Meet Our Newest Team Members:
Willy, our Media Manager and
Maxime, our Community Life Coordinator
We created these two new positions this year to further the gospel and biblical discipleship among the Haitian youth…and that’s exactly what’s happening!
Praise God that even during a global pandemic year, He’s used CIDM to share with more Haitian youth than ever before with the love and truth of Jesus Christ.
Meet Willy Constant, our Media Manager
We created this position to share Jesus with the Haitian youth through our social media platforms in Haiti and throughout the world. Willy studied IT with a focus on photography and videography at a university in Port au Prince. He is extremely gifted at his craft, and we are blessed to have him on our team. With the technology Willy’s brought to our team, we are reaching thousands more youth in Haiti and the world with the gospel and biblical discipleship.
Willy’s Background
What a brave and determined young man Willy is. He grew up in a Christian home with 7 siblings, yet his Father died when Willy was only six years old. His mother worked tirelessly to feed the 8 children by selling candy and roasted peanuts. This Christian, God loving family trusted the Lord and saw God do miracles. At the age of 7, Willy joined the children’s choir at church and God showed everyone he had a musical gift; so much so, that he soon became the choir director!
Willy began school at age 9 and at age 13 worked a part time job, funding the tuition fees required to attend the local public school. Fast forward…he finished high school (in Haiti high school goes to grade 13) at age 23 (wow, what a brilliant and diligent student to have begun his studies so late yet finish so young) and shortly thereafter attended the university in Port au Prince where he studied computer science.
Willy has a beautiful, selfless heart for the Lord and others, as He sees the ways God’s been so good to him. Willy’s dream is to launch a foundation for underprivileged children. His vision is to provide godly training and education so that they may become strong, God-loving and educated leaders in their great nation of Haiti.
God Used Covid-19 To Bring Willy To CIM
In April 2020, during the early weeks of the Covid-19 lockdown in Haiti, CIDM was unable to minister to the youth at the high schools or our weekly bible study because everything was closed. As we prayed and asked the Lord what our next step was during the pandemic, Brisso, our Teaching Director happened to see an old school classmate in town and stopped to talk with him. His name was Willy Constant and they both shared what was going on in their lives. Willy shared that his university in Port au Prince was closed due to the lockdown, so he came home to Jacmel to be with his mom and family. When he told Brisso that he’d been studying IT along with videography, Brisso quickly realized Willy’s skills could be useful in helping CIDM share our message digitally rather than face to face.
Within a couple weeks our staff was doing what they normally did every Saturday afternoon at our New Discipleship bible club…worship, prayer and a bible study. However, now the only audience was Willy with a video camera in his hand. Willy created a CIDM YouTube channel for the Haitian youth. After taking the recording and making it a beautiful production, it was posted to YouTube and the youth were overjoyed to watch it on their phones and laptops. The texts, calls and comments flooded in how excited youth were to be connected again with the bible club and most importantly the Lord Jesus.
After paying Willy per job for several weeks, we quickly realized how God could use his giftings and heart to help further our CIDM mission, and so we hired him as a full- time staffer. Now Willy’s workday is full as he shares CIDM’s message of Jesus Christ digitally throughout the Haitian social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Radio and so much more. Click Here for a short sample of Willy work.
CIDM’s Media Team
Willy enabled CIDM to create and teach a Media Team in the past few months. Six young people from our youth who had a unique interest in photography, videography and IT have been trained by Willy to take photos and videos, edit and produce amazing work. Passing on the knowledge you’ve been blessed with is God’s call to us, and we are so thankful to now have a team of youth to help share God’s message as a CIDM team with the world. Their new skills have opened new opportunities for these six young people, as most likely to will become their lifelong career.
I (Darlys) Am Especially Grateful for Willy
I must say, I have often felt the frustration of the inability to show Americans and the world more of the impact CIDM is having in the Haitian’s lives, due to lack of availability of photos and videos. It’s been my prayer for years that God would provide images and videography that tell these stories.
Willy is my answer to prayer as now not only is he using his gifts to connect the Haitian youth with our message, but I get to work with him creating English media to communicate with you. Together, we create photo shoots, video interviews, videos (like the one you watched today) and so much more. He speaks French and Creole, and I speak very little Creole. Haiti is 3 hours ahead of California, so our intersection of work hours is much shorter than normal. However, Delpha, our Field Director, is our English/ Creole translator and through zoom calls, emails and What’s App, we are able to communicate as a three-some. It really is very humorous at times as we communicate and work through the videos and images I sense God wants us to present to our viewers. If you think something will get done in one week, plan on three weeks instead, due to the communication challenges. I’m just so thankful.
All eight of our CIDM Haitian staff are incredible young men who each have their own God-stories and who love the Lord with all their hearts. I remain in awe that God would let me learn from these men of faith and include me in this CIDM adventure and mission. God gives some the ability to be go-ers and some the ability to be send-ers. If you’re a go-er and are interested in a one-week Faith Adventure to Haiti, please contact me. If you’re a send-er, please join this exciting journey and Donate Here
Meet Maxime Aly, our Community Life Coordinator
This position was created to maintain a more personal connection with the youth who attend our weekly bible club and Maxime was definitely the man for the job.
As a recent graduate from high school with numerous giftings, he has an immense ability to relate with our students in the challenges they face daily. His outgoing personality yet trustworthy character gives the youth assurance as they open and share their hearts with him. His biblical counsel and prayers connect them closer to God’s truths. Through personal home visits, phone calls and texts, Maxime relates with our students in their daily challenges which is drawing them into a deeper faith.
Maxime is a true servant as he serves the youth and our staff. As a teacher-in-training, he aides our staff bible teachers completing details and errands for them.
Maxime is a CIDM Success God-Story
Maxime is one of CIDM’s “success stories”. He accepted Christ in 2014 at an outreach we held at his high school and he’s attended our bible club ever since growing in Christ and serving. Read more about Maxime’s testimony
We’ve had our eyes on Maxime for a few years as he so diligently gave of his time while serving in our volunteer leaders group. Shortly after he graduated from high school in 2019, we began praying about and considering hiring him. God opened the doors for him to join our team in February 2020. God’s timing was perfect, as his contact with the youth was even more needed during the Covid lockdown.
Read about Maxime’s 2010 devastating earthquake experience
Join us in praising God as He has brought such amazing, tangible treasures, such as Maxime, from the time, talents and treasures we are investing in the Haitian youth through CIDM. It’s God’s goodness that has allowed us to not only see but get to minister alongside the very fruits raised up through CIDM.
We are excited to see how God will use Maxime to revolutionize Haiti into a godly nation as together with the Lord he changes Haiti 1 life at a time.
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