The Story of Venita

You may remember the story of Venita. She was one of the people we helped after the earthquake by letting her stay at our house with her 3 month old baby, Sarah. She thought that her whole family had been killed when the house where they were living collapsed during the earthquake. But God had other plans. She found her 3 year old son at her Father’s house a month after the earthquake, and then 3 months later she found out that her husband and 6 year old daughter had fled to the Dominican Republic, but had since come back to Haiti.

Venita left our house a few months after the earthquake and lived in a shack on a property owned by her family. During that time Venita’s husband, Berjano had not really been living with them. He said that he had to stay downtown with a friend a lot of the time to be available early in the morning for day work. So Venita’s job as a kindergarten teacher was the family’s only means of support for much of the past year.

In August we found out that the whole family was finally in a position to live together, since the husband, Berjano, had just found a more permanent job.
Unfortunately the next month Venita called us up and said that Berjano had asked her for a divorce and wanted to take her oldest girl with him. It turned out that Berjano had been having an affair and had a child with his lover.

Carol and I prayed about the situation and decided to help her try and build a house out of block so that she could have some security and Bejano could not come and take her daughter. The problem was that our earthquake relief funds were almost gone, and it was going to cost quite a bit to build her a house. So we started to pray and we decided to ask one supporter in particular if she would consider giving a gift toward the house. The supporter sent back an email saying that she had already sent a large gift to our account two days before, and that we could use it however God directed us! So you see that even before we prayed, God had answered our prayer for Venita and her family.

So for the past three weeks, we have had Venita and her three children: Sarah 2, Gaeton, 3 and Bergline 7 staying with us at our house while Venita’s house has been built.

Please pray for Venita as she enters into this new stage in her life as a single Mom with 3 young children. She works full time as a Kindergarten teacher, and will also be taking courses to get an official degree in teaching.