OKIPE CHRISTMAS 2026
HOPE KEEPS SAYING YES
Christmas has always been a story of hope.
A story of an invitation — and people who respond.
Already know you’d like to give?
Christmas at the Children’s Village is one joyful day in a much longer story of care.
Your gift can help us celebrate Christmas with the children and help Okipe continue standing alongside Mme Soliette as another year begins.
Or keep reading to discover
the story behind this Christmas appeal. ↓
GOOD NEWS. GREAT JOY. ALL PEOPLE.
Christmas is coming to the Children’s Village.
There will be anticipation.
Children will gather. There will be laughter and music, food to share, worship and celebration.
Mme Soliette and the housemothers will do what they have done so many times before — create Christmas in the middle of ordinary family life.
Because Christmas is special here.
Even the name at the entrance tells you something about this place:
Foyer des Enfants de Jésus de La Gonâve.
The Jesus Home for Children of La Gonâve.
Faith has always been woven into the story of this home. Into Mme Soliette’s life. Into the door she first opened to eight children. Into the community that grew around her yes.
And so at Christmas, we return to an old story.
A story that brought an extraordinary announcement:
Good news.
Great joy.
For all people.
We love those words.
All people.
Because the invitation of Christmas is wonderfully wide.
You may share the Christian faith that has shaped Mme Soliette’s life.
You may belong to another faith.
You may have no faith at all.
Whatever your story, you are welcome here.
Before we ask anything of you, we simply want to invite you into the story.
To come a little closer.
To meet a remarkable woman.
To encounter a family on a small island in Haiti.
And to discover what can happen when hope refuses to remain at a distance.
Because Christmas is a story of hope.
And at the heart of that hope is a God who did not remain distant.
AT THE HEART OF CHRISTMAS
HOPE CAME NEAR.
At the heart of Christmas is an extraordinary Christian belief.
God came near.
Not simply with a message.
He came Himself.
In Jesus, God entered the vulnerability of human life.
A baby held in his mother’s arms.
A family.
A child laid in a manger.
A world filled, then as now, with beauty and joy — but also with fear, uncertainty, suffering and need.
And into it all, God came near.
For Christians, this is one of the great wonders of Christmas.
He came looking for us.
He came to be with us.
He came near, so that we might come near to Him.
And His invitation is to come home.
To be known.
To be loved.
To belong.
Christmas tells us that God did not remain distant.
And in His coming was an invitation to respond.
Mary did.
Joseph did.
Shepherds left their fields to see.
Magi began a journey following a star.
Different people.
Different responses.
And that pattern — an invitation met by a response — did not end with the Christmas story.
It has echoed through centuries and across oceans, in the lives of people who have chosen to say yes.
In our story, it travelled all the way to a small island off the Haitian mainland.
One of those lives is Mme Soliette’s.
And she said yes.
SHE SAID YES.
Mme Soliette had seen children growing up without the safety of family and without the opportunity to attend school.
She couldn’t forget them.
Eventually, a question she had carried for years became a promise.
She would come home.
In 2007, Mme Soliette opened the door of a simple rented house to eight children.
She said yes.
But her yes wasn’t simply a moment.
It was breakfast the next morning.
Clothes washed by hand.
Children prepared for school.
Comfort offered.
Meals shared.
And getting up the following morning to do it all again.
Hope kept saying yes.
ONE YES BECAME MANY.
Mme Soliette’s yes did not remain hers alone.
Other people encountered what she was doing.
They saw the children.
They saw the home she was building.
They saw a woman who had already begun.
And they chose to come alongside her.
One yes became another.
And another.
Across countries, churches, friendships and communities, more people began to come alongside the family Mme Soliette had already created.
Eventually, Okipe became part of that story.
Our name means something very simple:
To care for.
For us, that has meant coming alongside Mme Soliette and supporting the work of care she had already begun.
Nearly twenty years after those first eight children entered Mme Soliette’s home, that invitation is still travelling.
One yes became many.
And this Christmas, the story continues.
WHAT CAN A YES BECOME?
When we asked Mme Soliette whether there was someone who had grown up in her care whose life makes her particularly thankful, one person came to mind.
His name is Julien.
Julien came to the Children’s Village with his sister and spent several years growing up there. He left when he was 18.
But what Mme Soliette remembers first is the child he was.
Respectful. Serious. With a deep love for God.
Even then, Julien gathered other children for times of meditation, taught them the Word of God, supported them in other ways and encouraged them in their faith.
He was resourceful too. During his years in the Village, he took on practical activities including embroidery and making handmade objects.
Today, Julien is 27.
He finished high school. He became a tailor. And he now serves as a deacon in his church.
Some of the things Mme Soliette saw in him as a child are still visible in the man he has become.
The boy who encouraged other children in their faith now serves his church.
The boy who made things with his hands now works as a tailor.
And the child Mme Soliette remembers for his deep love for God is now a man of 27, building his own life.
Nearly twenty years after Mme Soliette first opened her door, Julien’s life offers a glimpse of what years of care can help make possible.
What can a yes become?
Sometimes, we only begin to see the answer years later.
HOPE KEEPS SHOWING UP.
Christmas will come to the Children’s Village.
There will be worship and celebration.
There will be laughter.
There will be food to share.
And, where we can, gifts and those little things that tell a child:
Today is special.
We want Christmas to be joyful.
But Christmas morning is not the end of the story.
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The next morning, children will wake up ready for breakfast.
There will be clothes to wash.
Meals to prepare.
Homes to care for.
Children to encourage.
School will begin again.
January will come.
Then February.
Then March.
And this is where hope often looks ordinary.
But ordinary does not mean insignificant.
It looks like food on the table.
A clean school uniform.
Someone noticing when a child needs help.
A housemother who is there again in the morning.
Mme Soliette and her team continuing the ordinary work of making the Children’s Village a place where children feel safe, loved and at home.
Day after day.
Hope keeps showing up.
That is why our Christmas appeal this year is about more than Christmas Day.
Your generosity can help us celebrate Christmas with the children — and help Okipe continue standing alongside Mme Soliette as another year begins.
The decorations eventually come down.
The celebration ends.
The calendar turns.
But care continues.
HOPE KEEPS SAYING YES.
WHAT MIGHT YOUR YES BECOME?
Every journey of yes begins somewhere.
Mme Soliette could not have known what would grow from opening her door to eight children.
The people who later came alongside her could not have known where their own yes would lead.
And neither do we.
This Christmas, there are different ways to become part of the story.
And whatever your yes looks like:
Thank you for being part of the story.
HOPE KEEPS SAYING YES.
Thank you for being part of the story.