Pastor John Paul

John Paul grew up in Haiti.  He started having dreams and visions about being a pastor in Haiti.  He jokingly said, "I  had dreams and visions that I'm too Presbyterian (PCA) to believe now."  Haha.  When he was 9 years old, he went to a revival with his mom.  He said there were people everywhere, but the Canadian evangelist pointed to him in the crowd and said, "You are going to go to America and get training and come back here to be a pastor."  John Paul  was skeptical and didn't want to be a pastor.  Though no mail system exists, months later this Canadian fella found his mom and sent a stack of papers -- plane tickets, visa paperwork, etc.

At the age of 9, John Paul boarded a plane from Haiti to Miami.  He got to the airport and sat around.  He spoke no English and finally someone found a Haitian to speak to him.  Turns out he missed his flight to New York by hours, but they worked it out and he got there.  He always had a place to live, clothes to wear, food to eat, and school to attend.  He went to seminary.  On the day of his seminary graduation, a man greeted him and asked if he knew who he was.  John Paul did not.  The man was the Canadian evangelist -- he'd been paying for John Paul all of these years.  He handed John Paul an envelope with $1,000 cash (early 80's) and told him that now he could return to Haiti to be a pastor.

John Paul didn't want to lie (fully) to this man, but he had no intentions of becoming a pastor or moving back to Haiti.  So he took about $100 and bought a ticket to Haiti...for a visit.  He wanted to be an engineer, so he moved back to New York and put himself through school to get an engineering degree.  He's done everything from driving a cab to working in a restaurant (hence the opening of American Style Chicken!).  Somewhere along the way, he married and had four children.

He moved from New York to Atlanta, Georgia and worked for Georgia Power & Electric for one year.  Then he left to open his own electrical engineering firm.  He was making a lot of money and had several people working for him.  He lived in a nice house and drove nice cars and was living the American Dream.  He started having dreams and visions again of him being a pastor in Haiti.  This culminated one night when he had a nightmare: He was approached by a man saying that he would die if he did not return to Haiti to become a pastor.  John Paul woke up and was processing through the dream when his wife woke up startled.  She told him she'd just had the strangest nightmare.  A man was going to kill John Paul if he did not go to Haiti and be a pastor.  She described his outfit and it was the same man in both of their dreams!

John Paul hadn't told his wife about the evangelist or going to seminary...until that night.  His wife told him that regardless of his own desires, he had to go back to Haiti and be a pastor.

{The kids stayed in Atlanta to go to school.  They are still there and come to Haiti for the summers.  They were arriving the day after we left.  His wife commutes back and forth from ATL to Haiti.}

John Paul arranged to stay with a relative when he returned.  Upon landing in Haiti, a woman he had never seen before walked up and said, "here are my 7 children."  John Paul told her he didn't want them, that he had 4 kids of us own.  But she said, "take them," and walked away.  So, he had 7 kids to take care of.   He didn't know them, know their names or anything about them.  His relative let them stay with her one night.  One night.  Then he rented a hotel room for them for a bit.  They were his first 7 orphans.  Eventually, he purchased land and started the orphanage.  Today, there are a total of 63 kids he calls his children.  People drop kids off by the gate because they know he won't turn them down.  He is the pastor of the church on the orphanage property that has over 2,000 members (not all go every Sunday).  He works with hundreds of pastors in Haiti to teach theology and equip them to serve the nation of Haiti.  His phone rings all the time with people asking him questions...apparently in Haiti the pastor of incredibly high authority and they want to go directly to him.

I can't imagine dropping a kid off.  I can't imagine being a kid that has been dropped off.  I can't imagine taking all of these kids in.  Yet, John Paul does it because it is what God made him to do.  You can't make things like this up.  It is so cool to see how the Lord worked in his life and continues to shape him into what God ordained for him to be.  I can't wait to see what happens in his life and the lives of the kids he cares for, workers he employs, people he pastors, and community members that hopefully see John Paul and his ministry as a glimmer of hope.

I love that:

1. John Paul didn't want to come back to Haiti, but the Lord was persistent, and eventually he was obedient.
2. God fights for us and does not let us go.
3. There is NO telling what God has planned for any of our lives.