Yvon Jean Baptise is a patient man. He has no choice.
Baptise, who built a school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and has moved mountains of food and other supplies to the impoverished country, has to wait and pray that the lawless chaos and violence subsides so he can resume his mission.
“I started a non-profit school in 2001,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in Knoxville, Tennessee. School of the Hand of God started with 120 students and grew to 130.
Students going up through middle school learned the basics: reading, writing, arithmetic and the Bible.
“I wanted to do the right thing. They got food at least once a day,” he said. The age of the students varied. “They could be 10, they could be 20.”
An earthquake flattened the schoolhouse in 2010 but the school’s instructors kept on teaching.
He hasn’t done it alone. The two men assisting him with the school have gathered supplies and materials and kept them in a storage building on site. He had planned to build a new classroom by next year.
He has had the support of friends and churches, including Semeion Richardson, the owner of Artist With A Purpose in Leesburg, and Frontier Church.
“We sent tons of food and clothing. We gathered enough food to feed 1,000 people in 2021,” Richardson said.
“Water is a big problem there,” Baptise said. One of the things Baptise was able to send was a water purifying device called a “straw.”
Covid was the first roadblock, but it would not be the last. Baptise began making shipments “underground,” as he put it, and had to pay to get into some neighborhoods.
The government has since collapsed. Gang violence, killings and kidnapping have become the norm.
Baptise has two brothers he is close to in Haiti and their reports are terrifying.
“You can hear gunshots,” he said. Strangers in a neighborhood are suspected of being rival gang members and quickly become targets.
“There are people laying there dead in the streets.”
Baptise, 44, who does IT support for a community college, has lived in Knoxville for 15 years. “I also teach at my house,” he said.
“I delivered papers for the News Sentinel for 10 years,” he said. He is now working on getting his bachelor’s degree.
He is divorced with two sons, one in college, one in high school.
He wants to go back, not to stay but to help.
“My heart cries for the people, for the project,” he said.
Donations can be made to www.schoolofthehandofgod.com, but right now money is not the most urgent need on Baptiste’s mind.
“People can pray,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Leesburg helps man who established school in Haiti
Reporting by Frank Stanfield / Daily Commercial
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
