Widows and orphans are among the most vulnerable of all God's people. Both Old Testament prophets and New Testament Apostles insisted that these needy people be properly cared for.

Exodus 22:22-24
Do not exploit widows or orphans. If you do and they cry out to me, then I will surely help them. My anger will blaze forth against you, and I will kill you with the sword. Your wives will become widows, and your children will become fatherless.

James 1:27
Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us.

 

In Haiti, the life expectancy for men is 49 and for women, 50. It is also not uncommon for mothers to die while giving birth. These factors combine in Haiti to leave many of God’s children orphans. It is because of this situation that God raised up In The Father’s Hand in August of 2001. But the journey of that ministry began long before that.

It was 1985 when Keith Lashbrook led his wife Cindy to the Lord. Shortly after that, their daughter, Tiffany, was born and just a couple years later, their son, Daniel came along.

Keith had an opportunity to go on a short-term mission trip, not unlike the one you are thinking about planning. After several short-term trips to Haiti, Keith finally talked Cindy into going along on a trip. God had already started to place within his heart a desire to work with the children of Haiti, and Keith wanted to see if God would place that same desire in Cindy’s heart as well.

God did answer Keith’s prayer and Cindy fell in love with the people, and especially the children of Haiti as well. So, they decided to answer God’s call and become full-time missionaries. Since they wanted to focus on the Lord, they sold everything, closed their daycare business and on August 3, 1997, the whole family moved to Haiti.

For the first four and a half years of their time in Haiti, God was teaching them what it would take for them to fulfill His purpose and perfect His plan within them for their ministry. They lived in poverty but had plenty. They knew disease but experienced God’s healing touch. They experienced hardships but had a peace that surpassed all understanding. They tried things their own ways and failed by their own strength and yet, God, by His strength and grace carried them through those times.

And so, in March of 2000, a church began. They started with just their family and five young men who were living with them at the time. They soon outgrew the house they were meeting in and rented their first building for the church in August of 2000.

That October, God blessed the Lashbrooks with a new addition to their family. They were able to adopt their first Haitian orphan, Rodney William. They learned a lot from the experience and got to know more about how the Haitian government works. That experience may prove very valuable for the future of In The Father’s Hand.

It was almost a year later, August 2001, that the orphanage started accepting children. Jameson, had the privilege of being the first, but there have been several others that have been taken in and are currently being cared for by the Lashbrook’s.

Since they began taking in children in August, the next natural step was to create a school for those children to attend. And so, in September of 2001, the school was started with six of the orphans from In The Father’s Hand. It is a place to learn to read and write, but it is so much more than that.

The vision for the school is to eventually be able to go out into the streets, find children who are not in school and offer them education at no cost to their parents.. Through this program, contacts will be made and the school will become another tool to spread the gospel to the orphans and needy in Haiti. The long-term goal is to add a vocational school. That is a place to teach a trade such as electrician, plumber, mechanic, seamstress or carpenter. Along with the vocation, however, part of the curriculum would be Bible courses so that the leaders would be trained for the local church at the same time.

But the Lashbrook’s heart remains firmly where God planted it when this whole odyssey began... with the children. Their desire is to have an orphanage that could house up to sixty children; a place where each child can have his or her own bed along with adequate space for their belongings; a place where everyone could gather around the dinner table together; a place to raise them up to know what a family can be like so they, in turn, can raise their family the way God wants them to; a place where these children can be loved in any circumstance, a place where there is someone who will cry with them, laugh with them and share in both their joys and sorrows; a place where the first priority will be to help them mature in Christ; a place where they can truly be In The Father’s Hand.