Hays couple adopts mission to help orphans in Haiti

Mark St. Peter holds Jupiter at OH4F orphanage

OH4F school and orphanage in Myan, Haiti

Missionaries at OH4F school orphanage last summer

Avry St. Peter holds Lovena at OH4F orphanage

Mark St. Peter wears OH4F band in recognition of mission

Avry St. Peter shows off picture OH4F’s school and orphanage in Haiti.

OH4F board members Mark and Avry St. Peter, Hays

BY KARI BLURTON
Hays Post

Orphans and community members in a remote village in Haiti will soon have access to health care due to the efforts of a Hays based nonprofit, Open Hands Of the Fatherless.

Board Vice President Mark St. Peter said the health care clinic, scheduled to open this June, serves the organization’s mission.

“We work to defend orphans in Haiti and around the world,” St. Peter said. “Our biggest goal and mission is to provide the six basic needs, to provide (orphans) with water, food, health care, education, job skills and a home.”

Jace St. Peter with new friend Casimi on OH4F mission trip to Haiti last summer.

In just the last year, OH4F has already opened an orphanage and a school serving children living in the small, poverty stricken village of Myan, Haiti.

Mark was first introduced to OH4F by his wife, Avry, who traveled to Myan on a mission trip two years ago and said the trip changed her life.

“Unlike in America (where) if parents die, the state steps and figures out what to do with the kids,” she said, “there is not that system in Haiti. If the parents die, the kids are left on their own because the community can’t take care of them. They try and they do the best they can, but they are trying to take care of their own children.”

She remembers the first three children referred to the orphanage.

“They were young kids left on their own, and there was an older sibling trying to take care of the younger one that couldn’t walk,” she said.

The St. Peters traveled to Haiti again last summer and took their son Jace, 9, with them.

Avry said seeing Jace play and laugh with the children is proof friendship overcomes language barriers, as most of the children do not speak English.

Jace said when he saw the orphans waiting for their truck to arrive and running to welcome them, he made friends quickly.

“There was this one kid in the orphanage named Casimi, and he liked Frisbee, so we played it together,” he said.

Avry said at first she and her husband struggled leaving Myan.

“It is hard to see (poverty), but knowing we are are not just watching it on TV and forgetting about it makes it easier. We are going and we are taking care of our brothers and sisters without daily clothes and food,” she said, adding she and her husband feel God wants them in Hays.

“People have big hearts here in Hays. … We realized we need to spread the word and we need to raise awareness,” she said, adding community members can sponsor the school, the orphanage or both with just $1 or $2 a day.

For more information about OH4F, to donate or travel on a mission trip, visit the website HERE.