Benite Jeune

As the survivor of a building collapse in the 2010 earthquake and later a gunshot wound during an armed robbery, Benite Jeunes knows God has a destiny for his life. His higher education was completed in Canada and the US, but his and his wife, Michaelle’s, calling is to the people of Haiti. He often says if you were to put a piece of gold into a bucket of mud and ask a Haitian child, “Which are you? The gold or the mud?”, the child would invariably say, “The mud.” His obsession is to make Haitians see that, no, they are the gold. The ministry of R.I.S.E. Haiti encompasses a dynamic church of more than 400 members, the Esther and Jabez Children’s Home currently housing 16 girls, Institution Classique Chretienne de Vignier – a school for more than 800 children from the ages of 3 to 20, and a feeding program that nourishes over 900 students and school employees daily. Benite Jeunes also chairs an association of pastors with several hundred members, speaks at conferences frequently and is heavily involved in community development in Vignier, Arcahaie and throughout the country.