Jesus and Wilmy

Wilmy Lissage is motivated. He really shouldn’t be. Growing up, it would have been easier for him to fade into hopelessness and been greeted with a collective shrug from his family.  But today Wilmy, a 26 year old linguistics student starting his third year at State University in Port au Prince, is working the line, translating basic information for the 150 sick people in front of the Nehemiah Ministries medical tent in Troucaima

In a country where one more misfortune added to the grind of daily Haitian life would almost certainly derail hope, Wilmy has confronted many.  He doesn’t remember his mother.  She died when he was a baby.  His father, who he mostly remembers wasting what little money there was on alcohol, died when Wilmy was 15.  Quiet and unassuming, he humbly recalled that even before his father’s death,   “I was the man of the family and responsible for my two sisters.”

Despite the difficulties, Wilmy had a plan.  “When I was eleven, I was thinking about life.  I looked at the birds in the sky and realized that God took better care of them than my father took care of my mom and me. I decided to go back to church.” Wilmy made Jesus his focus and was baptized five years later.  “I felt like a new man.”

In addition to Jesus and the support from his church family, education was key and Wilmy knew it.  “Without education I would be nothing,” he said, recalling his strategy for his life.  And it wasn’t just education, but English. He wanted to learn English and be able to read for three reasons.  The first, to be self-sufficient.  The second, to serve as a role model for his fellow Haitians; to help educate the uneducated in the country. And finally, so he could help illiterate church goers know that what the preacher was preaching was true and based on scripture.  “If someone questioned what the minister was saying, I could point to the Scripture and say, ‘It’s right here in the Bible.’”

He loved school and was very good at it.  Aunts and uncles provided enough emotional and financial support allowing Wilmy to get back to class.  He graduated from classical education – high school – when he was 21.  From there, Wilmy was one of between 20,000 and 30,000 to take college entrance exams.   Less than 1,000 were accepted that year.  Wilmy was one of them. 

And then the earthquake.  Wilmy had just left class despite his classmates wanting to continue with a study group. Wilmy didn’t see the need and left.  As he was walking home, the ground began to shake.  By the time Wilmy got back to the University, fifty of Wimy’s friends – many who were in that study group, died. 

Wilmy works for Nehemiah and medical remote clinics and facilitates communication between patients and doctors and nurses.  But it was eleven years ago, just after Wilmy’s dad died, that Nehemiah and Wilmy first connected.  Seymour Indiana native Russell Burgess was on a missions trip with Nehemiah on the North side of the Island.  Russell met Wilmy and began supporting him financially.  Today, that relationship continues.  Russell helps Wilmy pay living expenses, allowing him to stay in school.

“My people do not want to be hopeless,” says Wilmy.  “They want to see hope.  They want to see that they can do what I have been able to.”