“The little food that they do have right now is just very expensive, and people can’t afford it. They’re living from day to day,” says Roseline DeHart with For Haiti With Love.

Haitian community (Photo courtesy of Heather Suggitt via Unsplash)

Many Haitians rely on a basic, carb-heavy diet when they can access it. Beans are the main source of protein, but not everyone can afford them. Recent flooding also prevents farmers from sowing seeds.

“And they just can’t plant anything,” DeHart says.

Nearly half the population faces acute food insecurity. High fuel prices and gang violence continue to disrupt food transport. Poverty also fuels gang recruitment of children, perpetuating the cycle.

“They’re God’s people and they’re beautiful people, and they need help just like anybody else. They can’t be forgotten,” urges DeHart.

The ministry provides food to up to 2,000 people across different parts of Haiti. “We go out to several places, go out in the countryside, go out in rural areas, in the cities, so we can help as many in need as we can,” DeHart says.

View of Haiti taken during ISS Expedition 20 (photo courtesy of ESRS Unit, JSC via Wikimedia Commons)

However logistics remain a major challenge. Shipping costs have risen to as much as $15,000 for a container of nutritional food packets, yet the need is hard to overestimate.

People are in urgent need of both provision and hope for another day. This is where the Gospel meets their deepest needs.

“If you have the food [and Gospel] with you, you feed the soul and you feed the body at the same time,” DeHart says.

Please pray for provision for the next container of food for Haitians and for sustainable peace in the country. Consider partnering with this ministry to meet these needs.

Visit For Haiti With Love to learn how you can support people in Haiti and Gospel outreach efforts.

“Haiti needs change, and only God can do that,” DeHart says.

Header photo: Houses built on the mountains just outside of Port-au-Prince (Photo courtesy of Heather Suggitt via Unsplash).

Obed* serves with Every Man a Warrior , a ministry of Trans World Radio. 

“They say that they will take this city, and then they do that. The [authorities] are not able to stop that,” he says. 

Last Saturday, a neighborhood of Port-au-Prince called Solino fell under the control of a gang coalition called Viv Ansamn. Obed listed Arcahaie, L’Estère and Leogane as other communities gangs have attacked this month or declared they will soon capture.

Many leaders with Every Man a Warrior live in Arcahaie, which was attacked earlier this month. When a coalition of two gangs (“5 Second” from Martissant, and “Jeff” from Canaan) attacked yet again, they fled to the mountainside to save their lives. Also earlier this month, one pastor connected with Every Man a Warrior was kidnapped. Obed said this week that, praise God, the pastor was released.

What can be done? In an international attempt to regain Haiti’s national security, 600 more troops from Kenya will soon join the nearly 400 that have been stationed in the country since May. But Obed says these forces have been even less effective than the police in curbing gang violence.

(Photo courtesy of Every Man a Warrior, Trans World Radio)

There’s another grim layer to the crisis. According to UNICEF, an estimated 30 to 50% of Haiti’s kids are involved with gangs. 

“They give them food, and they engage them, because most of them [have] no parent, [a] parent that died, that [was] shot due the gang violence,” says Obed. 

Children recruited by gangs are often molested, abused, trained to use guns, and forced into domestic service.  

“I believe that when [gangs] want to attack a city, they send those children. They send them without gun[s] to take control and to give information.”

Obed’s mission is to rebuild Haiti; this is where he knows God has called him to serve. He has a background in child protection and is caring for children in northern Haiti as the hands and feet of Christ.

“We have moved some of the families to the borders (of the Dominican Republic). Last week we have rent[ed] home[s] for some of them. That’s what we can do for now — we move some of them to [a] safe house, to [a] safe environment,” he says.

Children from Canaan, Port-au-Prince in the educational assistance program. (Photo courtesy of Every Man a Warrior, Trans World Radio)

Pray for Haiti’s kids, and join Obed in asking God to use these tragedies to strengthen the Haitian Church’s faith and glorify His name. 

“May God use this situation to show His power,” Obed says. “Frankly, we don’t see how we can get out of this. But if God do[es] that (saves Haiti), we believe that the glory of [God] will be known, will cover all the earth.”

Click to learn more about Every Man a Warrior. 

*Name withheld for security reasons

Header photo of children from Canaan, Port-au-Prince in the educational assistance program courtesy of Every Man a Warrior, Trans World Radio.