December 12, 2023 • 71 mins
After Rev. John Anderson heard our episode on Sleep in Heavenly Peace (who’s built 140k beds for kids without them), he decided to play it for his friend Andre Forges, who started crying. Andre, a former orphan who’s since created a Haitian orphanage called Place of Hope, decided at that moment that their orphans would build beds for Haitian kids without them!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
And I heard this one about making beds, and I
thought to myself, you know, I just wonder what Pastor
Andre would think of this particular podcast. So I bookmarked
it and then I called As soon as I finished,
I call him mom and said, Andre, come on over here.
I want to play this podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
So we sat there and we listened to that podcast.
And at the end of that podcast, Andre got a
little emotional and I said, well, what's going on? And
he said, John, that's my story. That is my story.
I didn't have a bend when I was growing up.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
Inner City Memphis. And the last part it unintentionally led
to an oscar for the film about our team. It's
called Undefeated. Guys. I believe our country's problems will never
(00:59):
be so by a bunch of fancy people in nice
suits using big words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox,
but rather an army of normal folks, US just you
and me deciding Hey, I can help. That's what Reverend
John Anderson and Andre Forges have done. After being an
(01:20):
orphan himself in Haiti, Andre somehow built an incredible orphanage
called Place of Hope in Haiti that today is home
to forty five children who otherwise wouldn't have a home.
And after John played for Andre our episode on Sleep
and Heavenly Peace, which has built one hundred and forty
(01:42):
thousand beds for kids without them here, Andre felt called
for the kids at his orphanage to build beds for
Haitian kids without them. Orphans are doing this. Orphans building
beds for children with homes just so unbelievably awesome. And
I can't wait for you to meet Andre and John
(02:05):
right after these brief messages from ours and oer sponsors.
Today is a cool day. We started the morning getting
(02:26):
covered by.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
The local uh what is that was the CBS or CBS.
CBS the CBS, the local CBS affiliate covered our story
and we got to spend some time this morning at
the news station. And now we're getting spent time this
afternoon to tell the story of Andre the Giant, which
(02:52):
is interesting because I remember Andre Giant being this chro
magnon looking guy that was about six ft eleven to
four hundred pounds that wrestled on WWE. But Andre, the
giant in this case is a five foot nine Inchasian
who's never wrestled to day in his life other than
with just wrestling through life. And Andrea, I can't wait
(03:14):
to tell your story. And his friend and mentor without
whom I wouldn't even know who Andre is, which is
John Anderson. So Andre and John, welcome, Thanks for being a.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Memphis, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
So your story is unique to our podcast and beyond inspirational.
And the reason it's unique is we're starting to do
organic stories, stories that are born out of the podcast itself.
But it's also unique and that you're the first guy
(03:52):
that we've interviewed that has heard about one of our
stories and decided to do exactly what he heard in
that story. You heard the blueprint through the story. You
know the architect of the story, and it's Luke Michelson
from Sleep and Heavenly Peace. And you are now going
to take what you learned from his story and do
(04:14):
it in your own community, which is exactly what the
goal of an army of normal folks is. And you're
the first story that we get to tell that has
latched on to the goal. But how you're doing it
and who you're doing it for and who you're doing
it with, which we reveal later in the show, is
(04:37):
just beyond inspirational. I can't wait to tell that story.
But first, Andre, tell me about you. Where do you
come from? How did you grow up? Tell me about
Andre the little giant when he was just a kid
running around? Where do you come from? And tell me
all that.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Well.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
I was born in Haiti. I was born in family
of six and I was the fourth of the family.
And my father when I was born, he has TB
you know, which is a very sageous thing, so she
cannot take care of me, you know, and then she
(05:18):
has to take me to the orphanage. But after a
little while, I realized that, you know, to be with
my family, that's the best thing, you know, instead of
you know, the ofpheny. Because I have my mom and
my dad and even he has TV. So I decide
to go and you know, stay and live with them.
(05:41):
So God gave me a little gift. I remember when
I was at the orphanage, I got a gift from
my sponsor from here, and that gift. There was a
little box and when I will painted, I saw some crayola.
We were like the little painting. So I used that
(06:01):
kreola that's patent to do some little little trees and
stuff like that, so I can sell them. Yes, I
did sell them, and with that money I helped my
mom with her medicine and you know, to get her fits.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
How old were you when you went to work. I
was three years old. So was your family in poverty.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Well, not like and not William privity just to beg
but they simply cannot, you know, taken care of of
us because then was really tough. And my dad has pneumonia,
so he was sick too, so that's make it very
difficult for them to take care of the family.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Would your father able to work.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Yes, he did, but at that time he wasn't work,
you know, he was fo years after that at the
sugar f sometime he has spent like three days working,
never come home.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
He stayed at the factory.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Yeah, all the all night he's been working, you know,
just to bring a little food on the table, just
for two days meals.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
What you know, people see on TV famine and poverty
and other countries oftentimes and places like Africa. And you know,
I think because you see the images over and over
again in magazines and on TV, we become a little
(07:39):
desensitized to areas that are wrought with poverty. And the
other thing is, you know, if you look at a map,
Haiti and the Dominican Republic or next door to each other,
there's a line driven down, drawing down the middle of
(08:00):
an island, and in the Dominican Republic it's largely a
successful place, and then there's a line on the map
on the exact same island with people who are generally
the same. But in Haiti it is abject poverty. Why
(08:24):
is that?
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Well, I wish I can answer. That's Christian. You know,
I'm gonna try my base. The country is very corrpt corrupt.
Yes you probably know that. So my wife told me
please try to stay from cow of these things, you know,
(08:46):
like a politic and things like that. But you know
that's yes, it's very corropt country. That's the reason that
Haiti is like that. And also people will use to
the garden, to the planting, you know, the mountain, so
everybody are focushing, you know, to go to portter Press
(09:08):
to the city. You know, they lift the lands and
everything they used to rock, you know, to produce like corn, beans,
you know, rice. So they just go to Porter Press.
You know why they go to Potter Press. No, because
they think that there's close to Miami. Everyone just focush,
you know, to come to the United States.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Is other than people who run the government. Is there
any money in Haiti for families, for normal families? Is
there any way to for a family to pull themselves
out of poverty?
Speaker 4 (09:44):
So the governed man, I'm sorry to say that. No.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So the reality is when people hear that you had
a mother and a father that were ill but sent
their a three year old to an orphanage. It wasn't
that they didn't love or care. They literally did not
have the means.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Yes, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
That's terrible because it's so poverty stricken that it tears
families up. Yes, So how long did you live in
the orphanage?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
I didn't stay for a few years. A few years, yes,
a few years.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And at what age? Well, I can remember, you know,
I think some people I can remember. I think when
I was five years old. Maybe, I'm sure I can
remember things from first grade when I was six. So
if you stayed a few years you were six or seven,
(10:42):
how how did it feel being an orphanage knowing your
family was not far away?
Speaker 4 (10:51):
That was hard? That was really hard. I have a
problem too, you know. When I was born, my leg
was I have to wear a boistlet legs, so that
makes it even very difficult for me. You know. The
roast thing is, you know, when you see the other
(11:13):
kids play, you know, when they play like soccer or
hn't see it, you cannot you know, just watch him play.
And then as a boy, you cannot do that, you
know because of my the facts I have in my legs.
And the roast thing is when go to school, make
it hard for me to sit in the bench because
(11:35):
of the legs, you know. So and then I get bully.
They used to call me an ex anx X. This
is the ex boy because the ex boy, you know.
But you know I didn't get that and get me down,
you know, just keep going and do what I got
(11:56):
to do, you know, thank God, you know, and my
leg with or hell and I will be able to
to walk normally and then try to get a job.
You know, as the age of like eight or ten,
you know, I went to the missionary and tried to
ask him for a job, you know, to clan the motorcycle,
(12:16):
you know, water the gardens and stuff like that. You
know that's for fifty cents.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
You know, I think I've read that at some point.
I'd like to know what age you were. You hung
around a hotel hoping to see American business span or
business spend coming in where if maybe you carried their suitcase,
they'd give you a cookie or something.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah, there was a there was a guess I was, Yeah,
I was there, and then uh, there was a missionary
who came with a suitcase and now you know, and
he gave you a cookies. His name is Johannes, your
honest and Luis heard from Germany. They're still in Haiti.
And he took it, took an interest in you, yes,
(13:00):
and he helped me. They helped me a lot. They
helped me with my school. He has a school, so
he has school trade school. So with that little gift
God give me, so he gave me a job in
that trade school to make that little picture, you know,
for them. So I with that money, I pay my
(13:23):
school with that and how we I probably like ten
ten years, eleven years.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Ten years old. Yes, so then you went home.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Oh, yes, I went home. So at eleven years old,
I got a job, you know, and clanic the car
for the missionary, you know, and the garden they have,
you know, I have water the garden, and I have
to fertilize you know, the garden. So and then how
(13:55):
to do that is go and get the cow, you
know stuff, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Fertilize it.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Yeah. And sometimes you know, the fresh one, you cannot
pick it up, so you have to burn it to
make it drive, so you can put it in the bag.
And you have to make it throw money, you know.
And then I had a little sister, and I'm the
one who pays school for her too.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
At that age, I read that when you first showed
up at home, your father said I can't beat you,
and you said, it's okay. If you eat, I eat.
If you don't eat, I don't eat. Yes, that speaks
to me to just how bad you want it to
be at home.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Oh yes, home is home, sweet home. You know. No
one wants to stay in the orphanage, you know. And
then the experience I had in that orphanage at that time,
even the little kids I got food. I got good food.
You know, that's the orphanage was running by mission and
from Canada. Good you know what I miss. Never say
(15:04):
anybody say that I love you, you know, hold you and
your homy just like you in book comp you know,
and this go to strutch and go to school, and
this hoop hoop, go to bed and this and that.
But hot home is different, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I think it's important for our listeners to understand that.
Later on we will talk about what you're doing now,
and I think it's really important to understand where you
come from, to give perspective on why you do what
you do and why you poured yourself into it. And
(15:41):
now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
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(16:05):
be right back. So you met a woman and got married.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
I met a woman. I got Mary.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
You know, I want you to tell the whole story.
I don't want you to tell the whole story.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Yeah, I'm going to tell this old story. You know.
I was in Porto Press, you know, school in Porto Press,
and then I never have a girlfriend. Okay, So my
sister called me and tell me about you meet the
beautiful girls, you know, Haitian girl.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
How old are you?
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Let's see, I was eighteen eighteen. Yeah, and then uh,
I said, no, I'm not interesting because I have a
bigger vision, you know, because I want to see, I
want to walk, I want to do something, you know,
my life. So she keep persistent. So I took a
boss will be like three or four hours, you know,
(17:14):
to the Ki and my sister gave me a book.
This is a girl who came to take her mother
to the hospital. But they have to go through my house,
you know, because that was thirsty and Haiti a long
time ago. If you need water, you're testy and you
can't go any place, you know, and then you knock
(17:35):
on the door. They opened the door, and then you said,
can I have a glass of water? They will give
you water. They have a special glass for visitors. Okay,
So that the same thing happened to my sister. So
they stop in my house where my sister is and
to get some water. And then there was almost the
same age, you know, and they talk and stuff like that.
(17:57):
So my sister just loved that girl for me. So
one day my sister told me, you better go and
visit her, you know. So I said, okay, And I
wake up at five o'clock in the morning, five o'clock
in the morning, and I walk six hours.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
You walked walk six hours hours and at the timely
doorstops that you have to get a super water on
the way. But that's a lot of water.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
The only thing I had, you know, that's a piece
of sugar cane. You know, I got a piece of
sugar acain. I've been eating all the wind. So there
was no bridge. I have just crossed all the water
like that. But when I get to the village and
I saw a boy, I asked a boy, you know,
I'm looking for this girl and this and that. It's okay,
(18:44):
I know where she lives. So she brings me to
a house and I knock and there's a girl came
and I said, I don't think that's not her, you
know the way my sister described that's.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
What you know.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
And then he said I told her yeah, I'm looking
for this and that. He said, oh, there's another one,
you know. And she lived way win the mountain. So
that takes me thirty minutes. You go up a mountain, Yeah,
that takes me thirty minutes to go to the mountain.
So when I reached to her house, somebody punted her
house to me. So I walk and knocking the door,
(19:23):
and I expect that that girl going to open the door,
you know, so I can see her. And then the
door is open and whoy. So that's her father, and
he said, how can I help you? You know, I
cannot tell her I come to see your daughter. No,
not in eighty So I said, well, I just passed by,
(19:48):
you know, I need a glass of water. So she
called someone to bring me the glasses of water. I
thought that was her, but that wasn't her. After I
drank the water and I said, can I have some more?
They give me you I second cup. I drank it
and then I keep walking. I don't even know where
I'm going. I passed the house. But while I was
(20:09):
in the mountain, I saw a girl coming from from
the hill with a bucket of water and her head
and I keep looking looking. I said, what that must
be her, you know. I mean, I'm telling you it's beautiful.
So by the time she went home, and I just
wrung from the hill, you know, and I just grabbed
(20:31):
that water from her head. You know, she didn't see me.
She would go like this, what's going on? You know?
So I help her with the water, and then my
heart is finning so hard, you know, not the first time.
So I tried to to grab like something of flowers,
something like that, you know, get in my knees, you know,
(20:52):
grab like a dead flowers, you know. So I got
in miamies and I told her my name is Andre.
Please will you marry me? And it just met her? Yeah,
will you marry me?
Speaker 1 (21:09):
He's not finished?
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Will you marry me? So we can have a son
named Gino?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Just ask the first date, you know, and she look,
can I ask you a question? Yes, you're telling me
that you walked up to a girl you'd never met. Yes,
you snatched a bucket of water off her head and
gave her a dead flower and ask her to marry you.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
I told he's not even the dead flower? Is this
something like? I won't say?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
And you maybe a pastor. But if this all worked
out you got game.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Bro so well. She looked at me. She said, are
you you know like Bee's brother. I said yes, and
then she thinks that, you know, there's something is not
right with me.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, you know, I think most people think there's a
thing not right with you.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Yeah. I just left. I said bye bye. You know,
I just left because you know, if I realized, man,
what I'm doing, what I did, So I backed six hour,
six hours back home because I can afford like fifty
cents to take a tap tap taptap is just transportation
and eighty So my sister was so excited see me coming.
(22:25):
They said, oh, that's going And I told her said, oh,
that's not the way. You know. She was so desapparated
with me. So the very next day, you know, I
take a bus and go back to Power Points. I
haven't come back to the city for like a year,
so I decided to come back to the city one day.
I see that one there was a church and plane are.
(22:49):
You know, every year there was probably like three hundred
churches get together for three days, but that wasn't plane Are.
So while I see that one and I heard hand
said mister Force, And I look that's what's her, you know,
I said, oh, my heart was beating. Man, I'm trying
(23:10):
not to make the same mistake. Okay. So and she said,
can I sit by you? Oh? Yes, yes, you know,
I got a book in my hand, and you know,
I tried to put the books so she can see.
He said, no, I'm fine, you know. So she's sit there.
So I've been talking but nothing about love. Nothing, you know,
just thinks that's no value. But before she left to
(23:35):
go home, I opened the books. I put something in
the boox. I told her that I'm going to let
you use that book. That book was Waiting by African
pastor Andrew abdor. So she loved that book. And then
I gave it to her and while she's living, I
told her that, excuse me, there's a little, you know,
(23:57):
homework in that book, so please, you know, check it
out when you have time. So this is the homework.
The first page I put a J like short Tame,
shot Tam and I love you. The first page I
put a J. And the second page there is a
little appost, you know, and then I go the them.
(24:20):
So I did I did that, you know, in the
end of the books, and each page. You know, sometimes
I flip like three pages, you know, and put a
little later on it. So after a few days, not
only a few weeks, and she brings back the books,
you know. She came, you know, to see the doctor
again with her mom, and she gave the books. I said,
(24:43):
do you realize what you find out? What they say? Yes, yes,
I said what you said, say, well, I have to pray.
I'm going to pray. Man, that's a lady take eight years,
eight years to pray about it.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Eight years.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Auntie is my friend. And every Saturday, every saturdayday, she
makes me walk like almost threeven hours to go and
see her in the mountain for eight straight years.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
I think had you not proposed the minute you saw
it might have been three years. But I think I
think it was a five year tax for being so aggressive.
But she became your wife.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
She became my wife. She said, okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
So Andre, I think we can establish you grew up
very poor, You had to go to an orphanage. You
experienced sadness and bullying and the loss of your family,
and somehow inside of you it built a strength of
(26:01):
a man who is willing to walk six miles every
week for eight years to found the love of his life,
and you're trying to figure your way out what am
I doing next?
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Well after we Okay, I just told you that when
God call you in the ministry, he gives you a package.
Listen to this, and I'm pretty sure that my wife
was in the package. While I was visiting my wife.
My girlfriend he has two brothers, three brothers, but the
(26:38):
older one is in photoprints, so the two brothers live
with her. They hate me, man, I don't know why
they hate me.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
So you're dating their sister. That's why they hate him.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
But that's not hate again, and that's his more than hate.
Every time when I come. When I go over there
and they said get out dog, get out a dog.
They don't talk to me, just directly. But there wasn't
no dog. That was me, you know. So they decide
to call bigger brother inpropriate because Bigger Brother is doing
(27:11):
you know, karagate, you know things like that, so you know,
to kick me out in the house. So one day
while I was coming on Saturday, my girlfriend just rung
and the gate. They told me, please please don't go today,
don't come today, you come another day. But she don't
want to tell me what's going on in the house.
I said, why, you know, he said, please, don't, don't
(27:34):
come another day. I said, yeah, but I have to
come and say hello to you, mama. He said, no,
you know, but I came anyway. Why I would sit down?
You know, I heard a lot of discussion in the
audio room. You know, I hate it. Mostly there's two
rooms in the house, not more than two rooms. So
I heard that my girlfriend was crying because her brother
(27:57):
has a big stick and his hand and come out
and come out and you know, in the living room
to hit me. And when you look at me, and
he said andre I said, Bob, how are women in
the orphanage together?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
And he could no longer be average because you were friends.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Yeah, he said, andre I said, Bob, you know the
you know the good thing is And he told her mother,
you remember when you come to see me at the orphanage,
because I used to look road to the orphanage. And
that person that you sleep that was his grandpa, Mama.
And the bread that you you said, that guy always
(28:39):
give you that his father. I said, thank god, yeah,
so that that was in the package.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Okay, I would say that, you know, you're kind of
you're kind of in at that point. Yeah, the family
loves you.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Yes, h m hmm.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
We'll be right back. John. There's this crazy story of
this guy from Haiti named Andre, who we've just learned
(29:21):
all about, and your introduction to him was nothing more
than really a miracle too. And for our listeners, the
whole reason I'm sitting here with Andrea and John is
because John heard an episode about Luke Nicholson from Sleeping
(29:41):
Heavenly Peace, and I beg all of you to send
me emails and tell me about stories. And John took
me up on it, and you sent me a very
long email that after reading it, my eyes had teared up,
and I think I reached out to you immediately and
said I got to meet this guy. But in the letter,
(30:03):
you open with how you met him. Yeah, tell us
a story of how you came to know Andre.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
All right, Well, Andre was one of those people who
wanted to come to the United States. And Andrea expressed
to me that in Haiti, everybody thinks of the United States.
There's just money lying along the side of the road,
and you could just scoop up the money if you
need something and get whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
That you need every trees of money growing.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah, now that you've been here, you know that's not
the case.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
Yeah, I'm telling you Andre.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Something that he hasn't said is that he and his wife,
Angie actually raised seven children before they started their own family,
and there were seven orphans and this was the genesis
of the Place of Hope actually, but he came to
the United States so he could pick some of that
money off the trees and help feed the kids.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
With these seven children, with.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
The seven children and his wife.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Excuse me, there's seven children that I I raised that
was in that was in hate, Okay. When I came
to the United States, there was twenty yeah, twenty.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Okay, twenty in a billy and I'll tell you about
that in a second. But he comes to the United
States and he, uh, he was trying to raise money.
He got a phone call from someone who was watching
the kids, yeah, the house mother, and she she told
him the kids have only had coconut to eat for
(31:36):
the last three weeks. They have diarrhea, they're on the
verge of dehydration. We need to do something. So Andre
borrowed a car and started driving up the main road
in Naples. He went to one church there and he
pushes the doorbell if it was locked. There was a lockout,
and they said, how can we help you? He said, well,
(31:58):
I need to talk to somebody. I needed to to
the pastor.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Now I'm not tying it only one bug of fries
to send to Haiti and the kids.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
And they said the pastor's not here. And then finally
somebody came out and said, you're gonna have to leave
the property. Who are going to call the police? Well,
Andrea's here.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
And the whole time John Andre simply asking He's trying
to tell the story of these kids at this hortage
in Haiti that need food, yes, yep, that are sick
because all they've eaten for three weeks or cot.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
And all he wants really is a bag of rice,
so he could send back to Haiti a bag of rice.
That's all he wants. So after that experience, he decides, well,
I still have to find something. So he goes up
to the next church, which we were the next church.
I was pastoring of that church at that time in Naples,
and we remember that day a little bit differently since
(32:51):
you asked me, I'm going to tell you my story.
But I knocked on the door. I heard this knocking
at the door. It's just a light tapping, and I
look out and go out in the hall and there's
glass doors at the end of the hall and I
look down the hall and here's a man, a Haitian
man literally cap in hand and standing outside the door.
(33:11):
And I opened up the door and I say, how
can I help you? And he said, I'd like to
ask you about help for my orphanage. I said, well,
when you come in my office and let's sit down chat.
So we went and we sat down and Andre, since
the last church they threatened to call the police on him,
he left the car running.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
In case the police came.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
And when he sat down, when he sat down on
the chair in my office, he didn't sit all the
way back. He sat on the edge. So I make
it a quick but I said, well, Andre, take my hands.
Let's let's pray. And so we sat and we prayed together,
and then after our amen, I said, how can I
(33:56):
help you? And then he told me about how he
has twenty orphans in Haiti and they are on the
virgin dehydration and they need some help.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Clearly on a shoe string budget, if any budget at.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
All, absolutely, and what he asked for. He said, we're
trying to raise eighteen dollars a month for each of
those kids. I said, well, half a bucks a month,
bop thousand a year. Well, and he knew I couldn't
cover the whole thing, but there was enough there for
me to go on, and so I said, well, how
(34:28):
can I get back in touch with you tomorrow? I
want to go and talk to my wife. So I
went home that night, talked to my wife, and then
called him the next day. My wife and I said, well, well,
we can take care of to those orphans, but we'll
pay the whole year now so that they could spread
it among all the kids that way. I had a
feeling that's what they're going to do anyway, so we
said okay, So we sent them I think it was
(34:49):
three hundred and eighty bucks or something like that, and
that began our relationship. He came to our church. I
introduced them to some people, Some people put money in
his hand, and eventually our missions committee picked it up,
and Andre had a growing concern. At that point it
was a there was some viability to it. In the meantime,
(35:11):
I had a small group that I was working with
and I told them about this this guy and this orphanage,
and they said, well, we ought to go over and
take a look at it. So two of them went over.
They flew over, I guess three because Mike went. Mike
Schaeffer went too. So three of them went across to
Haiti and looked at the place. Well, the place that
(35:32):
they had at the time it was the orphanage was
one room. It was just a singular kids one table,
one chair, one spoon, no plumbing, no electricity. It was
just a shelter and he had twenty kids. He was
operating out of it. And they looked at that and
they said, well, gosh, I don't know how this is
(35:54):
ever going to work out. Well, they all turned out
to be very good supporters of the project, and later
on we would Andre.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
We began to dream.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Together, what's this, what's your vision of this, of this,
of this orphanae Andre and he would tell me what
the vision was, and we begin to sketch little drawings
out on a piece of paper. One of the things
he said that'll come into play a little bit later
on is I said, listen, because he wants to put
a church in. That was a principal criteria for him
(36:25):
was to put a church on the property. And I said, well, Andre,
if you put a church on that property, one day,
I'm going to come down, I'm going to preach in
that church, and you're going to translate for me. And
Andre said, okay. What we didn't find out until I
don't know, maybe it was ten or twelve years later.
I was sitting on the platform of that church and
(36:49):
he looked at me and he said, you know, this
is an answer to prayer. And I said, how you talking?
Speaker 2 (36:53):
What do you mean?
Speaker 1 (36:54):
And he said, well, ten or twelve or whatever period
time it was before we had sat down, we talked
and said that you're going to preach it. I was
going to translate today's day. Well, that was right before
I went up to the pulpit, and by that time
I had tears streaming on my cheeks from the memory
of us of doing that. But we dreamed together about
what that campus might look like someday.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
How many years ago was this?
Speaker 1 (37:18):
This must have been in about four four so plus.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Eighteen nineteen years ago, so eighteen nineteen years ago. There
was a quote Orphanage which was a one bedroom right,
no electricity, no water running place where twenty kids were
surviving for three weeks on coconut yep, and that was
(37:45):
better than what they'd come from.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yes, And I don't think any of us could really
understand poverty until you've been down there and seen it.
We have poverty here, but their poverty is you haven't
eaten for a week. Andre told me a story about
how he saw a man eating mud because he needed
something in his stomach. The poverty down there is, it's stunning.
(38:16):
And Andre didn't he let out some of the parts
of his story too, but he came from serious poverty.
And so now when he hears somebody in America say, well,
I'm starving to dad, well.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
You're just like my daughter. You know. She lived here
and sometimes said Dad, I'm hungry. You know, I'm starving
and I'm stopping. You know what's stopping, man, I'm hungry, Dad.
And then the free there's milk, it's peanut butter. You know,
there's bread, and you told me starving, you know. And
(38:52):
then sometime when I was a little kid, I go
to school. We've won orange for all day, it'll clock.
You have to be at school until four o'clock come home.
Sometimes when you come home there's nothing to put in
your stomach. You know, you go to bed stomach empty,
(39:12):
and you told me that you're starving. You know what
is what is starving mean?
Speaker 2 (39:18):
So I think for a perspective, it's really important to
understand that money doesn't grow on trees in the United States.
But when a kid who we would say in the
US is in poverty, gets to go to school and
get free breakfast and free lunch, who almost assuredly can
(39:44):
find shelter and clothing and in education and transportation and
most likely have the basic sustenance provided for that. While
the American dream is not that, and I'm not discounting
(40:05):
that level of American poverty to a Haitian kid that's rich. Yeah, absolutely,
And we need to keep in perspective what real poverty
looks like in parts of our world. And Haiti is
three hundred and fifty miles off the Texas coast in
our hemisphere, just below Cuba. Just below Cuba. We're not
(40:27):
talking about some far away mythical place. We're talking about
people who share the Gulf of Mexico with.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Two hour plane ride. That's my two hour plane ride
from Miami.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Two hour plane ride from Miami, and we're talking about
children that literally are starving to death. And so a
guy like Andre steps up and says, Okay, I'm going
to take care of twenty of these kids in a
one room hut.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
And that's as Andre said, and I think that that's appropriate.
Is that life is a package. And the fact that
Andre came from that poverty is what gave him the
vision and the mission to help kids who are in poverty.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
But not only the poverty, the the orphanage yourself agreed
to love as he mentioned before. Yeah, it was interesting
when you said, Andre that you got mules and you
had a roof of your head, but you didn't have
the love.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
It was in there. It was in there. That's the reason.
That's the reason I when we have the team from Memphis,
you know, they come to do hard work for us,
but there are always two or three holy kids.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Well, and see that's interesting because I'm from Memphis. Everybody
knows I'm a Memphis guy. But John, when you emailed me,
you emailed me from Naples in Florida, and you're talking
about a pastor I've never heard of from Haiti. Yeah,
and I had no idea that there was a Memphis connection.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Yeah, I didn't either.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
I learned it recently. Well, there wasn't at that time,
was there.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Well, the Memphis connection came really after the current campus
had gotten mostly finished. Our church and churches in the
Naples area helped on the front end, putting together what
I'd called us the hardware and the Hope Pressprian Church
here in Memphis created really the software, which is the hardware. Okay,
(42:32):
the hardware is the is the physical plant when we
started building that campus. First of all, the story in Andre,
I should tell you the story on how he purchased
the property, so that because they were meeting in that
one room home, they went they moved to a second
a second home that had two rooms in it. So
(42:53):
it was really uptown, doubled inside inside, no plumbing, but
still had electricity that was pretty exacit. I had a
TV but it didn't work. So so Andre had found
a piece of property that he really liked, and I
thought that chance, and so Andrew went to work.
Speaker 4 (43:09):
And how you found the property, this is a good question, Okay.
When I was rocking to see my wife, to see
my girlfriends. I always see the property. Okay, so time,
I said, man, if I have that property, I will
boy it and build an orphanage, shot school and clinic.
(43:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
That was my dream.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
That's my dream. But I never go actually to the
property because he is probably like fifty feet above the ocean.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yeah, and you're walking six hours anyway to take hill.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Yeah, but you cannot go to somebody property like that.
They're going to question a you. Okay, But thank god.
One day I saw a lot of women and kid
would shot and you know, they have some book kit,
you know, and they was so happy and running in
the mountain. And I look on the ocean. The ocean
(44:06):
is right there, and I saw a lot of men
on the boat, you know, in the ocean. And I
told that little boy, what's going on over there? You
know it don't even take time to talk to me.
I really want to go up that matter. So I
get that opportunity to go to go there too. And
I was looking the property and said, man, that's going
(44:28):
to be a charging off and age things like that.
But I asked him what's going on? What's going on
in the ocean. You know, in the United States, I
live in Florida. Okay, and then when somebody saw a shock,
there's a shock the room for the life. But he
hated the shock won for his life.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
That food right there.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
So that's why the Roman was ready, you know, to
get some good meat from that shock. You know.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
So's they garried. That's a big shot.
Speaker 4 (44:59):
The shot wrong for his life, you know. But here
we want for the show. I'm not in Haiti.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Well, Andre went after that property, and uh, Andre, tell
him about how you you were working. Andrea was working.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
I was working in a white house. Okay, I got
a job, you know, and I was working in a
way house Storge, yeah, said storage space. So people dumps
a lot of good stuff, you know, that's the things.
When I go to the dumpster, I said, man, that's
TV or Ray jul and stuff like that, clothes, things
I never see before. And they walk. So I went
(45:38):
to my boss. I told my boss, can I use us?
He said, oh yeah, that's trash, trash for you, not
for me. So and then I collecting those those stuff,
and then, uh, I collect so much I don't have
a press to put it. So I asked him if
(45:59):
he can give in like a five by five, you
know to put those things. So he talked to the owner.
The owner said, oh that's fine. So they give me
five by five. So I put all the thing stuff
in there. But there's some Haitian who came on the board.
They can't read, they cannot write, okay, So I want
to help them, so I went to the community center
(46:19):
to teach them how to read, you know, and things
like that. So they give me one hour. So I
told him that I had, you know, the tieving things
for sale. You know, it's not cost too much. So
they came to the Whitehouse, you know, starts selling them
like for a dollar, two dollars you know, and fifty
cents things like that. And then I got I got
(46:41):
the money, and when I was to go home, I said,
I rather leave the money right there, because you know,
there's an ice cream chalk come every afternoon, and I
have kids, so they will actually for money. So that's money.
I was raised for that land. Because my brother in
law called me about their land. I said, I'm going
to buy it. Everything that I sell, I put it
(47:03):
in the envelope and I asked my boss to live
it in his office. And my boss a little is
the chairman of the board. So what I did After
a few months, so I asked him, you know, let's
open it together. That's money, okay. So we opened it together.
(47:23):
Four thousand dollars wow, from the trash. So we went
to a wire transfer and and we wire the money.
So we make our first deposit and most of that
money coming from that dumpster. And then we get a
few from you know, passe giant friends, you know, stuff
like that. And then after I paid the lan, I
(47:45):
got the date and everything. You know, I'm good. So
I'm ready to start doing the building. So one day
I went to the dumpster, you know, thinking that I'm
going to get you know, some good stuff. You know
what I find? Did that?
Speaker 1 (48:00):
You got a good price for that too.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
It was a dead gut. So that's what I say. Okay,
that's you know, that's a awfu okay.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
So he was able to purchase this piece of property
seven acres on the Caribbean Sea fronting the Caribbean Sea.
Speaker 4 (48:15):
From my watch, for seventy dollars.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Seventy thousand dollars. But he raised that money from dumpster diving.
Seventy thousand dollars. Yes, I think this is important for
your Army to know, Bill, that that persistence, when you
have a vision, when you have a mission, and you
have that persistence, that'll pay off.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
And this is a man who walked six hours every
Saturday for eight years to get a wife. That's right.
Dumpster diving on balance is just not that big a deal.
I don't know, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
We sent an engineer, civil engineer down. They surveyed the
property and they drew out a sketch of you know,
where this would go, where this would go. So we had,
according to Andre's vision, we put a dormitory on, a
vocational school, a clinic, and a church building and we
(49:25):
put that all on the property.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
And so you met him eighteen to nineteen years. I'm
trying to get a timeline. Yeah, and how long after
that was able to buy the property? A couple three
years later? Is that right?
Speaker 1 (49:40):
I would I would stretch it out a little bit more.
I'd probably say four or five years.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Okay, so around two thy ten plus remind us, Yeah,
and then he said, got to have a church, yeah,
got to have buildings for the kids. How long from
twenty ten did it take to get to a campus?
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Here's where the rest the hardware comes in. So about
that time, a gentleman in Naples, his name is Dick
Stone Ceipher. We call him Stony. Stony was a direct
report to Jack Welch. He ran ge appliance. He went
to our church. He was a friend, and he said,
(50:19):
we need to make this work. So Stoney got involved.
When Stoney got involved, things began to happen, and we
built up a board. I say we, I shouldn't say we,
because truth of the matter is I was a pastor
of the church. Andre did most of this by himself.
I had some connections. What I do is I match
people with resources, and that's what I do. I developed people,
(50:43):
I develop relationships, and I put the two of them together.
And then they built this property. And I bet you
that property. They probably have had about a million and
a quarter plus or minus into that property to build
that campus. So now that there is a dormitory that'll
(51:05):
accommodate up to one hundred kids, indoor plumbing, electricity, wired
for electricity.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Indoor plumbing and electricity doesn't sound like that big a deal,
except the vast majority of people in Haiti don't have
indoor plumbing exactly exactly. It's the taj Hall exactly, and.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
A vocational school that has a decked out carpentry shop.
There's a welding shop. There is a small engine mechanic
so they could fix motorbikes. And for the ladies, he
has a sewing class with and they have how many
you suppose twenty sewing machines? Would you say about twenty
(51:44):
sewing machines in there to teach them a trade? What
would you say that, Andre? What would you say? The
unemployment rate is in Haiti?
Speaker 4 (51:53):
Well, on primate, I would say probably, you know, like, oh,
sixty percent.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
How much? Yeah, sixty you say six.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
I would have said seventy, but he says sixty, and
so we'd say so.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Now telling me three out of ten people for out
of ten people have a job.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Yeah, Now, some people will stand by the side of
the road and try to sell mangos. I wouldn't call
that a job. But if you're talking about a job
career type of job, I'd say that sixty percent is
probably conservative as far as ou employment goes.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
So all right, So once this campus is the land's ball,
the campus is built to twenty fifteen, yes, I AB
would how about to say, okay, so and about two
thousand you have a dream. You go dumpster diving, you
save up money, you buy the land. Pastor John puts
(52:52):
you in touch with some people that help you build
it out, and in twenty fifteen you have a seven
acre orphanage with dorms, a church, a clinic for health
and medicine. You have places to teach applied skills so
that people can leave the orphanage and become gainfully employed
(53:15):
as masons or welders, or mechanics or seamstresses, which is
a big deal when sixty percent of the population is unemployed.
And you go from these twenty kids in a one
room house to how many kids in this orphanage.
Speaker 4 (53:28):
Now where we have fifty forty five kids, we used
to have like sixty kids. You know, they're growing up
and some of them now going to university.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
You know that some of them are going to college.
Speaker 4 (53:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, as one of them is going to
graduate next month, you know in American University, one of
the bigger university in La Caries.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
Are you bringing in new children?
Speaker 4 (53:53):
You know children the time, yes, yes, but right now
because of the city constancies, you know, because of the
what the money was, you know, because yeah, it's very expensive. Well,
and the board.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
Stoney he didn't really age out technically, but he got
to the place where it was too much, and so
he left the board and the board kind of fell
apart at that point. So they're in the reconstituting the board.
They're going into the next iteration of the board for
Place of Hope. Now, this is why the Hope Church
(54:31):
in Memphis has been such a tremendous help to them,
because now that the hardware is up, and Stony largely
responsible for that. Now that the hardware is up, then
the software comes in behind it. And when I say software,
I mean it's these are the people who care for
the children, who hold the children, who really take an
(54:51):
interest in the kids. I'm not saying that that didn't
happen under Stoney's direction, but this group has been extraordinary
in helping out that regard.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Which is the weird Memphis connection that I never knew existed.
And here's Hope Church in Memphis.
Speaker 4 (55:07):
And then to tell you that that was the best team.
When they're going to Haiti, sixteen of them they walk,
you know, they haven't been in Haiti for four years now,
five years. And then I'm telling you because of them,
the way they teach the kids, you know, to do now.
(55:28):
The kids do their own dress uniform because there was
a lady and that team who want to teach them
how to make dress. So they make their dress and
the uniform and even the bed. They make their own
bed now because they teach the kid every time when
they go over there. They're not work by himself. They
took the kids with them, you know, to watch them
(55:50):
what's going on, which is.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
An interesting segue. Yes, so, over the course of twenty years,
gone from a one bedroom house with twenty kids eating
so much a coconut that they're almost dead, and you're
looking for a bag of rice, and you end up
meeting the gentleman on your left who provides so much
(56:15):
more in terms of mentoring and friendship and introductions, where
your search for a bag of rice for twenty kids
is now turned into a second seven acre place caring
for forty five to sixty kids and what seems like
to be by Haitian standards, maybe the finest place a
(56:35):
kid could ever end up. And it's called a place
for Hope orphanage, and the kids make their own outfits,
They make their own uniforms, right, they make their own beds.
They because of the shop that's there, because of the
hardware that's been installed, and because of the software. Of
the love and the compassion and the teaching and the mentoring,
(56:58):
all of this is happening. And then John's listening to
a podcast one day.
Speaker 1 (57:04):
Yeah, I heard Brian kill Me interview you. And then
after I listened to that podcast, I said to my wife,
you know what, why don't we just watch that Undefeated documentary.
So we watched that Undefeated documentary, very impressed with what
you did there, fantastic and then you mentioned something about
(57:25):
an army of normal folks on that and I said, well,
I'm going to just start listening to that, and I
started listening to your podcast. I think every pastor should
listen to your podcast because every pastor needs to find ways,
creative ways to get into the communities. And what I've
heard from your podcast is a myriad, well not quite
a myriad, but we're getting there, a myriad of ways
(57:46):
of reaching into the community by an army of normal folks,
which is what every church is. So I listened to
that podcast, and every church should be John, Yeah, what
every church should be yeah, okay, well, and every pastor shit,
and this is the thing you have so many You've
interviewed so many people with the creative ways of reaching
(58:09):
into it. And I looked for creative ways to get
into the community. And so when I was listening to this,
I heard this, and I heard this one about making beds,
and I thought to myself, you know, I just wonder
what Pastor Andre would think of this particular podcast. So
I bookmarked it and then I called As soon as
I finished, I called him, um and said, Andre, what
(58:29):
are you doing now? Well, nothing, and I said, come
on over here. I want to play this podcast.
Speaker 2 (58:34):
Right.
Speaker 1 (58:35):
So we sat there and we listened to that podcast,
and at the end of that podcast, Andre got a
little emotional and I said, well, what's going on And
he said, John, that's my story. That is my story.
I didn't have a bed when I was growing up.
And then when I came to the United States there
were seven children and me and Angie and we had
(58:56):
one bed, one bed for all of those, all those people.
And he said, that's my story. And so at that
time we decided that maybe maybe we're going to shift
our paradigm slightly. So that we're going to self consciously
now the place of Felpe has always tried to get
(59:18):
into their community, but never really self consciously, always accidentally,
but now maybe self consciously, we need to be reaching
into the community and instead of being purely a resource consumer,
we need to be resource distributors.
Speaker 2 (59:40):
We'll be right back to remind our listeners. Some have
maybe have heard the UPSOD, others have not. I highly
suggest you go to Luke Mickellson's interview. His organization called
(01:00:05):
Sleep in Heavenly Peace. And this is a guy who
was sick of watching his kids sit around on the
couch eating bond bonds and playing video games. And one
Christmas and Thanksgiving holiday time went and got some wood
and made a couple of bunk beds in his garage.
And once he made the bunk bed, he didn't have
anything to do with it. His kids didn't need it.
(01:00:27):
But the kids got some exercise, they got to do
something together, and he put it on Facebook and like
twenty people said I want this bed, and he gave
it away to somebody in need, and he said, heck,
we're going to make another one. And by Christmas, I
think he and his children had made fifteen or twenty
beds and given them away. And through that simple random act,
(01:00:51):
he found out maybe even invented a term which is
called child bedlessness in the United States, and found out
that there's children all over the United States sleeping on
clothes or on a rolled up piece of carpet or nothing.
(01:01:11):
Early on, he gave a bed to a kid that
would take off their clothes, sleep on the clothes, and
put those very clothes on to go to school. So
literally they were wearing their bed to school. And his
eyes were opened to the fact that there's poverty to
a level in our country where children have no beds,
(01:01:33):
and when they don't have a bed, they don't sleep well.
When they don't sleep well, they don't study well. And
they don't study well, they're irritable. And when they're irritable,
they don't do well in school, and then they have
all kinds of behavioral issues, and the list goes on
and on. And it's so simple that a child needs
a bed, a good place sleep. And so he started
(01:01:54):
sleeping heavenly peace. And since this has all happened, I
think they've made and given a way over seven how
many one hundreds, one hundred and forty thousand beds two
bedless children in the United States. And so that's the
podcast you listen to John that you shared with Andre,
(01:02:17):
and then Andre got emotional because Andrea identified and the
irony is Andrea. I just believe that the reason in
twenty years you've gone from a plot of property that
some children and women were excited about a dead shark
on to now an orphanage taking care of forty five
(01:02:40):
to sixty kids a year and providing them with skills
and food, but most importantly love, which you said was
missing from your experience that you want to provide your
children from what I believe the success of that comes
from your experience as a three to six year old.
(01:03:01):
And now you hear this podcast that John shares with you,
and John you just said you wanted to go from
being a consumer to a provider. Andre, tell us now
what your vision is for the kids and your orphanage
with the guard to bets.
Speaker 4 (01:03:22):
Well, my vision is to go and through the bed
make the kids through the beds I will.
Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
So let me just get this right. Orphans with no
family and no home, or maybe family that can't care
for him, but certainly no home, who are living in
an orphanage are now going to use the campus that
has been created that has a woodshot and now orphans
(01:03:53):
are going to be making bets for Haitian children who
don't live in the orphanage, yes, but don't have a bet.
So now the orphans in the orphanage are going to
serve their community by making beds and the shop that
they learn how to do woodworking.
Speaker 4 (01:04:10):
Yes, that's what they're going to do.
Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
What's phenomenal about the story to me why I wanted
to meet you so bad, and what is so redemptive
and inspirational to me is this. When you think of
an orphan when you think of kids living an orphanage,
you think of serving them. You don't think of them
(01:04:37):
serving others. And the phenomenal lesson is for the kids
in the orphanage. By comparison and Haiti look at the
blessings you have to be able to live in this
magnificent place, and even though you've been orphaned, you too
can serve. I don't know that there's a more valuable
(01:05:01):
lesson a child could ever learn than what you're going
to teach them through this exercise. And to the community
at large, I mean it really has the potential to
change the lives of some really unfortunate, poverty sticking children.
(01:05:23):
How does that make you feel?
Speaker 4 (01:05:25):
You know, that's make me feel great, That's make me
feel happy. You know, I'm all this trouble I went
to God was preparing me for that.
Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
So John, the show is an army of normal folks.
And what we always find out at the end of
the show is that these normal folks are anything but normal.
Thus the nickname I guess Andre the Giant for a
five foot nine Haitian. You've seen this for the last
(01:06:01):
twenty years. You've witnessed it all. You've been a part
of it. You've been a party to it. You know
what it is now and you know where it came from.
And you've watched this man take his dream with absolutely
no resources and dumpster dive and beg borrow and I
won't say still, but beg borrow and knock on church
(01:06:24):
windows to get it to where it is now. Where's
what's next?
Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
Well, what's next is to reconstitute the board and then
to ensure that these children that are coming through the
Place of Hope learn how to return to the community
what they've received.
Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
Well, making beds for children who don't have them is
a good first step.
Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
It is a good first step. And in Haiti, my
observation has been that there is a patronage culture, which
is to say that many of the people in Haiti
are waiting to be rescued, for someone to rescue them
take them out of it. What is less prevalent is
(01:07:14):
an entrepreneurial spirit, and so I think the next step
for the folks in Haiti is to become food secure,
self sufficient, so that they can grow their own.
Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
Food or produce their food, buildings.
Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Get everything so that they can be self sustaining so
that they don't have to depend on anybody. And to
teach those kids that entrepreneurial spirit so that when they
leave that place with a skill, they know then how
to go and start a business of their own and
sustain themselves. I think that's the next big step for them.
Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
Andre, you are an amazing human being with an amazing story,
and this is an amazing happenstance that a pastor from
Florida answered the door on a knock from Andre and
(01:08:17):
what has all developed and then comes full circle to
hear one of our podcasts that now is returning back
to Haiti where kids are going to make kids Orphans
in an orphanage are going to make beds for the
kids in the community they don't have them, and one
of the most poverty stricken places that I could imagine.
(01:08:40):
And John and Andre, both of you could not be
more emblematic of what we talk about when we talk
about an army of normal folks that see places of
need and don't fill them because they're a listers or
trust fund babies, but just normal folks who see places
(01:09:03):
of need and fill it and in doing so, change lives.
And you both have done that, and your life has
been doing that, Andre, and I'm so honored that we
got to have this conversation. I'm humbled and inspired by
(01:09:24):
both of your commitment and story to children who desperately
need it. I just want to tell you how much
I appreciate you coming to Memphis, ands you and your
story with me.
Speaker 4 (01:09:34):
Thank you, thank you, thank you for having.
Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Us, and thank you for joining us this week. A
little update, our team at an Army of Normal Folks
has decided to donate a thousand bucks to help the
Orphanage with material costs for building four beds, which are
more expensive in Haiti because getting the materials to Haiti
(01:09:59):
is so expensive, and Reverend John's church has decided to
match another one thousand dollars gift. If you be interested
in empowering Haitian orphans to help bedless kids in their community,
you can donate any amount to Place of Hope in
Haiti dot org and write beds in the comment box.
(01:10:23):
Or if you'd be interested in helping the orphanage in general,
you can of course do that as well. And if
Andre or John or other guests have inspired you in
general or better yet, to take action, please, seriously, y'all
let me know I want to hear about it. You
can write me anytime at Bill at Normalfolks dot us
(01:10:44):
and I will respond. If you enjoyed this incredible episode,
which I cannot imagine how you could enjoy this episode,
share it with friends and on social, subscribe to the podcast,
rate and review it, Become a premium member at normal
Folks dot us. All these things that will help us
grow an army of normal folks. Remember, guys, the more people,
(01:11:08):
the more impact. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.
And I heard this one about making beds, and I
thought to myself, you know, I just wonder what Pastor
Andre would think of this particular podcast. So I bookmarked
it and then I called As soon as I finished,
I call him mom and said, Andre, come on over here.
I want to play this podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
So we sat there and we listened to that podcast.
And at the end of that podcast, Andre got a
little emotional and I said, well, what's going on? And
he said, John, that's my story. That is my story.
I didn't have a bend when I was growing up.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
Inner City Memphis. And the last part it unintentionally led
to an oscar for the film about our team. It's
called Undefeated. Guys. I believe our country's problems will never
(00:59):
be so by a bunch of fancy people in nice
suits using big words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox,
but rather an army of normal folks, US just you
and me deciding Hey, I can help. That's what Reverend
John Anderson and Andre Forges have done. After being an
(01:20):
orphan himself in Haiti, Andre somehow built an incredible orphanage
called Place of Hope in Haiti that today is home
to forty five children who otherwise wouldn't have a home.
And after John played for Andre our episode on Sleep
and Heavenly Peace, which has built one hundred and forty
(01:42):
thousand beds for kids without them here, Andre felt called
for the kids at his orphanage to build beds for
Haitian kids without them. Orphans are doing this. Orphans building
beds for children with homes just so unbelievably awesome. And
I can't wait for you to meet Andre and John
(02:05):
right after these brief messages from ours and oer sponsors.
Today is a cool day. We started the morning getting
(02:26):
covered by.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
The local uh what is that was the CBS or CBS.
CBS the CBS, the local CBS affiliate covered our story
and we got to spend some time this morning at
the news station. And now we're getting spent time this
afternoon to tell the story of Andre the Giant, which
(02:52):
is interesting because I remember Andre Giant being this chro
magnon looking guy that was about six ft eleven to
four hundred pounds that wrestled on WWE. But Andre, the
giant in this case is a five foot nine Inchasian
who's never wrestled to day in his life other than
with just wrestling through life. And Andrea, I can't wait
(03:14):
to tell your story. And his friend and mentor without
whom I wouldn't even know who Andre is, which is
John Anderson. So Andre and John, welcome, Thanks for being a.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Memphis, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
So your story is unique to our podcast and beyond inspirational.
And the reason it's unique is we're starting to do
organic stories, stories that are born out of the podcast itself.
But it's also unique and that you're the first guy
(03:52):
that we've interviewed that has heard about one of our
stories and decided to do exactly what he heard in
that story. You heard the blueprint through the story. You
know the architect of the story, and it's Luke Michelson
from Sleep and Heavenly Peace. And you are now going
to take what you learned from his story and do
(04:14):
it in your own community, which is exactly what the
goal of an army of normal folks is. And you're
the first story that we get to tell that has
latched on to the goal. But how you're doing it
and who you're doing it for and who you're doing
it with, which we reveal later in the show, is
(04:37):
just beyond inspirational. I can't wait to tell that story.
But first, Andre, tell me about you. Where do you
come from? How did you grow up? Tell me about
Andre the little giant when he was just a kid
running around? Where do you come from? And tell me
all that.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Well.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
I was born in Haiti. I was born in family
of six and I was the fourth of the family.
And my father when I was born, he has TB
you know, which is a very sageous thing, so she
cannot take care of me, you know, and then she
(05:18):
has to take me to the orphanage. But after a
little while, I realized that, you know, to be with
my family, that's the best thing, you know, instead of
you know, the ofpheny. Because I have my mom and
my dad and even he has TV. So I decide
to go and you know, stay and live with them.
(05:41):
So God gave me a little gift. I remember when
I was at the orphanage, I got a gift from
my sponsor from here, and that gift. There was a
little box and when I will painted, I saw some crayola.
We were like the little painting. So I used that
(06:01):
kreola that's patent to do some little little trees and
stuff like that, so I can sell them. Yes, I
did sell them, and with that money I helped my
mom with her medicine and you know, to get her fits.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
How old were you when you went to work. I
was three years old. So was your family in poverty.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Well, not like and not William privity just to beg
but they simply cannot, you know, taken care of of
us because then was really tough. And my dad has pneumonia,
so he was sick too, so that's make it very
difficult for them to take care of the family.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Would your father able to work.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Yes, he did, but at that time he wasn't work,
you know, he was fo years after that at the
sugar f sometime he has spent like three days working,
never come home.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
He stayed at the factory.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Yeah, all the all night he's been working, you know,
just to bring a little food on the table, just
for two days meals.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
What you know, people see on TV famine and poverty
and other countries oftentimes and places like Africa. And you know,
I think because you see the images over and over
again in magazines and on TV, we become a little
(07:39):
desensitized to areas that are wrought with poverty. And the
other thing is, you know, if you look at a map,
Haiti and the Dominican Republic or next door to each other,
there's a line driven down, drawing down the middle of
(08:00):
an island, and in the Dominican Republic it's largely a
successful place, and then there's a line on the map
on the exact same island with people who are generally
the same. But in Haiti it is abject poverty. Why
(08:24):
is that?
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Well, I wish I can answer. That's Christian. You know,
I'm gonna try my base. The country is very corrpt corrupt.
Yes you probably know that. So my wife told me
please try to stay from cow of these things, you know,
(08:46):
like a politic and things like that. But you know
that's yes, it's very corropt country. That's the reason that
Haiti is like that. And also people will use to
the garden, to the planting, you know, the mountain, so
everybody are focushing, you know, to go to portter Press
(09:08):
to the city. You know, they lift the lands and
everything they used to rock, you know, to produce like corn, beans,
you know, rice. So they just go to Porter Press.
You know why they go to Potter Press. No, because
they think that there's close to Miami. Everyone just focush,
you know, to come to the United States.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Is other than people who run the government. Is there
any money in Haiti for families, for normal families? Is
there any way to for a family to pull themselves
out of poverty?
Speaker 4 (09:44):
So the governed man, I'm sorry to say that. No.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So the reality is when people hear that you had
a mother and a father that were ill but sent
their a three year old to an orphanage. It wasn't
that they didn't love or care. They literally did not
have the means.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Yes, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
That's terrible because it's so poverty stricken that it tears
families up. Yes, So how long did you live in
the orphanage?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
I didn't stay for a few years. A few years, yes,
a few years.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And at what age? Well, I can remember, you know,
I think some people I can remember. I think when
I was five years old. Maybe, I'm sure I can
remember things from first grade when I was six. So
if you stayed a few years you were six or seven,
(10:42):
how how did it feel being an orphanage knowing your
family was not far away?
Speaker 4 (10:51):
That was hard? That was really hard. I have a
problem too, you know. When I was born, my leg
was I have to wear a boistlet legs, so that
makes it even very difficult for me. You know. The
roast thing is, you know, when you see the other
(11:13):
kids play, you know, when they play like soccer or
hn't see it, you cannot you know, just watch him play.
And then as a boy, you cannot do that, you
know because of my the facts I have in my legs.
And the roast thing is when go to school, make
it hard for me to sit in the bench because
(11:35):
of the legs, you know. So and then I get bully.
They used to call me an ex anx X. This
is the ex boy because the ex boy, you know.
But you know I didn't get that and get me down,
you know, just keep going and do what I got
(11:56):
to do, you know, thank God, you know, and my
leg with or hell and I will be able to
to walk normally and then try to get a job.
You know, as the age of like eight or ten,
you know, I went to the missionary and tried to
ask him for a job, you know, to clan the motorcycle,
(12:16):
you know, water the gardens and stuff like that. You
know that's for fifty cents.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
You know, I think I've read that at some point.
I'd like to know what age you were. You hung
around a hotel hoping to see American business span or
business spend coming in where if maybe you carried their suitcase,
they'd give you a cookie or something.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah, there was a there was a guess I was, Yeah,
I was there, and then uh, there was a missionary
who came with a suitcase and now you know, and
he gave you a cookies. His name is Johannes, your
honest and Luis heard from Germany. They're still in Haiti.
And he took it, took an interest in you, yes,
(13:00):
and he helped me. They helped me a lot. They
helped me with my school. He has a school, so
he has school trade school. So with that little gift
God give me, so he gave me a job in
that trade school to make that little picture, you know,
for them. So I with that money, I pay my
(13:23):
school with that and how we I probably like ten
ten years, eleven years.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Ten years old. Yes, so then you went home.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Oh, yes, I went home. So at eleven years old,
I got a job, you know, and clanic the car
for the missionary, you know, and the garden they have,
you know, I have water the garden, and I have
to fertilize you know, the garden. So and then how
(13:55):
to do that is go and get the cow, you
know stuff, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Fertilize it.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Yeah. And sometimes you know, the fresh one, you cannot
pick it up, so you have to burn it to
make it drive, so you can put it in the bag.
And you have to make it throw money, you know.
And then I had a little sister, and I'm the
one who pays school for her too.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
At that age, I read that when you first showed
up at home, your father said I can't beat you,
and you said, it's okay. If you eat, I eat.
If you don't eat, I don't eat. Yes, that speaks
to me to just how bad you want it to
be at home.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Oh yes, home is home, sweet home. You know. No
one wants to stay in the orphanage, you know. And
then the experience I had in that orphanage at that time,
even the little kids I got food. I got good food.
You know, that's the orphanage was running by mission and
from Canada. Good you know what I miss. Never say
(15:04):
anybody say that I love you, you know, hold you and
your homy just like you in book comp you know,
and this go to strutch and go to school, and
this hoop hoop, go to bed and this and that.
But hot home is different, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I think it's important for our listeners to understand that.
Later on we will talk about what you're doing now,
and I think it's really important to understand where you
come from, to give perspective on why you do what
you do and why you poured yourself into it. And
(15:41):
now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
I hope you'll subscribe to the podcast so that you'll
get the newest episodes in your library every week. And
also consider signing up to join the Army at normal
folks dot us because together we can change country and
you'll also receive weekly email updates about the Army. We'll
(16:05):
be right back. So you met a woman and got married.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
I met a woman. I got Mary.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
You know, I want you to tell the whole story.
I don't want you to tell the whole story.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Yeah, I'm going to tell this old story. You know.
I was in Porto Press, you know, school in Porto Press,
and then I never have a girlfriend. Okay, So my
sister called me and tell me about you meet the
beautiful girls, you know, Haitian girl.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
How old are you?
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Let's see, I was eighteen eighteen. Yeah, and then uh,
I said, no, I'm not interesting because I have a
bigger vision, you know, because I want to see, I
want to walk, I want to do something, you know,
my life. So she keep persistent. So I took a
boss will be like three or four hours, you know,
(17:14):
to the Ki and my sister gave me a book.
This is a girl who came to take her mother
to the hospital. But they have to go through my house,
you know, because that was thirsty and Haiti a long
time ago. If you need water, you're testy and you
can't go any place, you know, and then you knock
(17:35):
on the door. They opened the door, and then you said,
can I have a glass of water? They will give
you water. They have a special glass for visitors. Okay,
So that the same thing happened to my sister. So
they stop in my house where my sister is and
to get some water. And then there was almost the
same age, you know, and they talk and stuff like that.
(17:57):
So my sister just loved that girl for me. So
one day my sister told me, you better go and
visit her, you know. So I said, okay, And I
wake up at five o'clock in the morning, five o'clock
in the morning, and I walk six hours.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
You walked walk six hours hours and at the timely
doorstops that you have to get a super water on
the way. But that's a lot of water.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
The only thing I had, you know, that's a piece
of sugar cane. You know, I got a piece of
sugar acain. I've been eating all the wind. So there
was no bridge. I have just crossed all the water
like that. But when I get to the village and
I saw a boy, I asked a boy, you know,
I'm looking for this girl and this and that. It's okay,
(18:44):
I know where she lives. So she brings me to
a house and I knock and there's a girl came
and I said, I don't think that's not her, you
know the way my sister described that's.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
What you know.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
And then he said I told her yeah, I'm looking
for this and that. He said, oh, there's another one,
you know. And she lived way win the mountain. So
that takes me thirty minutes. You go up a mountain, Yeah,
that takes me thirty minutes to go to the mountain.
So when I reached to her house, somebody punted her
house to me. So I walk and knocking the door,
(19:23):
and I expect that that girl going to open the door,
you know, so I can see her. And then the
door is open and whoy. So that's her father, and
he said, how can I help you? You know, I
cannot tell her I come to see your daughter. No,
not in eighty So I said, well, I just passed by,
(19:48):
you know, I need a glass of water. So she
called someone to bring me the glasses of water. I
thought that was her, but that wasn't her. After I
drank the water and I said, can I have some more?
They give me you I second cup. I drank it
and then I keep walking. I don't even know where
I'm going. I passed the house. But while I was
(20:09):
in the mountain, I saw a girl coming from from
the hill with a bucket of water and her head
and I keep looking looking. I said, what that must
be her, you know. I mean, I'm telling you it's beautiful.
So by the time she went home, and I just
wrung from the hill, you know, and I just grabbed
(20:31):
that water from her head. You know, she didn't see me.
She would go like this, what's going on? You know?
So I help her with the water, and then my
heart is finning so hard, you know, not the first time.
So I tried to to grab like something of flowers,
something like that, you know, get in my knees, you know,
(20:52):
grab like a dead flowers, you know. So I got
in miamies and I told her my name is Andre.
Please will you marry me? And it just met her? Yeah,
will you marry me?
Speaker 1 (21:09):
He's not finished?
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Will you marry me? So we can have a son
named Gino?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Just ask the first date, you know, and she look,
can I ask you a question? Yes, you're telling me
that you walked up to a girl you'd never met. Yes,
you snatched a bucket of water off her head and
gave her a dead flower and ask her to marry you.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
I told he's not even the dead flower? Is this
something like? I won't say?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
And you maybe a pastor. But if this all worked
out you got game.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Bro so well. She looked at me. She said, are
you you know like Bee's brother. I said yes, and
then she thinks that, you know, there's something is not
right with me.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, you know, I think most people think there's a
thing not right with you.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Yeah. I just left. I said bye bye. You know,
I just left because you know, if I realized, man,
what I'm doing, what I did, So I backed six hour,
six hours back home because I can afford like fifty
cents to take a tap tap taptap is just transportation
and eighty So my sister was so excited see me coming.
(22:25):
They said, oh, that's going And I told her said, oh,
that's not the way. You know. She was so desapparated
with me. So the very next day, you know, I
take a bus and go back to Power Points. I
haven't come back to the city for like a year,
so I decided to come back to the city one day.
I see that one there was a church and plane are.
(22:49):
You know, every year there was probably like three hundred
churches get together for three days, but that wasn't plane Are.
So while I see that one and I heard hand
said mister Force, And I look that's what's her, you know,
I said, oh, my heart was beating. Man, I'm trying
(23:10):
not to make the same mistake. Okay. So and she said,
can I sit by you? Oh? Yes, yes, you know,
I got a book in my hand, and you know,
I tried to put the books so she can see.
He said, no, I'm fine, you know. So she's sit there.
So I've been talking but nothing about love. Nothing, you know,
just thinks that's no value. But before she left to
(23:35):
go home, I opened the books. I put something in
the boox. I told her that I'm going to let
you use that book. That book was Waiting by African
pastor Andrew abdor. So she loved that book. And then
I gave it to her and while she's living, I
told her that, excuse me, there's a little, you know,
(23:57):
homework in that book, so please, you know, check it
out when you have time. So this is the homework.
The first page I put a J like short Tame,
shot Tam and I love you. The first page I
put a J. And the second page there is a
little appost, you know, and then I go the them.
(24:20):
So I did I did that, you know, in the
end of the books, and each page. You know, sometimes
I flip like three pages, you know, and put a
little later on it. So after a few days, not
only a few weeks, and she brings back the books,
you know. She came, you know, to see the doctor
again with her mom, and she gave the books. I said,
(24:43):
do you realize what you find out? What they say? Yes, yes,
I said what you said, say, well, I have to pray.
I'm going to pray. Man, that's a lady take eight years,
eight years to pray about it.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Eight years.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Auntie is my friend. And every Saturday, every saturdayday, she
makes me walk like almost threeven hours to go and
see her in the mountain for eight straight years.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
I think had you not proposed the minute you saw
it might have been three years. But I think I
think it was a five year tax for being so aggressive.
But she became your wife.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
She became my wife. She said, okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
So Andre, I think we can establish you grew up
very poor, You had to go to an orphanage. You
experienced sadness and bullying and the loss of your family,
and somehow inside of you it built a strength of
(26:01):
a man who is willing to walk six miles every
week for eight years to found the love of his life,
and you're trying to figure your way out what am
I doing next?
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Well after we Okay, I just told you that when
God call you in the ministry, he gives you a package.
Listen to this, and I'm pretty sure that my wife
was in the package. While I was visiting my wife.
My girlfriend he has two brothers, three brothers, but the
(26:38):
older one is in photoprints, so the two brothers live
with her. They hate me, man, I don't know why
they hate me.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
So you're dating their sister. That's why they hate him.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
But that's not hate again, and that's his more than hate.
Every time when I come. When I go over there
and they said get out dog, get out a dog.
They don't talk to me, just directly. But there wasn't
no dog. That was me, you know. So they decide
to call bigger brother inpropriate because Bigger Brother is doing
(27:11):
you know, karagate, you know things like that, so you know,
to kick me out in the house. So one day
while I was coming on Saturday, my girlfriend just rung
and the gate. They told me, please please don't go today,
don't come today, you come another day. But she don't
want to tell me what's going on in the house.
I said, why, you know, he said, please, don't, don't
(27:34):
come another day. I said, yeah, but I have to
come and say hello to you, mama. He said, no,
you know, but I came anyway. Why I would sit down?
You know, I heard a lot of discussion in the
audio room. You know, I hate it. Mostly there's two
rooms in the house, not more than two rooms. So
I heard that my girlfriend was crying because her brother
(27:57):
has a big stick and his hand and come out
and come out and you know, in the living room
to hit me. And when you look at me, and
he said andre I said, Bob, how are women in
the orphanage together?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
And he could no longer be average because you were friends.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Yeah, he said, andre I said, Bob, you know the
you know the good thing is And he told her mother,
you remember when you come to see me at the orphanage,
because I used to look road to the orphanage. And
that person that you sleep that was his grandpa, Mama.
And the bread that you you said, that guy always
(28:39):
give you that his father. I said, thank god, yeah,
so that that was in the package.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Okay, I would say that, you know, you're kind of
you're kind of in at that point. Yeah, the family
loves you.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Yes, h m hmm.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
We'll be right back. John. There's this crazy story of
this guy from Haiti named Andre, who we've just learned
(29:21):
all about, and your introduction to him was nothing more
than really a miracle too. And for our listeners, the
whole reason I'm sitting here with Andrea and John is
because John heard an episode about Luke Nicholson from Sleeping
(29:41):
Heavenly Peace, and I beg all of you to send
me emails and tell me about stories. And John took
me up on it, and you sent me a very
long email that after reading it, my eyes had teared up,
and I think I reached out to you immediately and
said I got to meet this guy. But in the letter,
(30:03):
you open with how you met him. Yeah, tell us
a story of how you came to know Andre.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
All right, Well, Andre was one of those people who
wanted to come to the United States. And Andrea expressed
to me that in Haiti, everybody thinks of the United States.
There's just money lying along the side of the road,
and you could just scoop up the money if you
need something and get whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
That you need every trees of money growing.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah, now that you've been here, you know that's not
the case.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
Yeah, I'm telling you Andre.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Something that he hasn't said is that he and his wife,
Angie actually raised seven children before they started their own family,
and there were seven orphans and this was the genesis
of the Place of Hope actually, but he came to
the United States so he could pick some of that
money off the trees and help feed the kids.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
With these seven children, with.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
The seven children and his wife.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Excuse me, there's seven children that I I raised that
was in that was in hate, Okay. When I came
to the United States, there was twenty yeah, twenty.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Okay, twenty in a billy and I'll tell you about
that in a second. But he comes to the United
States and he, uh, he was trying to raise money.
He got a phone call from someone who was watching
the kids, yeah, the house mother, and she she told
him the kids have only had coconut to eat for
(31:36):
the last three weeks. They have diarrhea, they're on the
verge of dehydration. We need to do something. So Andre
borrowed a car and started driving up the main road
in Naples. He went to one church there and he
pushes the doorbell if it was locked. There was a lockout,
and they said, how can we help you? He said, well,
(31:58):
I need to talk to somebody. I needed to to
the pastor.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Now I'm not tying it only one bug of fries
to send to Haiti and the kids.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
And they said the pastor's not here. And then finally
somebody came out and said, you're gonna have to leave
the property. Who are going to call the police? Well,
Andrea's here.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
And the whole time John Andre simply asking He's trying
to tell the story of these kids at this hortage
in Haiti that need food, yes, yep, that are sick
because all they've eaten for three weeks or cot.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
And all he wants really is a bag of rice,
so he could send back to Haiti a bag of rice.
That's all he wants. So after that experience, he decides, well,
I still have to find something. So he goes up
to the next church, which we were the next church.
I was pastoring of that church at that time in Naples,
and we remember that day a little bit differently since
(32:51):
you asked me, I'm going to tell you my story.
But I knocked on the door. I heard this knocking
at the door. It's just a light tapping, and I
look out and go out in the hall and there's
glass doors at the end of the hall and I
look down the hall and here's a man, a Haitian
man literally cap in hand and standing outside the door.
(33:11):
And I opened up the door and I say, how
can I help you? And he said, I'd like to
ask you about help for my orphanage. I said, well,
when you come in my office and let's sit down chat.
So we went and we sat down and Andre, since
the last church they threatened to call the police on him,
he left the car running.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
In case the police came.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
And when he sat down, when he sat down on
the chair in my office, he didn't sit all the
way back. He sat on the edge. So I make
it a quick but I said, well, Andre, take my hands.
Let's let's pray. And so we sat and we prayed together,
and then after our amen, I said, how can I
(33:56):
help you? And then he told me about how he
has twenty orphans in Haiti and they are on the
virgin dehydration and they need some help.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Clearly on a shoe string budget, if any budget at.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
All, absolutely, and what he asked for. He said, we're
trying to raise eighteen dollars a month for each of
those kids. I said, well, half a bucks a month,
bop thousand a year. Well, and he knew I couldn't
cover the whole thing, but there was enough there for
me to go on, and so I said, well, how
(34:28):
can I get back in touch with you tomorrow? I
want to go and talk to my wife. So I
went home that night, talked to my wife, and then
called him the next day. My wife and I said, well, well,
we can take care of to those orphans, but we'll
pay the whole year now so that they could spread
it among all the kids that way. I had a
feeling that's what they're going to do anyway, so we
said okay, So we sent them I think it was
(34:49):
three hundred and eighty bucks or something like that, and
that began our relationship. He came to our church. I
introduced them to some people, Some people put money in
his hand, and eventually our missions committee picked it up,
and Andre had a growing concern. At that point it
was a there was some viability to it. In the meantime,
(35:11):
I had a small group that I was working with
and I told them about this this guy and this orphanage,
and they said, well, we ought to go over and
take a look at it. So two of them went over.
They flew over, I guess three because Mike went. Mike
Schaeffer went too. So three of them went across to
Haiti and looked at the place. Well, the place that
(35:32):
they had at the time it was the orphanage was
one room. It was just a singular kids one table,
one chair, one spoon, no plumbing, no electricity. It was
just a shelter and he had twenty kids. He was
operating out of it. And they looked at that and
they said, well, gosh, I don't know how this is
(35:54):
ever going to work out. Well, they all turned out
to be very good supporters of the project, and later
on we would Andre.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
We began to dream.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Together, what's this, what's your vision of this, of this,
of this orphanae Andre and he would tell me what
the vision was, and we begin to sketch little drawings
out on a piece of paper. One of the things
he said that'll come into play a little bit later
on is I said, listen, because he wants to put
a church in. That was a principal criteria for him
(36:25):
was to put a church on the property. And I said, well, Andre,
if you put a church on that property, one day,
I'm going to come down, I'm going to preach in
that church, and you're going to translate for me. And
Andre said, okay. What we didn't find out until I
don't know, maybe it was ten or twelve years later.
I was sitting on the platform of that church and
(36:49):
he looked at me and he said, you know, this
is an answer to prayer. And I said, how you talking?
Speaker 2 (36:53):
What do you mean?
Speaker 1 (36:54):
And he said, well, ten or twelve or whatever period
time it was before we had sat down, we talked
and said that you're going to preach it. I was
going to translate today's day. Well, that was right before
I went up to the pulpit, and by that time
I had tears streaming on my cheeks from the memory
of us of doing that. But we dreamed together about
what that campus might look like someday.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
How many years ago was this?
Speaker 1 (37:18):
This must have been in about four four so plus.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Eighteen nineteen years ago, so eighteen nineteen years ago. There
was a quote Orphanage which was a one bedroom right,
no electricity, no water running place where twenty kids were
surviving for three weeks on coconut yep, and that was
(37:45):
better than what they'd come from.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yes, And I don't think any of us could really
understand poverty until you've been down there and seen it.
We have poverty here, but their poverty is you haven't
eaten for a week. Andre told me a story about
how he saw a man eating mud because he needed
something in his stomach. The poverty down there is, it's stunning.
(38:16):
And Andre didn't he let out some of the parts
of his story too, but he came from serious poverty.
And so now when he hears somebody in America say, well,
I'm starving to dad, well.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
You're just like my daughter. You know. She lived here
and sometimes said Dad, I'm hungry. You know, I'm starving
and I'm stopping. You know what's stopping, man, I'm hungry, Dad.
And then the free there's milk, it's peanut butter. You know,
there's bread, and you told me starving, you know. And
(38:52):
then sometime when I was a little kid, I go
to school. We've won orange for all day, it'll clock.
You have to be at school until four o'clock come home.
Sometimes when you come home there's nothing to put in
your stomach. You know, you go to bed stomach empty,
(39:12):
and you told me that you're starving. You know what
is what is starving mean?
Speaker 2 (39:18):
So I think for a perspective, it's really important to
understand that money doesn't grow on trees in the United States.
But when a kid who we would say in the
US is in poverty, gets to go to school and
get free breakfast and free lunch, who almost assuredly can
(39:44):
find shelter and clothing and in education and transportation and
most likely have the basic sustenance provided for that. While
the American dream is not that, and I'm not discounting
(40:05):
that level of American poverty to a Haitian kid that's rich. Yeah, absolutely,
And we need to keep in perspective what real poverty
looks like in parts of our world. And Haiti is
three hundred and fifty miles off the Texas coast in
our hemisphere, just below Cuba. Just below Cuba. We're not
(40:27):
talking about some far away mythical place. We're talking about
people who share the Gulf of Mexico with.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Two hour plane ride. That's my two hour plane ride
from Miami.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Two hour plane ride from Miami, and we're talking about
children that literally are starving to death. And so a
guy like Andre steps up and says, Okay, I'm going
to take care of twenty of these kids in a
one room hut.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
And that's as Andre said, and I think that that's appropriate.
Is that life is a package. And the fact that
Andre came from that poverty is what gave him the
vision and the mission to help kids who are in poverty.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
But not only the poverty, the the orphanage yourself agreed
to love as he mentioned before. Yeah, it was interesting
when you said, Andre that you got mules and you
had a roof of your head, but you didn't have
the love.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
It was in there. It was in there. That's the reason.
That's the reason I when we have the team from Memphis,
you know, they come to do hard work for us,
but there are always two or three holy kids.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Well, and see that's interesting because I'm from Memphis. Everybody
knows I'm a Memphis guy. But John, when you emailed me,
you emailed me from Naples in Florida, and you're talking
about a pastor I've never heard of from Haiti. Yeah,
and I had no idea that there was a Memphis connection.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Yeah, I didn't either.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
I learned it recently. Well, there wasn't at that time,
was there.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Well, the Memphis connection came really after the current campus
had gotten mostly finished. Our church and churches in the
Naples area helped on the front end, putting together what
I'd called us the hardware and the Hope Pressprian Church
here in Memphis created really the software, which is the hardware. Okay,
(42:32):
the hardware is the is the physical plant when we
started building that campus. First of all, the story in Andre,
I should tell you the story on how he purchased
the property, so that because they were meeting in that
one room home, they went they moved to a second
a second home that had two rooms in it. So
(42:53):
it was really uptown, doubled inside inside, no plumbing, but
still had electricity that was pretty exacit. I had a
TV but it didn't work. So so Andre had found
a piece of property that he really liked, and I
thought that chance, and so Andrew went to work.
Speaker 4 (43:09):
And how you found the property, this is a good question, Okay.
When I was rocking to see my wife, to see
my girlfriends. I always see the property. Okay, so time,
I said, man, if I have that property, I will
boy it and build an orphanage, shot school and clinic.
(43:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
That was my dream.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
That's my dream. But I never go actually to the
property because he is probably like fifty feet above the ocean.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yeah, and you're walking six hours anyway to take hill.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Yeah, but you cannot go to somebody property like that.
They're going to question a you. Okay, But thank god.
One day I saw a lot of women and kid
would shot and you know, they have some book kit,
you know, and they was so happy and running in
the mountain. And I look on the ocean. The ocean
(44:06):
is right there, and I saw a lot of men
on the boat, you know, in the ocean. And I
told that little boy, what's going on over there? You
know it don't even take time to talk to me.
I really want to go up that matter. So I
get that opportunity to go to go there too. And
I was looking the property and said, man, that's going
(44:28):
to be a charging off and age things like that.
But I asked him what's going on? What's going on
in the ocean. You know, in the United States, I
live in Florida. Okay, and then when somebody saw a shock,
there's a shock the room for the life. But he
hated the shock won for his life.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
That food right there.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
So that's why the Roman was ready, you know, to
get some good meat from that shock. You know.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
So's they garried. That's a big shot.
Speaker 4 (44:59):
The shot wrong for his life, you know. But here
we want for the show. I'm not in Haiti.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Well, Andre went after that property, and uh, Andre, tell
him about how you you were working. Andrea was working.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
I was working in a white house. Okay, I got
a job, you know, and I was working in a
way house Storge, yeah, said storage space. So people dumps
a lot of good stuff, you know, that's the things.
When I go to the dumpster, I said, man, that's
TV or Ray jul and stuff like that, clothes, things
I never see before. And they walk. So I went
(45:38):
to my boss. I told my boss, can I use us?
He said, oh yeah, that's trash, trash for you, not
for me. So and then I collecting those those stuff,
and then, uh, I collect so much I don't have
a press to put it. So I asked him if
(45:59):
he can give in like a five by five, you
know to put those things. So he talked to the owner.
The owner said, oh that's fine. So they give me
five by five. So I put all the thing stuff
in there. But there's some Haitian who came on the board.
They can't read, they cannot write, okay, So I want
to help them, so I went to the community center
(46:19):
to teach them how to read, you know, and things
like that. So they give me one hour. So I
told him that I had, you know, the tieving things
for sale. You know, it's not cost too much. So
they came to the Whitehouse, you know, starts selling them
like for a dollar, two dollars you know, and fifty
cents things like that. And then I got I got
(46:41):
the money, and when I was to go home, I said,
I rather leave the money right there, because you know,
there's an ice cream chalk come every afternoon, and I
have kids, so they will actually for money. So that's money.
I was raised for that land. Because my brother in
law called me about their land. I said, I'm going
to buy it. Everything that I sell, I put it
(47:03):
in the envelope and I asked my boss to live
it in his office. And my boss a little is
the chairman of the board. So what I did After
a few months, so I asked him, you know, let's
open it together. That's money, okay. So we opened it together.
(47:23):
Four thousand dollars wow, from the trash. So we went
to a wire transfer and and we wire the money.
So we make our first deposit and most of that
money coming from that dumpster. And then we get a
few from you know, passe giant friends, you know, stuff
like that. And then after I paid the lan, I
(47:45):
got the date and everything. You know, I'm good. So
I'm ready to start doing the building. So one day
I went to the dumpster, you know, thinking that I'm
going to get you know, some good stuff. You know
what I find? Did that?
Speaker 1 (48:00):
You got a good price for that too.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
It was a dead gut. So that's what I say. Okay,
that's you know, that's a awfu okay.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
So he was able to purchase this piece of property
seven acres on the Caribbean Sea fronting the Caribbean Sea.
Speaker 4 (48:15):
From my watch, for seventy dollars.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Seventy thousand dollars. But he raised that money from dumpster diving.
Seventy thousand dollars. Yes, I think this is important for
your Army to know, Bill, that that persistence, when you
have a vision, when you have a mission, and you
have that persistence, that'll pay off.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
And this is a man who walked six hours every
Saturday for eight years to get a wife. That's right.
Dumpster diving on balance is just not that big a deal.
I don't know, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
We sent an engineer, civil engineer down. They surveyed the
property and they drew out a sketch of you know,
where this would go, where this would go. So we had,
according to Andre's vision, we put a dormitory on, a
vocational school, a clinic, and a church building and we
(49:25):
put that all on the property.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
And so you met him eighteen to nineteen years. I'm
trying to get a timeline. Yeah, and how long after
that was able to buy the property? A couple three
years later? Is that right?
Speaker 1 (49:40):
I would I would stretch it out a little bit more.
I'd probably say four or five years.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Okay, so around two thy ten plus remind us, Yeah,
and then he said, got to have a church, yeah,
got to have buildings for the kids. How long from
twenty ten did it take to get to a campus?
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Here's where the rest the hardware comes in. So about
that time, a gentleman in Naples, his name is Dick
Stone Ceipher. We call him Stony. Stony was a direct
report to Jack Welch. He ran ge appliance. He went
to our church. He was a friend, and he said,
(50:19):
we need to make this work. So Stoney got involved.
When Stoney got involved, things began to happen, and we
built up a board. I say we, I shouldn't say we,
because truth of the matter is I was a pastor
of the church. Andre did most of this by himself.
I had some connections. What I do is I match
people with resources, and that's what I do. I developed people,
(50:43):
I develop relationships, and I put the two of them together.
And then they built this property. And I bet you
that property. They probably have had about a million and
a quarter plus or minus into that property to build
that campus. So now that there is a dormitory that'll
(51:05):
accommodate up to one hundred kids, indoor plumbing, electricity, wired
for electricity.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Indoor plumbing and electricity doesn't sound like that big a deal,
except the vast majority of people in Haiti don't have
indoor plumbing exactly exactly. It's the taj Hall exactly, and.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
A vocational school that has a decked out carpentry shop.
There's a welding shop. There is a small engine mechanic
so they could fix motorbikes. And for the ladies, he
has a sewing class with and they have how many
you suppose twenty sewing machines? Would you say about twenty
(51:44):
sewing machines in there to teach them a trade? What
would you say that, Andre? What would you say? The
unemployment rate is in Haiti?
Speaker 4 (51:53):
Well, on primate, I would say probably, you know, like, oh,
sixty percent.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
How much? Yeah, sixty you say six.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
I would have said seventy, but he says sixty, and
so we'd say so.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Now telling me three out of ten people for out
of ten people have a job.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Yeah, Now, some people will stand by the side of
the road and try to sell mangos. I wouldn't call
that a job. But if you're talking about a job
career type of job, I'd say that sixty percent is
probably conservative as far as ou employment goes.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
So all right, So once this campus is the land's ball,
the campus is built to twenty fifteen, yes, I AB
would how about to say, okay, so and about two
thousand you have a dream. You go dumpster diving, you
save up money, you buy the land. Pastor John puts
(52:52):
you in touch with some people that help you build
it out, and in twenty fifteen you have a seven
acre orphanage with dorms, a church, a clinic for health
and medicine. You have places to teach applied skills so
that people can leave the orphanage and become gainfully employed
(53:15):
as masons or welders, or mechanics or seamstresses, which is
a big deal when sixty percent of the population is unemployed.
And you go from these twenty kids in a one
room house to how many kids in this orphanage.
Speaker 4 (53:28):
Now where we have fifty forty five kids, we used
to have like sixty kids. You know, they're growing up
and some of them now going to university.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
You know that some of them are going to college.
Speaker 4 (53:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, as one of them is going to
graduate next month, you know in American University, one of
the bigger university in La Caries.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
Are you bringing in new children?
Speaker 4 (53:53):
You know children the time, yes, yes, but right now
because of the city constancies, you know, because of the
what the money was, you know, because yeah, it's very expensive. Well,
and the board.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
Stoney he didn't really age out technically, but he got
to the place where it was too much, and so
he left the board and the board kind of fell
apart at that point. So they're in the reconstituting the board.
They're going into the next iteration of the board for
Place of Hope. Now, this is why the Hope Church
(54:31):
in Memphis has been such a tremendous help to them,
because now that the hardware is up, and Stony largely
responsible for that. Now that the hardware is up, then
the software comes in behind it. And when I say software,
I mean it's these are the people who care for
the children, who hold the children, who really take an
(54:51):
interest in the kids. I'm not saying that that didn't
happen under Stoney's direction, but this group has been extraordinary
in helping out that regard.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Which is the weird Memphis connection that I never knew existed.
And here's Hope Church in Memphis.
Speaker 4 (55:07):
And then to tell you that that was the best team.
When they're going to Haiti, sixteen of them they walk,
you know, they haven't been in Haiti for four years now,
five years. And then I'm telling you because of them,
the way they teach the kids, you know, to do now.
(55:28):
The kids do their own dress uniform because there was
a lady and that team who want to teach them
how to make dress. So they make their dress and
the uniform and even the bed. They make their own
bed now because they teach the kid every time when
they go over there. They're not work by himself. They
took the kids with them, you know, to watch them
(55:50):
what's going on, which is.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
An interesting segue. Yes, so, over the course of twenty years,
gone from a one bedroom house with twenty kids eating
so much a coconut that they're almost dead, and you're
looking for a bag of rice, and you end up
meeting the gentleman on your left who provides so much
(56:15):
more in terms of mentoring and friendship and introductions, where
your search for a bag of rice for twenty kids
is now turned into a second seven acre place caring
for forty five to sixty kids and what seems like
to be by Haitian standards, maybe the finest place a
(56:35):
kid could ever end up. And it's called a place
for Hope orphanage, and the kids make their own outfits,
They make their own uniforms, right, they make their own beds.
They because of the shop that's there, because of the
hardware that's been installed, and because of the software. Of
the love and the compassion and the teaching and the mentoring,
(56:58):
all of this is happening. And then John's listening to
a podcast one day.
Speaker 1 (57:04):
Yeah, I heard Brian kill Me interview you. And then
after I listened to that podcast, I said to my wife,
you know what, why don't we just watch that Undefeated documentary.
So we watched that Undefeated documentary, very impressed with what
you did there, fantastic and then you mentioned something about
(57:25):
an army of normal folks on that and I said, well,
I'm going to just start listening to that, and I
started listening to your podcast. I think every pastor should
listen to your podcast because every pastor needs to find ways,
creative ways to get into the communities. And what I've
heard from your podcast is a myriad, well not quite
a myriad, but we're getting there, a myriad of ways
(57:46):
of reaching into the community by an army of normal folks,
which is what every church is. So I listened to
that podcast, and every church should be John, Yeah, what
every church should be yeah, okay, well, and every pastor shit,
and this is the thing you have so many You've
interviewed so many people with the creative ways of reaching
(58:09):
into it. And I looked for creative ways to get
into the community. And so when I was listening to this,
I heard this, and I heard this one about making beds,
and I thought to myself, you know, I just wonder
what Pastor Andre would think of this particular podcast. So
I bookmarked it and then I called As soon as
I finished, I called him, um and said, Andre, what
(58:29):
are you doing now? Well, nothing, and I said, come
on over here. I want to play this podcast.
Speaker 2 (58:34):
Right.
Speaker 1 (58:35):
So we sat there and we listened to that podcast,
and at the end of that podcast, Andre got a
little emotional and I said, well, what's going on And
he said, John, that's my story. That is my story.
I didn't have a bed when I was growing up.
And then when I came to the United States there
were seven children and me and Angie and we had
(58:56):
one bed, one bed for all of those, all those people.
And he said, that's my story. And so at that
time we decided that maybe maybe we're going to shift
our paradigm slightly. So that we're going to self consciously
now the place of Felpe has always tried to get
(59:18):
into their community, but never really self consciously, always accidentally,
but now maybe self consciously, we need to be reaching
into the community and instead of being purely a resource consumer,
we need to be resource distributors.
Speaker 2 (59:40):
We'll be right back to remind our listeners. Some have
maybe have heard the UPSOD, others have not. I highly
suggest you go to Luke Mickellson's interview. His organization called
(01:00:05):
Sleep in Heavenly Peace. And this is a guy who
was sick of watching his kids sit around on the
couch eating bond bonds and playing video games. And one
Christmas and Thanksgiving holiday time went and got some wood
and made a couple of bunk beds in his garage.
And once he made the bunk bed, he didn't have
anything to do with it. His kids didn't need it.
(01:00:27):
But the kids got some exercise, they got to do
something together, and he put it on Facebook and like
twenty people said I want this bed, and he gave
it away to somebody in need, and he said, heck,
we're going to make another one. And by Christmas, I
think he and his children had made fifteen or twenty
beds and given them away. And through that simple random act,
(01:00:51):
he found out maybe even invented a term which is
called child bedlessness in the United States, and found out
that there's children all over the United States sleeping on
clothes or on a rolled up piece of carpet or nothing.
(01:01:11):
Early on, he gave a bed to a kid that
would take off their clothes, sleep on the clothes, and
put those very clothes on to go to school. So
literally they were wearing their bed to school. And his
eyes were opened to the fact that there's poverty to
a level in our country where children have no beds,
(01:01:33):
and when they don't have a bed, they don't sleep well.
When they don't sleep well, they don't study well. And
they don't study well, they're irritable. And when they're irritable,
they don't do well in school, and then they have
all kinds of behavioral issues, and the list goes on
and on. And it's so simple that a child needs
a bed, a good place sleep. And so he started
(01:01:54):
sleeping heavenly peace. And since this has all happened, I
think they've made and given a way over seven how
many one hundreds, one hundred and forty thousand beds two
bedless children in the United States. And so that's the
podcast you listen to John that you shared with Andre,
(01:02:17):
and then Andre got emotional because Andrea identified and the
irony is Andrea. I just believe that the reason in
twenty years you've gone from a plot of property that
some children and women were excited about a dead shark
on to now an orphanage taking care of forty five
(01:02:40):
to sixty kids a year and providing them with skills
and food, but most importantly love, which you said was
missing from your experience that you want to provide your
children from what I believe the success of that comes
from your experience as a three to six year old.
(01:03:01):
And now you hear this podcast that John shares with you,
and John you just said you wanted to go from
being a consumer to a provider. Andre, tell us now
what your vision is for the kids and your orphanage
with the guard to bets.
Speaker 4 (01:03:22):
Well, my vision is to go and through the bed
make the kids through the beds I will.
Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
So let me just get this right. Orphans with no
family and no home, or maybe family that can't care
for him, but certainly no home, who are living in
an orphanage are now going to use the campus that
has been created that has a woodshot and now orphans
(01:03:53):
are going to be making bets for Haitian children who
don't live in the orphanage, yes, but don't have a bet.
So now the orphans in the orphanage are going to
serve their community by making beds and the shop that
they learn how to do woodworking.
Speaker 4 (01:04:10):
Yes, that's what they're going to do.
Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
What's phenomenal about the story to me why I wanted
to meet you so bad, and what is so redemptive
and inspirational to me is this. When you think of
an orphan when you think of kids living an orphanage,
you think of serving them. You don't think of them
(01:04:37):
serving others. And the phenomenal lesson is for the kids
in the orphanage. By comparison and Haiti look at the
blessings you have to be able to live in this
magnificent place, and even though you've been orphaned, you too
can serve. I don't know that there's a more valuable
(01:05:01):
lesson a child could ever learn than what you're going
to teach them through this exercise. And to the community
at large, I mean it really has the potential to
change the lives of some really unfortunate, poverty sticking children.
(01:05:23):
How does that make you feel?
Speaker 4 (01:05:25):
You know, that's make me feel great, That's make me
feel happy. You know, I'm all this trouble I went
to God was preparing me for that.
Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
So John, the show is an army of normal folks.
And what we always find out at the end of
the show is that these normal folks are anything but normal.
Thus the nickname I guess Andre the Giant for a
five foot nine Haitian. You've seen this for the last
(01:06:01):
twenty years. You've witnessed it all. You've been a part
of it. You've been a party to it. You know
what it is now and you know where it came from.
And you've watched this man take his dream with absolutely
no resources and dumpster dive and beg borrow and I
won't say still, but beg borrow and knock on church
(01:06:24):
windows to get it to where it is now. Where's
what's next?
Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
Well, what's next is to reconstitute the board and then
to ensure that these children that are coming through the
Place of Hope learn how to return to the community
what they've received.
Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
Well, making beds for children who don't have them is
a good first step.
Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
It is a good first step. And in Haiti, my
observation has been that there is a patronage culture, which
is to say that many of the people in Haiti
are waiting to be rescued, for someone to rescue them
take them out of it. What is less prevalent is
(01:07:14):
an entrepreneurial spirit, and so I think the next step
for the folks in Haiti is to become food secure,
self sufficient, so that they can grow their own.
Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
Food or produce their food, buildings.
Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Get everything so that they can be self sustaining so
that they don't have to depend on anybody. And to
teach those kids that entrepreneurial spirit so that when they
leave that place with a skill, they know then how
to go and start a business of their own and
sustain themselves. I think that's the next big step for them.
Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
Andre, you are an amazing human being with an amazing story,
and this is an amazing happenstance that a pastor from
Florida answered the door on a knock from Andre and
(01:08:17):
what has all developed and then comes full circle to
hear one of our podcasts that now is returning back
to Haiti where kids are going to make kids Orphans
in an orphanage are going to make beds for the
kids in the community they don't have them, and one
of the most poverty stricken places that I could imagine.
(01:08:40):
And John and Andre, both of you could not be
more emblematic of what we talk about when we talk
about an army of normal folks that see places of
need and don't fill them because they're a listers or
trust fund babies, but just normal folks who see places
(01:09:03):
of need and fill it and in doing so, change lives.
And you both have done that, and your life has
been doing that, Andre, and I'm so honored that we
got to have this conversation. I'm humbled and inspired by
(01:09:24):
both of your commitment and story to children who desperately
need it. I just want to tell you how much
I appreciate you coming to Memphis, ands you and your
story with me.
Speaker 4 (01:09:34):
Thank you, thank you, thank you for having.
Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Us, and thank you for joining us this week. A
little update, our team at an Army of Normal Folks
has decided to donate a thousand bucks to help the
Orphanage with material costs for building four beds, which are
more expensive in Haiti because getting the materials to Haiti
(01:09:59):
is so expensive, and Reverend John's church has decided to
match another one thousand dollars gift. If you be interested
in empowering Haitian orphans to help bedless kids in their community,
you can donate any amount to Place of Hope in
Haiti dot org and write beds in the comment box.
(01:10:23):
Or if you'd be interested in helping the orphanage in general,
you can of course do that as well. And if
Andre or John or other guests have inspired you in
general or better yet, to take action, please, seriously, y'all
let me know I want to hear about it. You
can write me anytime at Bill at Normalfolks dot us
(01:10:44):
and I will respond. If you enjoyed this incredible episode,
which I cannot imagine how you could enjoy this episode,
share it with friends and on social, subscribe to the podcast,
rate and review it, Become a premium member at normal
Folks dot us. All these things that will help us
grow an army of normal folks. Remember, guys, the more people,
(01:11:08):
the more impact. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.
Host
Bill Courtney
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