“My name is Mike Smyth, and I first visited the Cabaret children’s home in 2012.  We had seen poverty on other mission trips, but not poverty to this extent.  There were sights and smells that I had never experienced, as we traveled from the airport to Bercy.  Oh, plus the heat.  

Once at the orphanage, interacting with the kids was a joy.  They jumped up in the truck and helped us unload our luggage.  Some were very outgoing, while others stood back to see what we were about. 

As the week went by, we got to know a number of kids’ names and were able to interact with them, mostly because they knew English – certainly not our language skills with Creole.  Mike Snider encouraged us to pick a child to sponsor before we left to return home.  Not understanding exactly what that meant, my wife and I kept our eyes open for a child that we could sponsor when we returned to the U.S.  That was a really hard task.  What type of child do you choose to sponsor in an environment such as CHM?  

Therefore, she chose to sponsor a child, I chose to sponsor a child, and we chose to sponsor a child.  There you go, three little humans that we could pray for every day, plus send money to CHM to help with their support.  What a journey it has been.  Each year as we returned to CHM, we anxiously looked over the top of the tap tap as we arrived, searching for those three precious children.  They knew we were in the truck, and as we told them we had been praying for them, they replied that they had been praying for us also.  

It has been over three years since we have seen “our kids” in person.  We still pray, send support, and ask God to intervene in Haiti, so they can have a better life.  Those three kids that we sponsored on the first trip are now all over 17 years old.  They have success and failures to talk about, not unlike the kids that live in the U.S.  

Through CHM, we have been given a connection to a child that we would have never known.  I thank God for that blessing and urge everyone to support a child at CHM.  It is a lifelong journey, for us and them.”