Brad and Vanessa Johnson

Mission of Hope seems like a good enough name for a Mission. When I heard it I didn’t think much of it. “Hope” was just a random word like “love” or “faith” to me; just like this was going to be a random trip for me. My perception changed almost immediately however when I made it to Mission of Hope on the night of June 13th.
Brad and Vanessa Johnson created Mission of Hope. In 1998 they moved full time to a piece of land Brad’s parents had bought in Haiti just north of Port au Prince. The government offered to build them a building as long as they used it as a school and that is how it all started. Following this Brad and Vanessa developed their vision: to reach every man woman and child in Haiti with the word of Jesus Christ. This vision seems impossible, but hearing Brad speak with his passion made me believe it is possible. God obviously believes it too because since 1998 he has blessed the mission and expanded it into so much more.
There is now a much larger school which enrolls 1,300 students a year sending them from kindergarden through high school. the school is one of the highest recognized in all of Haiti. In Haiti on average children have only a 60% of starting school and only 15% graduate high school. In the School of Hope they graduate 90% of their students. The School of Hope is not only helping it’s students however. They are developing a christian based, culturally appropriate curriculum that they hope to enact all over Haiti. In the next school year Mission of Hope is going to double enrollment. There will be a session of the regular students in the morning hours, and another session in the afternoon hours for students whose age does not correlate normally with there intellectual level. Each of these sessions will also be served a meal so that at least one meal a day can be secured for these children. School of Hope is also completely funded through a sponsorship program. For $35 a month you can sponsor a child through school as well as feed them their meal every day.
Mission of hope has been expanded much farther than the school however. Mission of hope also has a church, an orphanage (the hope house), a prosthetics lab, a clinic, a hospital still being built, visitors quarters, a meal distribution center which distributes about 50,000 meals a day, and more to come as expansion continues. The Haitian government has seen what amazing things Mission of Hope has done that they have granted them with beach front property that Mission of Hope is planning to expand upon. They are planning to increase the size of their orphanage to hold around 120 orphans. The boys will live on the new property and the girls on the old one. They will also build a hotel for mission families to stay at. This hotel is hoped to help with funding for the new expansion. Keeping their mission statement in mind this new land is going to be used to help the whole nation of Haiti as well. They will develop land with different crops to see what could be grown in Haiti to increase agriculture and ultimately decrease poverty and hunger. As this expansion continues it is easy to see how Haiti will continue to be changed and Brad and Vanessa’s vision and “Hope” can begin to become a reality.