Roger's Story

 

Roger is the one in the white shirt

Roger and his mom came to Bavaro from Haiti and lived in Monteverde (Haitian village nearby) and at 11 years old he had a job working in the tourist area selling items on the street.  Everyone in Roger's immediate family left and moved back to Haiti leaving Roger with an uncle.  After a month, the uncle ended up in jail, leaving Roger on his own at 11 years old.  A friend of his told him to go to the 2nd Mile School.  He said he couldn't afford school and the friend told him it was free so he ended up working in the mornings and on the weekends and going to school in the afternoon.  He was living in an 8x8 tin roofed apartment with no windows, only a door, sleeping on the floor. 

His generous sponsor donated money to get him a bed and a cook stove.  He was so happy to have those things because when it would rain during the night, he would get wet on the floor. 
Roger learned English on the streets as well as Spanish, French, and a little German. 
He recently lost his job selling on the streets when the business he worked for closed down.  Roger is now 16 and works for the church and goes to school in the afternoon.  He's still a kid, but he's very smart and wise.  He has good character and wants to be a pastor.  He sometimes translates for 2nd Mile.  He  helped me today- some of the sponsors wrote letters in English so I've been trying to translate them to Spanish and he went through and double checked them for me.  Extremely respectful kid.
Last November when I was here, I ran across Roger without knowing anything about him.  He had a nice looking Bible on his desk and I touched it.  He said "That's an English Bible."  I said, "Oh, you speak English?" and he said, "A little."  and then I found out he does translating!  And he could read those letters today as well as I can!