It’s been almost seven years since he lost his mother in the earthquake. She was visiting her sister in the hospital in downtown Port-au-Prince that afternoon and the building collapsed, crushing her body beneath its weight, marking the beginning of a new chapter for her children.

“Lauren, I have beautiful news for you! Kimberly and I are getting baptized on Saturday.” Anne Marie was beaming with pride as I stepped into her bedroom last week, almost a year since she first expressed to me her desire to be baptized.

We write to you today on behalf of Gervens, to ask you to be part of bringing Gervens home to live with his family—what we believe is God’s best plan for his life and what we know is Gervens’ desire for his future.

On Saturday, July 2, six of the Lighthouse kids participated in their first wedding ceremony, the wedding of one of the national Back2Back staff at Lighthouse, Jean Wadson Delvar.

Before I moved to Haiti, I believed children lived in orphanages for one of two reasons. 1. They truly are orphaned children without a living biological mother and father. 2. Their parents do not want them and thus, these “orphans” are placed under the care of someone else, operating some sort of institution.