Building a Miracle Village in Haiti

Located 55 miles outside Port-au-Prince, the Love a Child Orphanage became a place of refuge for more than just children immediately after the earthquake. For several days, founders Bobby and Sherry Burnette transported the injured from the streets to a small hospital adjacent to their property, then opened their school classrooms for more additional patients when the hospital’s capacity overflowed.

Love a Child continues to grow as a refuge of hope. Plans now include creating a prototype sustainable community called Miracle Village with 500 new homes, a church, marketplace, chicken farm, clinic, some microbusinesses and more.

Love a Child dedicated its first phase of 50 new homes last November. The houses went to amputees and disaster victims who sought refuge after the earthquake and were involved in building and painting the homes.

Each 16-by-20-foot house was built of wood instead of concrete, meets Florida hurricane codes, has solar lighting and contains three main rooms plus a porch—roomy by Haitian standards.

“The new owners thought they’d be sharing their homes with one family for each room,” says Mark Ostrander, a Florida builder helping to design the new community. Each house costs about $5,000 to build. “Although that’s higher than most of the housing going up in Haiti … our homes can last 20 to 40 years,” Ostrander says.

Plans are underway to construct the other 450 homes. The ministries of Jentezen Franklin and Joyce Meyer intend to build 100 homes each. —C.C.