Our Family- Who are those people living with you? Part 3: Samy Cadet

Samuel Cadet, at 20 years old, is the youngest of the bigs at our house. He grew up in a town about 45 minutes north of us called Carrefour. He was raised by his mom with his 2 older sisters. His family, although Christian in name, was not founded on Biblical truth. They moved to Leogane into a one room house bought by his brother in law. The space was shared between him, his mom, his sister and nephew. His mom has jumped from business to business his whole life and that is how they survived, but there was no education on how to take care of a business or financial responsibility so they spent most of their time paying back debt and not being able to invest in anything of their own. They also have a history of having many children with different partners and not finishing school. A lot of messy, BUT GOD…was writing a different story.

We met Samy through Hope Rising church, but our relationship became stronger when Samy showed up to dig the foundation of our house as a tiny 17 year old. Everyone thought he would quit after the first day of back breaking shoveling and using a pick to break rock- many of the other men did. Despite the hard work, he stuck with it all week. We learned more about him and that he attended the public school (the cheapest schooling option but still not free) in Leogane and that he needed to find ways to pay for the fees at school. We also learned that he loved playing any instrument he could get his hands on. He was learning English and wanted to grow in His relationship with Jesus. He chose to be baptized shortly after and since then has been growing in many different ways. He leads worship at church events, helps with children’s ministry, has been a tutor in the library for the last year and will be starting his first year teaching at a school officially as the 4th grade teacher this fall. By Samy moving in with us, he has been able to have some distance from the bad habits of his home long enough to see that he can be different. It has been a hard and persistent road trying to fight the learned bad habits of terrible management, but we are so excited to see Samy making the conscious, consistent decision to surrender to what God wants. He is giving back his first fruits to God and investing in his future. He hopes to one day be able to send other kids to school. He is breaking the chains that have held his family for so long. We are hoping and praying his family will follow.

Last month he received his test results for his final high school exam (there are 13 years of school in Haiti) and he passed!!!

We don’t know what the road ahead looks like for Samy, but we know that His father in heaven is doing good things in his life. He is full of talent and he wants God to receive the glory. He would like for you to pray with him as he wants to love himself exactly the way God has made him, not always comparing himself to others or what he wishes was different. Also, that he would use his time wisely and not waste what God has put right before him by being lazy or discouraged.