The post below was written by the Jubilee School stateside administrator, Doreen Sigman. To me this post epitomizes what the effort to create and sustain the school is all about.
I hope you enjoy the school's blog as it was created as a forum to share experiences, find out about upcoming opportunities to serve the school and donate, inspire, and see a little glimpse into the blessing of these students and their lives.
- Sarah Frances Boshers
Why I Was there....Why WAS I There????
This story begins with a photo taken of a village street. Well, I took the picture because I was the designated photographer for a mission team associated with the First Baptist Church, Brunswick, GA.
2/09: I set out to see what I couldn't read about in a book, to better understand a grander picture, to gain perspective and got my money's worth! We traveled in the back of a pick-up truck five hours from PAP (Port Au Prince Airport) to Gonaives conducting medical and dental clinics along the way. Those five hours compounded backward in sanitation, treatment of children, technology, theology.....in ways best left for others to examine by their own standard. The destination, the poorest of the poor in the poorest country of the Western Hemisphere, Jubilee Blanc, left the team virtually unable to speak of our experience when we got home. It was there that I took the picture of the village street as it starkly contrasted with the beautiful mountains behind it....but, what I saw when I got home and looked at the picture, was the boy - naked and, essentially, all I had done was come to take his picture. Introspection time.
Meanwhile, Kathy Brooks (co-director of Much Ministries) was headed to Gonavies to stay with Mari and Emory (permanent missionaries to Jubilee Blanc). As Kathy and I share a love of artsy things, I asked her to bring some supplies to Woobens. Woobens is a 24-year old young man who perseveres! The kind of young man who hangs in a tree he gets stuck in for days while trying to go for help during a flood. The kind of young man who learns English, computer skills, and is approaching the 1% mark of Haiti's young people who graduate high school. He is a gifted artist. I wanted to help him help himself. Instead, he sent me back a picture he could have sold back to me, essentially giving me all he had...talent, wealth, himself. Introspection time.
6/09: Return to Haiti to find the lost boy from the photo of the village street and to paint with Woobens! I never did find the lost boy, but now know the children of Jubilee Blanc are all lost and all deserve to be found.
We did a Vacation Bible School in the blazing heat, fed the children, and began learning their names. Things change when we know each others' names. Woobens and I painted and Emory and Mari shared their vision of a school in Jubilee Blanc. Suddenly 31 years of teaching, 3 teaching degrees, experience supporting teachers, 10 years of foster parenting and 6 children of my own looked like a vast eternal plan. Ok, that's cool!
9/09 (my third trip in 6 months): I returned for 16 days with curriculum, teaching supplies, and student supplies in hand. Two teachers were hired, a classroom was built, and 30 little ones from Jubilee Blanc started kindergarten. Little blank slates without preconceptions, prior knowledge, crayons, or any idea about what their own faces look like. They made toys from things visitors discarded and are without any comparison for hungry. What a mighty God I serve who would turn hunger for what I could not learn in a book, to books which will deliver a people from hunger.
Jubilee Blanc is not the miserable, desperate place I first took a picture of. It's comfortable and happy - a place of destiny waiting to be fulfilled where everybody knows your name.
- Doreen Sigman
