Finding Hope for Haiti with Danita Estrella-Watts

0:00 Hello, everyone. I'm Stephen Strang and welcome to the special edition of the Strang Report. It's the podcast to help you with spirit-led living. In fact, I wrote a book recently called Spirit-Led Living in an Upside Down World. And we're going to talk about a part of the world that is really upside down. It's the nation of Haiti. And if you follow the news at all, you know that the country is in total chaos. This president was assassinated two and a half years ago. The prime minister had to leave the country. It's really being run by the gangs. The airports have shut down. They won't let non-Hatians across the border. And it's a very serious situation especially for missionaries who are doing the best they can to help the people. And what are these missionaries? And maybe that's not the right kind of word to use, but her name is Danita Estrella Watt. And we've known each other for a long, long time. In fact, her ministry, which is called Danita's Children, is 25 years old and just a couple of years after it started. And it's a very interesting story on how it started. We did an article in Charisma Magazine that got an

1:30 enormous response. And today we're going to share the need, the need that we hope that God will touch your heart and that you'll respond. Stay tuned to the end and I'll tell you how to do it. But now I want to welcome Danita to my podcast. We had some trouble working this in, but thank you for being here. And so why don't you start by just giving us a little bit of background because your story is so interesting. And I think it can relate to a lot of people who are just living their lives, serving God, doing the best they can, wanting to do something more for God. But God actually placed this in your heart. You are sort of the most unlikely person, at least in my opinion, to do what you're doing. So why don't you bring us up to date on that story? Thank you, Steve. It was in 1998 that I went with a group of a mission team as an interpreter because I'm fluent in Spanish.

2:27 And I had been praying a year before that I had a heart to go to the mission field. And during that trip we were with a group of doctors in the Dominican Republic. But at the end of that trip, we crossed the border into Haiti into a town called Juanamint. And as soon as I walked into this town, my heart was just connected to the children and the need that I saw and homeless children sleeping in the streets. And I always tell people this is very unusual. But I went back to Florida, which was my home at that time. And two months later, I moved to Haiti by myself. I moved there in January of 1999. So I story it out. Good. I've always found this very interesting because Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island. It's called Hispaniola. I think it's where we get the word Hispanic from, isn't it? And the Dominican Republic, I've been there. And it's a fairly typical Caribbean country. I know it gives us a lot of baseball players. And then when you cross the border into Haiti, it is so poor that I'm told that you can see the difference from the sky because the Dominican Republic has trees and Haiti doesn't. I mean, it's that poor. And it's a country, you know, we could talk a lot about Haiti, but it has a lot to do with voodoo. There are people who actually think that the country's been cursed. It's a very sad story. Haiti, I've been

4:02 told that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the poorest in the whole world. And here you are, a young woman, you were single at the time, you've since married. And you saw a little boy. Weren't you eating at a restaurant or something? You saw a little boy going through the garbage. Tell me about it. Yeah. So after I was there for a year, almost a year, I cried myself to sleep one night and I said, Lord, thank you for sending me to Haiti, but why am I here? I was doing too many things. I was volunteering every chance I got. I was helping with food. I was helping with schools, helping in different churches. And I, I went to sleep crying, asking God to show me why I was there. The very next day, I had what I call a defining moment. It's a moment I can look back and say, this is a day that my life was changed. And God speaks to us through his word, through people, but he also puts situations in front of us that I believe happen daily sometimes. And it's our defining moment, how we respond to what he puts before us could be the key that unlocks our future. And that day, I was eating at a restaurant and it was market day. So the border was open and the Haitians and the Minnikans go into both countries and they trade, they sell clothes and food. And so there was a lot of street children, orphans and street children,

5:34 staring at the windows, watching the people in the restaurant. And when a person was done eating, they would either go to the trash can, or they would go to the leftovers of the plate of food, and they would put it in a plastic bag and leave. But there was one particular boy that was staring at me and he wouldn't take his eyes off of me. And I knew what he wanted. He was kind of pleading for me to save my food for him. And I just waved at him so that when I was done, instead of giving him my leftovers, I would buy him his own plate of food. But before the time I would, before I was able to finish my meal, I don't know if it was a minute, two minutes later, I heard the screams of a child and I looked out the door, the door was open. And it was the same child that had just connected eyes with me. And I guess there was a farmer that had been hurting his cattle and he was angry with all of the street children at the windows. And he wanted to teach him a lesson and teach the kids not to come back to the restaurant. And so he dragged the boy to the center of the street with a long whip. And he began to hold the boy and just whip him. And I always tell everyone that when I first went to Haiti, I was a shy, quiet woman. And that day as I looked out the door, I noticed that people were seeing the same thing that I saw, but they gathered in a circle to

7:06 watch. And I always tell people that that day something came over me. I forgot where I was, I forgot who I was, I got out of my seat, I ran out to the crowd, and I grabbed the man by the collar that was whipping the boy. And I pleaded for the boy and he threw the boy down and he was startled that, you know, I had run through the crowd and grabbed his collar. And I picked the boy up. And I remember that day that I was shaking and I was teary eyed. And I picked the boy up and I went to the restaurant. I got a few plates of food for him and his friends. And I walked him a couple of blocks away to safety. And here's the thing is, I never saw that boy again. But when I walked away that day, God had answered my prayer from the night before. I looked up with tears in my eyes. And I said, this is why you sent me to Haiti. They don't need to eat out of trash cans. And they need to know that you love them. So from that moment on, instead of focusing on so many different things, and in my prayer, I said, Lord, I don't want to do so many different things. I want to do one thing.

8:16 And I want to pour my whole life into it. And that's exactly what happened. From that moment on, I had single vision. It was all about children, children's education, children's Christian discipleship, children's medical care, children's feeding program, all through that one defining moment with that child. That is how everything had started. And I remember that same week, the Lord gave me my mission statement. And I said, Lord, what am I to do? And I have read Proverbs 31 many times before, but there was a verse that I had never noticed before. It was almost like the Lord opened my eyes for the first time to verse eight and nine. And it says, open your mouth for the speechless. In the cause of those who are appointed to die, open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy. And I was like, you know, Lord, I can do this. I'm not a doctor. I'm not, you know, but I can, I can open my mouth.

9:28 I can plead their cause. And so there was my mission statement. There was my vision. And we just celebrated in January 5th is our 25th year anniversary. Unfortunately, it's the year of all 25 years. This is the worst year for as far as the chaos and the suffering that we are seeing. I've never seen it like I'm seeing it today. Well, that's why we're doing this podcast because, you know, we see this on the news and, you know, it seems like Katie is all the time having an earthquake or some disaster and people respond. But this is different. This is governmental in a way and the gangs and everything else. And the journalist in me wants to find out really what's going on and how it's affecting your orphanage where you feed all these children and your school and your hospital because I want to do something to help. And I know a lot of the people that are watching are like me. They want to help too, but don't know how. So just kind of walk us through. You've been down there. They won't let you in, but you are there at the border. You're the closest thing to first an eyewitness that we have the first person I've talked to. And because I know you so well for so long, we have so much confidence in you and your ministry and what you're doing. So why does happening now and how wide are the needs that you have there in Haiti?

11:02 Well, let me just say this. Haitian people are beautiful people, hardworking people. And I know that the worst of Haiti is what captures the news. But what really stole my heart was the children, which is why I started the work 25 years ago. And now I get to see those same children that I started the work with, started the ministry with. Some of them have graduated college. They've got married. They have children. So like now I have grandchildren through these beautiful kids. But in 2021 of July, the president of Haiti was assassinated. Now, in 2004, 20 years ago, I was there when the rebels took over the country. And I'll never forget, I was told to leave and I needed to leave, and I needed to leave. But my children were only three, four years old, five years old back then.

11:58 And I prayed and I said, Lord, what do I do? And I know that God speaks to us primarily through his word. But scripture also shows us that God can speak to us in dreams. And that night God gave me a dream where he showed me the orphanage, the children's home exactly was it was. And a huge storm came through Haiti and the waters that went through the country, everywhere these waters went, it destroyed the country. But when the waters came to our home, they went to the left and to the right, but they did not harm us. And that's exactly what happened. I woke up and I said, Lord, I will stay.

12:39 And when the rebels came over in 2004, and they came with their trucks and their guns and their faces covered, they went home to home, breaking down doors, trying to get guns from people that businesses that have armed guards and have weapons. But they never came to our home. And when I was at the house went one day I was upstairs, and they were they broke down the doors of my neighbor's house. And I had gone upstairs to look and I thought they were going to harm him. His hands were up in the air. And as I looked, they began to yell Americans, Americans.

13:20 But the people in the village were also on their roofs looking down and they said, leave them alone. They help us because their children go to our school. And so I stayed during that time. And in 2004, one of the rebels came to the front yard and one of my employees was in the yard. And he said, we hear there's a missionary here, mommy Danita, and that she has children. Let them know, let her know that if she needs help, we will help her. And back then, we didn't have generators and electricity. And so we got our food fresh every day. And I said, tell them we need food. They went to the border with wheelbarrows. My Dominican staff threw food over the gate because the gate was locked. They put the food in the wheelbarrow and they brought it to us. So just like my dream back then, the Lord protected us. But he also provided for us and they helped us. In this situation, 20 years later, it's different. I was just in Haiti. I was just there in February. We're now in March. And in February, I only went, I was getting ready to have a board meeting in Nashville. And I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to go to Haiti to have an emergency meeting. And I did. And I was just there for three days. I said, listen, I wasn't planning on being here right now. The Holy Spirit has spoken to me. And the word he's giving me is to prepare.

14:54 There's hard times ahead. There's a hard season coming ahead. So we need to prepare for what's coming. We're not going to be able to escape it, but we can prepare. And first and foremost, we're going to prepare spiritually. And so the whole campus, the church, the children, we had a time of repentance and prayer. For the country, for the people. And then after that, I said, now let's think of every scenario that could happen. If we can't get food, what are we going to do? And so we came up with a plan of having food. If the banks are closed, because in Haiti, let me just say we're in the town of Wanamint and this city that's truly suffering is Port-au-Prince. So we're quite a distance to drive from Port-au-Prince to where we are. Some of the banks are closed. People can't get money. They're suffering. They can't get food because the roads are blocked. They can't have delivery trucks because they can't get fuel.

15:59 Therefore, they can't bring the food to the people. So fortunately, we're close to the border and we're able to get food. But while I was there, we came out with the list. How are we going to run the hospital? What are we going to do for cash? What are we going to do for food in an emergency situation? After that meeting, I went back to Nashville not knowing that a few weeks later, a month later, when I came back to the border again, I would not be able to get in. So they're allowing missionaries to leave, but the airports have been closed and they're getting a missionary flights, trying to schedule missionary flights to get some missionaries out. Now, if the border was open, I would go in so I could be with my staff and my children. But the Dominican director, I spoke to him in immigration. He said, absolutely not. They even, the UN, tried to get in the same day I tried to get in and they wouldn't let them in. And they just, the situation is urgent.

17:02 And they're like, listen, if anything happens to you, they're going to ask us, why did you let foreigners into the country in a time when they're, when the embassy is giving warnings and evacuating everyone. So this situation is different than it was in 2004. So what we can do is we've been praying a hedge of protection around our campus. The school was closed for a month because it was not safe in the streets, but the school is since reopened. Our hospital is open. The children's home, our special needs home. And this week, our church is having prayer services every day. So anyone from our town that wants to come in for prayer is coming in. Yes, we are preparing for Easter, but it is also a time of repentance and praying for divine intervention.

17:59 There's a lot of strong, godly believers in Haiti. And there's one thing that I have appreciated and I have experienced in Haiti that I did not experience in the States. When you have a way out, you have in the States, you have choice A, you have choice B, you have choice C. But when you're in the middle of nowhere and you don't have another option, your faith and your focus and your prayers are different. How you pray is different because you know that without divine intervention that there is no hope. But God's, what we have seen, God's protection, his provision and his faithfulness in 25 years. So what have we done differently?

18:58 Not only did we prepare, but for the first time in my life, I have had to hire a security company and have armed guards on campus. I was always against that. We've got 400 kids, students in the school. We have a children's hospital. We have children's homes. I did not want guns on our property, but now the times have changed. So we now have hired a security company so that we have armed guards 24-7 to protect us in this difficult season. Well, I want to thank you for giving this update. It just really touches me in a very deep way. And I know it does our viewers and listeners. And I'm going to be back in just a minute to tell everyone how we can join together to help you. But before you leave, I want to let you give the last word. I just want to thank you and thank, you know, all of the donors to Christian Life Missions that in 2001 helped us, gave to us many years ago. And a lot of people have said, how, you know, how can we help? First and foremost, pray for our children, pray for our staff. I believe in God's protection, how He's protected us over these last 25 years that He will continue to protect us. And the most important

20:31 thing Haiti needs right now, the Prime Minister had to step down. I think it was on March 12th, he was forced to resign. And now they're trying to create a council to decide who will run Haiti so that they can have elections and vote for a new president. That council is not working right now. And because of fear and threats, they've disbanded, I don't know if it's temporarily. So we need to pray for leadership, that there will be a leadership that brings peace to Haiti. Pray for the people in Haiti that are desperate for food. There's so much malnutrition, Christian that are running for their lives, praying, I mean, many trying to get to the states and trying to leave. And for us personally to pray for our children, I tried, I was just there last week, and I tried to cross the border, but they wouldn't let me in. So I came back physically, but I left my heart there. That is my life's assignment. It is a place I've given my heart to.

21:42 And so to leave them and not be able to be there has been hard. But I trust the Lord, and he has been faithful all of these years, and he will continue to do so. Well, thank you, Danita. And I'll be back with another word. Stay tuned. You know, the Bible says that we can't look at a need and just turn away. And you've heard Danita share her heart. And I know the ministry, I've never been there in person. It's very difficult to travel there. And now we can't travel. But you know what we can give. And through Christian life missions, as our nonprofit partner, we will give 100% of what comes in. You can go to a link it's provided there. We're going to be doing articles and other things to let people know we've raised over the years a lot of money for Danita. In fact, it was an article in Charisma. She referred to it where we talked about this young woman, this business woman who hadn't been to missionary school or anything like that, who just felt the need and went in faith. And the pictures of those kids in their little uniforms learning, they're so happy. Volunteers have helped build a wonderful facility there. It's simple by our standards, but it's almost palatial by the Haitian standards.

23:06 And now they can't even get food. But Danita told me that the border, they won't let people go through, but they'll let them pass food through and also money through and her two biggest needs are for food and to pay these security officers and 100%. And we're hoping and praying that thousands of dollars, I want you to dig deep. I'm giving myself, my wife and I have been donors for this ministry for quite a while. And when there's a need like this, we present it. Christian life missions goes all the way back to 1956. It's a 501c3 charity that's totally separate from Charisma Media, of course, which is a publishing house, a media company. But we work together and channel 100%. We take no expenses whatsoever. 100% will go to Danita and you can check it out on the website.

24:03 So please give generously. There are so many needs in Haiti and we can't help all of them, but we can help Danita. We can help Haitians. And with Christian life missions, we've always looked for ministries like this. I remember when 9-11 happened, so much money went from the government and other places to the victims of New York City. We were able to find some ministries that were doing unique things that nobody else were doing where there was a need. And in a way, Danita is doing the same thing, helping these 400 children, helping the people who come to their hospital, and so forth. So please stand with us and help us through Christian life missions. Give generously.

24:46 Thank you for watching. God bless you.