ToyMakers "Toy Stories"
Bicycle ministry helps repair lives in Haiti, at home.
Before the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the Rev. Guerry Lefranc called 56 orphaned
children “my kids.” Now, he says, he could easily be father to 200 if he had the
resources to care for them.
“We feed as many people as we can each day with bread and sugar water. Then, we close the door and cry, while the others beg and plead,” he said. Lefranc is director of United Methodist-related Zamar Ministries near Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, which operates a school, church and clinic. He is also the brother of the Rev. Tamara Isidore, pastor at Friendship United Methodist Church in Clearwater and a member of the Florida Conference’s Haiti- Florida Covenant task group. Lefranc says the earthquake devastated his parish, located near the airport in Port-au-Prince. He says people there have received tents, but no other help from the government or Red Cross, despite the fact that supplies are relatively close by. Problems associated with distributing donated supplies have prolonged people’s suffering, Lefranc says, forcing people to live in tents and beg for food. Several Florida Conference churches are helping fill that gaping hole of relief. They’re providing food and supplies, but also another much-needed item — bicycles. One of the first big projects of the bicycle ministry at East Lake United Methodist Church in Palm Harbor was refurbishing bicycles for Haiti.
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