We have a great STC team in Port au Prince and a lot of interest in other cities in the country. We will visit Haiti in February, where Carlton will meet and pray with leaders to hopefully turn interest into action. It will also be a chance for me (Shannon) to interview leaders and volunteers in Port-Au-Prince for the new Serve the City podcast venture I am launching!

We first met Marc Vetty (pictured with kids above) a number of years ago at a conference for our sending agency, Communitas (then Christian Associates). He immediately saw the possibilities of Serve the City for his home country. And we were excited to meet someone who understood immediately that Serve the City was not about one more group of Americans or Europeans coming to help Haitians for a week and then leave, but a movement by which Haitians would help each other. 

And that is exactly what they have been doing ever since. One such group in need are restavek children: kids who have been given away by their parents to work as unpaid domestic servants in homes and hotels because their parents cannot support them. These children, along with single mothers and other very vulnerable people, have been the recipients of food and clothing distributions. The remarkable thing that that the volunteers are themselves poor, not much better off than those they are helping, and they are making the donations themselves, out of their own resources.

STC Port-Au-Prince also sponsors community events to link people from the neighborhood. These include community sports tournaments, inviting local kids, groups from other organizations and STC volunteers to play together on mixed teams. This brings groups of many classes to play together, including restavek children. Twice monthly they also have a Community Movie Night, gathering people to watch a movie outdoors. This is especially attractive because for a few years now there have been no movie theaters in the area.

Another way they support families—single moms and children who are in danger of being given away—is by offering “Happy Families” classes. They bring the moms together to help them learn to be good parents, also offering them lessons in practical skills such as cooking, sewing, and job readiness. They hope to have computer lab in future where they can offer tech training and online classes.

Marc Vetty, with his vision and understanding of how STC works in a developing nation context, is vital to the future of Serve the City around the world as it spreads to more such places. He has taken his time to develop it well, and to model how this would work for others around him, creating interdependence within the community instead of dependence on foreign help. Now there are many in other Haitian cities interested in what they are doing. Carlton, with Marc, will have the opportunity to convene some of these while we are there and explain to them the values and vision of STC that they can see put into practice in Port-Au-Prince. 

Meanwhile, I hope to be able to record podcast audio that will inspire others around the world to see how Serve the City could impact their communities, and to think more deeply about how we can help the poor can help each other, recognizing that they too have God-given resources that can make a difference!