A Post From Dixie (GLA Founder and Director)

I had the pleasure of working (playing) with Dawinsky aka Da Da this week.  Please keep praying for Jocelyne, her boys and the rest of her family.

Jocelyne Pierre Louis has been at GLA since 1998.

Posted by Dixie

Jocelyne or Ti Jocelyne as we call her has been at GLA since 1998.  We first met her when someone from a UN medical group brought her to the orphanage along with her 3 month old baby, Endy. 

Joycelyne was living on the street with her baby. Endy was sick and near death.  Jocelyne had been kicked out of her home by her family when she had Endy.  Jocelyne was very young at the time.

Jocelyne and Endy lived with us 6 months.  We really liked Jocelyne and she was a hard worker while she lived with us.  When she left, we rented a house for her and another young mother with twins.  We gave them seed money to help them get set up in a business.  Jocelyne sold clothing and the other mother sold vegetables. 

When Jocelyne went to live downtown, Endy never did well.  The heat really affected him and he was sick all of the time with diarrhea and vomiting.  He lost weight and spent more time with me than he did his mother.  Eventually, I took him back into the orphanage and he lived here until he was 2 years old.

Jocelyne also came back to GLA in 1999 to work and has been  working here every since.  Endy moved from our house to another orphanage and stayed there until he was almost 4 years old.  By then he moved back to be with his mother full time.

Jocelyne is one of my most trusted and hardest workers.  The rest of the staff have always made fun of her and called her my child because I have always depended on her so much.  I do not depend on her as much any more but she is still very important to the running of the orphanage and I call her my head nanny.

I remember going downtown during some great unrest and Jocelyne refusing to let me go by myself.  I truly think she would have protested me with her life if it had been necessary!  I love her very much and am thankful God sent her to GLA.

After the earthquake, Jocelyne brought Endy back to live with us since her home in Carrefour was completely destroyed.   She also brought her youngest son, Dawinsky, who is 1 1/2 years old and terribly spoiled!     He is very active and escapes from the nursery all of the time and finds his way downstairs to visit with everyone!  I think Jocelyne is content to have her 2 days off each week and go to visit her family and leave the kids here with us.  It gives her a little break from having him with her 24/7!

We hope that Jocelyne will be able to find a piece of land to lease in Petion-Ville where we can help build a home for her and her family.  All of her family is living in tents in Carrefour.  We would like to see her get into a house where her children could live with her.

Keep Jocelyne and her family in your prayers and especially pray that we can find land for her to build a house on soon.  Jocelyne was very traumatized by the earthquake and the fact that all of her family lost their homes completely.  She needs to get a home and get her life back to normal.