January 2, 2025. As many of you know, on December 13, Michel died 2 ½ hours after falling while walking in the church apartment that is under construction. He was alone and no one knows what happened to him. A student heard a sound like a bag of cement falling to the floor. She saw him on the floor and called the school principals. One of them told me that five minutes before, he had left the principals’ office making jokes. X-rays showed severe head trauma. Some time after his fall, he lost consciousness and when he came to, he kept repeating: “Glory to God…I’m in pain…Jesus, Jesus… I was caught in a traffic jam on the street and arrived after he had died. I couldn’t say goodbye or hold his hand.
The gatekeeper at The Fortress school said he had seen him fall from the 4th-floor skylight onto the 3rd-floor . This information is unlikely. From where he was standing, the gatekeeper could see neither the 4th nor the 3rd floor, as the walls blocked his view. The next day, the janitor confirmed that he had only seen a reflection. Michel was found 42 inches from the skylight. It’s a construction site and there’s a layer of dust on the ground. There was no sign that he had moved.
Five of the young people who live with us minus one.
What will happen now? We can assure you that the Child Care Plus sponsorship program will continue and so will the Church. We have 745 students at school this year, over 600 of whom are sponsored. I have no intention of leaving Haiti unless I must do it for health or other reasons. However, I will have to go to Canada to declare his death. This procedure will take weeks. The airport has been closed since November 12, after a gang shot at a Jet Blue plane, and before that two other planes. It has been reopened and secured, but there is no activity now. It is uncertain when operations will resume.
The people of the greater neighborhood we serve paid Michel a beautiful tribute. They said that if there had been five pastor Michel doing the same kind of ministry in different parts of the city, there would be no gangs in Haiti. To corroborate their claims, there are no gangs in our neighborhood. Thousands of young people have gone through the CCP sponsorship program. It’s a small consolation for a huge loss.
Please pray for wisdom in all the decisions that need to be made. Pray for peace in Haiti, Israel, Ukraine and elsewhere in the world.
Louise Charbonneau
A few months ago, lightning struck a large tree in our yard and two palm trees. The large tree provided plenty of shade, but it lost all its leaves. We had to cut it down and even burn the trunk. Despite that, a plant found its way inside, and small palm trees began to grow. Even after death, we bear fruit.
Michel baptized our grandson. Sebastien, his father, is on the left.
