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Update on the Son of God orphanage

Son of God orphanage
It’s been several months since the story broke about the Son of God (SOG) orphanage in Haiti. As you may recall, SOG had to be closed in the wake of evidence that the family who ran it was trafficking the orphans. It made international news. It has taken a lot of investigative work to learn th…
By Seth Barnes
By Seth Barnes
SOG 1It’s been several months since the story broke about the Son of God (SOG) orphanage in Haiti. As you may recall, SOG had to be closed in the wake of evidence that the family who ran it was trafficking the orphans. It made international news.
It has taken a lot of investigative work to learn that dozens of kids from SOG who were never recovered by the authorities had been moved to new places. Adventures staff member Matt Loeffler has spearheaded our efforts. He and his wife, Tiffany, have a special interest in the situation. They have been trying to adopt two of the SOG children. He files the following report:
Tiffany and I flew out to Haiti as soon as we heard about the pending raid. We were also anxious to see the 2 children we were in the process of adopting, James and Lorie. But we were devastated to learn that both children were among those missing.
One of the hardest things we’ve ever done to have to return home not knowing where our kids were. Upon arriving home we decided to fight for our kids by appealing to our government system for aid. Due to the perilous situation our children were in, Tiffany and I filed Humanitarian Parole applications for both children as a possible way to get James and Lorie out of the danger and into our home if/when they were located.  We knew it was a long shot, but we refuse to give up on our kids.
Reportedly, 12 of the children were taken to a town up north called Lascahobas, a small village where Marie was from.  I was able to drive up there but did not make contact with them to avoid compromising the investigation. However, we were able to get a visual confirmation on one of the girls, Denette Auguste (Magdala), from the car.
I believe that the kids who were sent to Lascahobas are safe.  Their families are dirt poor but it’s better than what many of us feared for a while.
I also learned that another six of the SOG children were successfully reunited with their biological families! What an answer to prayer.
Four or five of the older boys showed up randomly throughout my stay asking for food and clothes. I tried many times to persuade them to go to the boy’s orphanage, but after what they experienced at SOG they all strongly refused.
I can’t say I blame them. These boys are living on the streets fending for themselves, but do look out for each other.
As for our kids, I learned that Lorie had been returned to family members. After several trips to her drop-off location I was finally able to make contact with her biological mother. She found out the orphanage was shut down and confronted Marie, demanding Lorie be returned.
She is a single mom of seven kids (all with different men) and holds down a job making $50 a month. She sent Lorie to SOG when she was two years old since she knew she could not provide for the needs of a daughter and hoped she would have a better life there. Now this sweet woman lives in a 10×10 foot house with six other people and can barely send two of her other kids to school.
We offered to sponsor Lorie in school and help the family with rent and food. But she admitted she could not keep Lorie since she was unable to protect her from predators.  She is extremely supportive of us adopting Lorie, so we may still be able to bring her home.
James, unfortunately, is one of the only children still under the control of the Hyppolite family.  I was able to find out where he was taken, but he doesn’t have any family, so Marie asked friends to hide him from us (she knew we had hopes of adopting him). I was able to get visual confirmation of him back in December, but could not make contact for fear that Marie would have him moved before we could recover him.
I have no idea if he’s still at the same location or not but the only hope we have of recovering James is to get a Humanitarian Parole Visa for him which we can take to the US Embassy who will work with trusted police to extract him.
US Immigrations indicated that Humanitarian Parole applications are normally processed in 90-120 days.  It has now been 130 days and after multiple inquiries, we still have not received an official decision.  We are appealing to help our case proceed.
For us, this battle has never stopped. We would greatly appreciate your prayers as we continue to try to bring James and Lorie home.

 

Thanks so much and God Bless,

Matt & Tiffany Loeffler

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