In July of 1999, Kelly Fleury was in Haiti attending the funeral of his brother, Dezman, who had worked for a rental care agency and had a passion for helping poor children in and around Leogane. At the funeral Kelly met a poor widow who was weeping because Dezman was the only person who had helped her and her children survive. Inspired by his brother, Kelly formed the Dezman Fleury Foundation that year. They began by building an orphanage. Slowly raising additional funds, they built a clinic and pharmacy, a school, and a bakery. The bakery was used as a business to teach a trade to the girls from the orphanage and to provide funds.

Pictures from their website taken before the earthquake tell the story. The facilities were modest by some standards, but the children were clean and well cared for. The orphanage, school, bakery, and clinic are like many social service ministries in Haiti. They are mostly run by small groups who do the best they can without a lot of resources. What you notice in the pre-earthquake photos is how clean everything was. You also notice the faces of the children. They looked happy.

The earthquake on January 12th decimated the Fleury Foundation buildings, as it did so many others. As usual, the poorest of the poor were the hardest hit.

By January 15th, Edge had 3 teams planned to go to Haiti. We began carefully planning where to locate them and the water treatment centers we were going to build. We had no idea of the existence of the Dezman Fleury orphans.

When you go to a place like Haiti to do relief work, you have to have some boundaries or the sheer size of the disaster will overwhelm you. For the sake of sanity and reality, you have to know your mission and keep your eye on the ball. And yet, for the sake of Christ, you have to be flexible enough to respond to the serendipitous opportunities that present themselves. Somehow you have to stick to the mission and respond to the moment. I don’t know how people find that delicate balance between mission and opportunity, but the place where well-laid plans meet the Holy Spirit seems to be where most of the miracles are found.

There are hundreds of ongoing relief efforts in Haiti. Buried within those larger missions are thousands of small stories where human beings connect and bring compassion into a terrible situation.

This is one of those stories.

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On February 16th, Mike Jones and other members of Edge’s relief team 3 were attending a meeting at the United Nations building near Leogone to discuss water needs with representatives from the U.N., UNICEF, and some other organizations. Through an interpreter, Mike found out that some people from an orphanage were living in a bakery next door to the U.N. Building and were without clean water.

The next day Mike went to investigate along with Bob Doligale and Stewart Haag. They discovered the children and staff from the Dezman Fleury Orphanage living around their decimated bakery. Their orphanage, clinic, and school were totally destroyed in the quake. The bakery had a caved-in roof, but at least it was near the U.N. building, so the children were safer there than out in open fields. They were living in tents and lean-to shelters. Twice a week, when a truck delivered water to the U.N., leftovers were given to the orphans. It was their only supply of water.

When Mike and the Edge team arrived, the Dezman Fleury Foundation staff was trying to repair an aging, hand-dug well. They had capped the well with concrete and were trying to put a hand pump on it. Unfortunately, a goat had fallen into the well and died before they could cap it. They had gotten the goat out of the well, but the water was obviously foul. To make matters worse, the mechanics of the pump, which are more complicated than most people know, were causing great difficulty. This was not a planned mission objective for the Edge team, but clearly they could not leave these people in need. The men on the team were familiar with the kind of pump system being used, so they went right to work. In short order they had the pump working. But the water was filthy. Mike and the others promised to come back the next day with purifying equipment. They gave the children and staff water enough to get them through the night and instructed them to use the well to fill an old tank that they had.

The kids worked all day and into the evening. By the next day they had filled a large tank by hand, one bucket at a time. The Edge team returned the following day and brought one of our chlorine gas purifiers and a filtering system. It took about 3 days to train them to use the system. When the Edge team left, the Dezman Fleury staff were able to use the system to provide themselves with clean, safe water.

The Dezmond Fleury Foundation staff and children are obviously still facing immense challenges. They will need to rebuild their orphanage and school. They are trying to put their lives back together. People can survive for periods of time with little food and temporary shelter. But clean water is an absolute necessity. As of February 20th, the orphans living in the ruins of the bakery do not have to worry about that.

Note: I wrote to Kelly Fleury, who confirmed that the Dezman Fleury orphans are still living around their ruined bakery, but that the clean water system is still working. They are safe for now.

It took us more than 10 years to build and all gone within less than a minute. It is hard to even think about it. Our desire is to rebuild. We need to collect money to start rebuilding. Please raise the awareness for us among friends and fanily members. I am confident that they will let their heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.

Indeed, they are still living by the bakery. Pray for funds so we may start building. The rainy season is around the corner.

Many blessings:

Kelly

If you are interested in helping the Dezman Fleury Foundation in their rebuilding efforts, visit their website.

Edge is currently funding ongoing operations in Haiti. Each water sanitizing unit and filtration system costs Edge about $2700. Your gifts might provide enough to allow us to bring extra purification units with us. Having margins and planning for unexpected blessings is our way of inviting the Holy Spirit to travel with us to Haiti.

Gordon Atkinson for Edge Outreach

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