Actionnel

Actionnel Fleurisma is the heart and founder of OFCB (Organisation Force Chretienne de Bayonnais). He is a native of Bayonnais but had left for the city of Gonaives when he felt the call to go back and help the people of his hometown.
When I found out that Mom was coming down with a group from NC (composed of people from many churches) I thought about trying to go up to them and see what they were doing over the weekend. I was told that traveling on my own isn’t safe (and I wouldn’t know how to do it anyway) but they would look into it. I received an email saying that Actionnel was coming to pick up a student on Saturday and I could easily get a ride, but I would have to stay until Tuesday when the group came back down. Yeah!
Soon before the trip I talked with Actionnel on the phone and found out that his Saturday trip to Port-au-Prince was JUST to pick me up. I told him that it wasn’t necessary, that I could wait, but he told me he was coming down for me. He didn’t know me. He didn’t know my mom (yet). And it turned out that the trip can be very long.
But I was excited. To get out of PAP, to see the north, to be in a village/mountain area, to meet this pastor who was putting himself to so much trouble for someone he hadn’t met. So that Saturday morning I got a ride to the Guesthouse that he stays in when he is in PAP. Turned out he had gotten in his car at 5am to drive the 3.5 hours to get me with 2 of his children, and we jumped right back in the car for the return trip (via the supermarket for some essentials), the return took a little longer as there were more people on the streets later in the day. (I found out that when the group arrived it took over 8 hours to get there because they encountered “the log of unity” marching through Port-au-Prince from the south tip to the north and they couldn’t get through so many people) We stopped briefly at his house in Gonaives and then continued our trip for an hour up a dirt track into the mountains. From 5 minutes into the trip it felt like I had known Actionnel for years and I am so glad that he gave up his Saturday to spend the day in the car that I might see my mom a couple days sooner and see the amazing work that God is doing in Bayonnais.