Author: gnnhomeministries

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. 

Remy Saint-Preux  plays many roles. He is the administrator of GNN. He teaches the ceramic tile and french classes at the trade center and leads the tutors in the after school tutoring program. He is also the leader of Christian singing group called Lumiere Divine. 

Remy was born in northwest Haiti in Gombo in Jean Rabel in 1990. His mom and dad are dead and so are Jameson’s. They have a unique relationship where they have been each other’s family since 2006. They used to work in the garden together, participate in Rara (voodou dancing and singing group), and write jazz music with a group of their friends. They both accepted Christ in 2010. Their music passion was turned towards worship and learning the Bible. They both left Jean Rabel and moved to the city of Port au Prince for school. Remy attended university studying education. While he attended school he taught classes in many different classical schools in the area. Sadly, most of the time, the money he earned for his hard work and sacrifice to invest in the next generation by teaching barely even covered the transportation he had to pay to get to work. Last year (December 2021) Remy finished all of his education classes and FINALLY was ready to move to Leogane to join the GNN team. His passion for Jesus, teaching, learning, and music is a great asset to our team. Remy is engaged to a young woman named Johanne. They plan to get married in December. They are currently trying to find a place to rent until they are able to start building their own home. Please pray with Him that God’s will continue to be done in His life. That he would be available and equipped to do whatever it is God wants. He would love to see his dreams of having a healthy family serving the Lord together come true. 

We have had many people asking the question about our home and who the people are that live with us and how we became this God made family. Over a few blog posts I am going to share person by person who we get to do our most intimate home living with. God is doing beautiful things in each of their stories and we are incredibly proud of them.

Part 1: Stanley

Stanley is one of the young men who lives with us. He was born and spent the first few years of life in a trade town on the border of the DR and Haiti. His family tells him that his father was killed when he was young and that his mother, despite keeping her other children, didn’t keep Stanley. He was raised by an aunt. He was not adopted or treated as her child. He was expected, as most live in children are, to care for the home. He learned to cook, wash clothes, make soap and so much more. He was able to pay his way through his last years of school by selling soap. This is the season when I, shelby, met him. He started showing up to the free English club I was leading out of the local church. He always came in a zip up vest-shirt and I thought he was just trying to be the cool stylish kid. Little did I know, his clothing options were really limited at that time. He would come and practice English and learn some things about the Bible and God along the way. His aunt, uncle and cousins went to church, but didn’t live like people who had a personal relationship with Jesus. After having an invitation every week at English club, finally one Sunday Stanley came to a Sunday church service. After that we began planning construction at our house and he came to help dig out the big “poop hole” otherwise known as a septic tank. He spent every day with him for a couple weeks and realized his home life wasn’t very good. He would show up early to our house and fall asleep anywhere he could find because he was having to share his sleeping space at his aunt’s house with a girl and he didn’t feel comfortable sleeping. We had a few months of getting to know him better because he would come and help do anything he could find at our house for a few months. We got married in November and wanted to go visit Toyo’s family in northern Haiti in December because the manifestations were scheduled to take a break for the holidays. We invited Stanley to travel with us. We spent a whole month meeting new people and visiting new places together. When we got home his aunt and uncle had decided that they were getting too old to care for themselves and were going to move in with one of their children. We helped them move and soon realized Stanley now had nowhere to live. We had a bunk bed in the depot where Schnyder was staying and decided the only thing Stanley wasn’t already doing at our house was sleeping all night so we invited him to stay. About 6 months later Stanley made the decision to give His life completely to Jesus publicly through baptism. Stanley loves to cook, play basketball, workout, watch movies (shrek is his favorite 😂) keep all of his things neat-freak clean, teach little kids and practice English. When I had to leave my kindergarten class to have Abijah he took over my class and has been teaching the last two years. He is patient and understanding and we don’t know what God has in store for him, but it has been a blessing to be a part of his growing to look more like Jesus. He is a dear brother and we would love for you to pray with him as he tries to navigate saving money to buy land and begin his own home.