....  I remember the first time I heard the concept that orphanages create orphans.  I was sitting at a missions event listening to some missionary from across the world share about a project he was working on when I heard him say something that shook my heart.  He said he believed that the construction of orphanages was not necessarily a good thing, he believed that orphanages created orphans.  He felt that orphanages provided a way out for parents who either could not, or would not, care for their own children, and that the construction of the orphanage was just an answer that created more problems.  I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach.  He didn't know what he was talking about.  I felt angry when I heard his ridiculous opinion.  I knew that he didn't understand the true concept of what it meant to be an orphan.  I felt like with this one statement he undermined my mission and made a mockery of God's word. You see God's word tells us to care for all the widows and orphans in the world.  He doesn't say care for the mothers of the orphans, or teach the father of the orphan to farm, although those are perfectly wonderful things to do.  He says "care for the widows and orphans."  He must have known that in this fallen world, this was going to be a problem.  

I went home that night thinking "Wow, Lord, if your own people don't see the need to care for orphans, who else will?"  Was I wrong in thinking these buildings were a part of the answer?  Was I wrong in believing that God was calling me to care for these orphans?  The next day, I did what I usually do when I think someone is crazy, that their beliefs are completely wrong, I searched google and the Bible for some truths.....and I got them.  God provides us more than 100 verses on caring for orphans.  As a matter of fact, it is the only thing he calls "true religion" in the Bible.  Now, why would He tell us to do something 100 times if it wasn't going to be necessary to actually do it?

To be fair, what the gentleman was saying was not that he didn't care for orphans, just that he believed that we should focus our attention on fixing the family unit so that there were no orphans in the world, rather than focus time and money on orphan care. Great idea if those family units want to be fixed, or if the children who are currently orphaned can sit around and wait until we fix the world.  Also, remember, God said care for the orphans.  

Whether it is ultimately the responsibility of parents to care for their own children or not is completely irrelevant here because often times, the parents either can not or will not care for these children.  Which means that the responsibility has to fall somewhere else, the answer has to come from somewhere....and as Christians we are that answer.  God tells us we are.

In a perfect world there would be no orphans; there would be no poverty, sex trafficking, crimes against children, or slavery.  In a perfect world, all parents would love their children, mothers would never die, and father's would never abandon their little boys and girls, and if they did, a great fairy god mother would swoop in and provide a castle for them to live in.  In a perfect world we wouldn't have to worry about building homes to protect orphans, because there wouldn't be orphans.  And, in a perfect world, Jesus would not have had to die for our sins and tell the recipients of His grace that we are now part of his solution to the world's problems.

But, this isn't a perfect world and no matter how you roll the dice, there are still more than 153 million orphans worldwide.  That number does not include the uncounted masses of children living in garbage dumps, or sold into slavery.  We are talking true, abandoned, no one cares for them, alone in this world, orphans.

I believe it is important to build up the family unit.  I believe that if we can help a single mother get a job so that she can feed her kids, we are providing a viable solution so that maybe she won't have to give up her children.  I believe that men can be taught to be fathers.  I also believe that these solutions are not necessarily going to fix the world for every abandoned child.

What about the orphans living in the trash piles in Tanzania?  What about the little girls rescued out of sex-trafficking in Thailand?  What about the children in South Africa who are alone because both parents have died from aids?  What about the babies in Haiti that are abandoned on the roadside because they are thought to be cursed because they are born with six toes?  When the Lord asks whom shall I send?  I say "send me."

You see the problem with that man's solution is that there has to be someone who cares about being a parent to that child in order for focus on the family rehabilitation to occur.  Many of these children have no one to rehabilitate.  Thank goodness that God cares for our spiritual needs and our physical needs.  

God cares so so much.  You see God knew mankind and because of our fallacies He knew He would need to create a safety net for the least of these.  That safety net is me....it's you....it's anyone who claims to be a child of the King of Kings. That safety net is the church, it's Fish Company, it's the body of Christ.  

That safety net is churches that provide food and shelter to children who previously lived on the streets; it's orphanages in India sandwiched between churches and homes; it's gardens in Haiti that provide food and nutrients; it's wells that provide fresh drinking water; it's Hope Centers and sewing schools that provide education; it's Fish Company.  Fish Company is God's answer. 

Please consider donating now and help us make the world a better place for orphans across the globe.  

Chalinda is a 3 year old Haitian who cannot walk or talk largely due to a lack of nutrition when she was younger. See how your donation can change lives. Check out the full blog

I can honestly say that our Haiti 1 mission trip in February 2020 was one of the most fulfilling experiences I have ever had in my life.  How could it not be?  It was a trip to a tropical island with 23 of my closest friends to do three of the things I love to do the most; talk about Jesus, love on orphans, and enjoy the beach.  Well, there was also lots and lots and lots of work.  The team was made up of an incredible mixture of these amazing college students, a bunch of my closest friends with their lovely daughters, and some of our other wonderful girlfriends.  Our team was lead by my beautiful daughter Hannah and of course the incredible Matt Perry from Schools for Haiti.  

This trip was so much more than just planting gardens and teaching a generation of children a new skill, though.  On this trip, we threw a big birthday party for the children at Makencia's providing them with presents, games, toys, cake and even a pinata.  We visited 3 different schools and hosted a VBS at each one, we took part in street evangelism and passed out bags of groceries to people in need, and we put on the first-ever women's conference in Montrouis. 

We crammed so much into this week-long trip and I love that I was with a team of people that are as adventurous as we are.  We ended up taking a hike up an aqueduct to the top of a mountain,  a boat ride to an island off the coast, we went snorkeling in the middle of the Haitian bay,  we prayed over 5 voodoo compounds and over the voodoo mambas as well, we loved on numerous orphans, laid hands on women in need, provided medical care to the people in the village, we worshiped on the beach each night and shared Jesus with anyone who would listen.  

I loved this trip because we were forced to follow Holy Spirits lead, our agenda became His agenda and everything worked out according to His plan, not ours, and isn't that just the way it's supposed to be?  

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14.  

God wants to heal the land of Haiti and He wants to use his body of believers to do it.  We were so blessed in 2020 not just to go to Haiti once, but to go twice.  It was our plan to empty our bus and set up our new sewing school on our Haiti 1 mission trip in February, but that was not God's plan.....and I am so glad His plan unseated ours.  We took a team of just 5 of us on the Haiti 2 trip and it was everything you dream a mission trip should be.  We worked hard, played hard, ministered to the people, loved on the children and worshiped our Savior.  

It may have seemed to the outside world like odd timing, but God's timing is never off.  The corona virus was just taking hold.  As a matter of fact, I didn't know how serious it was until they took our temperature for a med check before they allowed us to enter the Country.  But, once we got there, we didn't look back.  We had a months work of worth to accomplish in less than a week.

We were so happy to be able to bless the people of Montrouis with not only the bus, but all the wonderful donations on the bus, including more than 30 bins of fabric, 8 sewing machines, 20 bins of sewing notions, tables, chairs and just about anything else you could imagine you might need to stock the shelves of the sewing school.  We were blessed to be able to pray with Pastor Simeon and Madam Brunet as they launched their sewing school that will change so many lives of the young women in the village.

What a blessing it was to deliver all the clothes, diapers, food, furniture and various other donated items to our orphanage in Montrouis.  The sweetest thing was watching the children play on the two story play house that was donated by the Phoenix family.   Dady Jeanvier, who is the husband of Makencia, the woman who runs the orphanage, told us that this was a great gift to these children and that they would cherish it forever.  He told us that not even the richest families in Haiti would have something like that for their kids to play with.  For an orphan child to have a gift so grand was something that these kids would never forget.  

While we were so blessed to be able to accomplish so much on this trip work wise, probably some of the sweetest moments were spent during our worship time on the beach at night.  The 5 of us pulled our chairs down to the waters edge and worshiped the God of all creation as the stars danced in the sky above the softly crashing waves.  These moments were such a gift from God, like the perfect calm before the storm. It was like God was giving us a moment to catch our breath and put on our armor before we headed back to the chaos we found in America.

On this Valentine’s Day 2017 I am reminded of God’s infinite love for us and I am so amazed that He allows us to be a small part of His big plan. It was about 3 and 1/2 years ago that we sent our first delivery of Mkate dolls with Olivia Kamm, a missionary from Idlewild Church in Tampa, Florida, to the orphans of the Twanza Little School in Zambia. There are more than 1,000,000 orphans in this country that is roughly the size of Texas with approximately the same population. This gives Zambia one of the highest per capita orphan rates in the world. According to Zambian orphan facts, in 1 out of every 4 households, a child acts as the primary caregiver, due to the death or abandonment of the parents. There is so much need…..but God….. I am so thankful that we are a part of helping orphans in Africa and that we can look at those staggering orphan facts and say “but God”. God has a plan and that plan includes each of us. His word is clear as He calls on us to be a part of His big picture.

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

On this day of love, ask yourself how you can be a part of something bigger than you, a part of making a difference in this world? God has given each one of us fish to share. Your fish may be donating money to build a home for orphans in Africa, or helping to build a Hope Center in Guatemala, speaking as an advocate for children in need, or giving fabrics and craft supplies to a ministry, going on a mission trip or sharing God’s word through the purchase of Bibles for a church in China. The point is, we all have something to give, it may be money, talent, time or your prayers, but you definitely have something to give. What are you going to do with your fish? At Fish Company we like to say we just bring what we have to God and let Him do the miracle. Let Him feed 5,000 with your loaves and fish.

As I walked down the jetway that connected our plane to Haiti I was filled with excitement. We were finally here. I was getting ready to step into my “what’s next”. The actual planning of this trip only took about 2 and 1/2 weeks, but in reality, it has been years in the making. I may not have known that God was taking me to this small island nation located in the middle of the Caribbean located somewhere between North and South America in February 2019, until February of 2019, but He knew. He has known all along that one day my next step would be planting seeds for change in the rich, fertile soil of the tropical island of Haiti.