Celebrating, tearfully

Steve and Vickie Haddix will be taking their dogs, but not much else, to Haiti.

(Not long before Christmas, 2015, it was my privilege to sit down with Steve and Vickie Haddix, who have answered a call to work at Alex's House Orphanage in Haiti. This is their incredible story, which appeared in the Dec. 23, 2015 edition of The Anderson News.)

The celebration will be much different when Steve and Vickie Haddix entertain their family Christmas night.

Much, much different.

Steve's parents will be there. So will Steve and Vickie's two sons, their wives and the four grandchildren. They will gather at a house that has been virtually stripped of its furnishings. There are a few folding chairs and a borrowed table in the house.

There will likely be tears. Lots of tears. “Most definitely,” says the Haddix's son, Jonathan.

Most of all there will be love. It's a love of family superseded only by a love for God.

“We told Kate, our oldest grandchild, in the middle of November,” Steve says. “She is seven and she was sitting in my lap. When I told her we were going to Haiti, she put her hands over her ears and said, 'I'm not going to let you tell me any more to make me cry.'”

Steve's voice breaks. To his right, Vickie has tears streaming down her cheeks.

Steve sighs, then smiles, “You talk about tearing your heart out.”

After living in Lawrenceburg for 25 years, Steve and Vickie Haddix are on their way to Haiti. Steve will be serving as the Director of Missions for Alex's House Orphanage, a decision that was bathed in prayer.

The Haddixs know it is the right move. They know the events that led to Steve applying for a position he would never have envisioned just a few years ago. Steve and Vickie have seen everything that has happened since accepting the position two months ago.

Everything has lined up. Everything.

Some would call it coincidence. To the Haddixs, there's not a chance of that. It's the God they love answering prayers in a mighty way.

Steve, who currently serves as children's pastor at Hope Community Church, will say good-bye to his church family on Jan. 3. Steve and Vickie board the plane for Port-au-Prince two days later. All they will be taking are a couple of suitcases and their two dogs.

Difficult decision?

The Haddixs learned of Alex's House through Hope Church several years ago.

The mission's founder is Bill Howard, who had been serving as pastor of a church in South Carolina. “God had laid it on his heart to start an orphanage in Haiti,” Steve says. “He had to find Haiti on a map.”

According to Steve, Mr. Howard went to Port-au-Prince where he met three young men, including one named Alex.

“Alex had a vision to get kids off the streets of Port-au-Prince,” Steve says.

On Jan. 12, 2010, about two weeks after Howard returned to South Carolina, the devastating earthquake rocked Haiti. Official estimates put the death toll at 316,000 people.

One of them was Alex.

The orphanage bearing his name soon opened.

Steve visited Haiti with a group from Hope Church in 2013. It was eight years after Vickie and their youngest son, Jonathan, took a 10-day mission trip to the country.

“My first trip, it smelled like a garbage dump,” Vickie says. “That was when I was coming out of the airport and getting on a bus.”

But something stronger than the smell lingered in Vickie's mind.

“She came home and said, 'You've got to go to Haiti,'” Steve recalls.

He was not about to budge. Driving a bus for the Anderson County school system and working with kids at Hope, Steve felt he was doing just fine in Lawrenceburg. He smiles, “I said, 'No, this is my mission field.'”

Steve finally broke down in February, 2013, joining some church friends for a mission trip. “After going, I wanted to stay another week,” Steve says.

While that was impossible, he did manage to head back to Haiti in March. “I wanted to finish the work of the month before,” he says. “We knew we wanted to do more. We just didn't know what it would be.”

The conviction came to fruition when Howard offered Steve a position at the orphanage.

“Someone asked if it was difficult to make the decision to move to Haiti,” Steve says. “We didn't make the decision to move there. We made the decision to be obedient.”

The Haddix family is living the teachings of Jesus, found in Matthew 10:37, “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

They are also living the teaching of Matthew 25:35-36, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

Once he visited Haiti, Steve was convicted of those words of Christ. “I don't see how anyone can go there and not have a life-changing experience,” he says.

Real life change

Steve and Vickie are not looking for accolades. They simply want to continue a walk that started with Steve sitting in his recliner back in 1998.

While he and Vickie had been raised in the church in their native Breathitt County, they'd drifted away. “Vickie said we needed to find a church for the boys,” Steve remembers.

“Steve was just working and surviving. His focus was on the family,” Vickie says.

At the time, the oldest son, James Michael, was 14 and Jonathan was 8.

“We weren't going to church anywhere but I watched Jeff Eaton on TV on First Baptist every Sunday. I made the statement, 'If he ever starts a church, I am going to try it out.' About two weeks later, Jeff announced he was starting Hope Church.”

Even after making the vow, Steve balked. “I didn't go. I was still making excuses,” he smile.

Eventually, Steve followed Vickie to the church. They got plugged in and began working with children.

“I started going to Hope because of Jeff Eaton,” Steve says. “I stayed because of the Jesus Christ I found.”

New step of faith

That relationship has taken a new step of faith with Alex's House. As Director of Missions, Steve will be responsible for coordinating work for more than 30 churches that travel from the United States to work in the field.

“We will have the whole week planned out,” Steve says.

The orphanage obviously has children, but, as Vickie says, “They are not up for adoption. They will get an education there at the orphanage.”

Steve explains that the orphanage's desire is to instill a love of the home country and making a difference there. “The need in Haiti is dire,” Vickie says.

“It is hard to explain unless you have been there,” Steve says, “but there is a growing desire and a hunger for God's word.”

Yet the poverty is gripping.

“In the U.S., we pray over our food before we eat,” Steve says. “In Haiti, they pray for their next meal.”

Vickie actually got the new venture rolling. She had seen an e-mail from Howard, the Alex's House founder, advertising an opening for the Director of Missions. She mentioned it to Steve.

“We were sitting in at Wendy's when I read the e-mail that Vickie had mentioned,” Steve says. “I texted Bill about it. He got back with me and said he was traveling but we talked about the position on the phone the next day.”

Steve sent his resume and soon after he was making plans to move to a Third World country on a gigantic step of faith. Most simply can't understand leaving the security of a home with family close by for a country steeped in poverty.

“We were having a yard sale here in Lawrenceburg,” Steve says of their effort to dispose of some of the family possessions. “A man who was a Haitian native came by. I told him we were moving to Haiti. His only question was, 'Why?'”

Vickie adds, “It makes no sense what we are doing.”

Or maybe it really does.

“If God hadn't taken care of it, we are not going.”

Steve and Vickie Haddix believe if God wanted them in Haiti, He would take care of everything.

The family had a Chevy Malabu to sell. “We took the car to a dealer in Nicholasville but couldn't agree on the price,” Steve says with a laugh. “He asked about our truck and bought it.”

It was the truck that Steve had planned on keeping around a bit longer.

The Malabu wasn't advertised for sale, but at the yard sale in early November, a neighbor inquired if there was a prayer request. “I told them to pray we could sell our car,” Steve smiles. “They asked, 'What kind of car? Can I take a look?' They ended up buying the car.”

But there was still the issue of getting around town for two more months.

No problem. A church friend loaned Steve a truck while Vickie is driving Steve's dad's car, a 1986 Chrysler LeBaron convertible. It gets her where she is going.

The only glitch was their house. The Haddixes have called Lawrenceburg home for 25 years and wanted to keep some ties to the town, meaning they did not want to sell.

“We asked at church for people to pray that we could rent our house,” Steve said of that October day. “Someone told me, 'I ran into someone in Frankfort. They have been praying for somewhere to move in Lawrenceburg, but they have kids and don't want to move until January.'”

It should come as no surprise who will be living in the Haddix house while they are in Haiti.

“There is just no way someone can say this was not God working,” Steve says.

Vickie adds, “As for renting our house and selling our cars, if God hadn't taken care of it, we aren't going.”

Steve and Vickie Haddix know some question their decision.

“We have been told we are crazy for leaving our salaries and our grandchildren,” Steve says. “We even had someone tell us we were selfish.”

Steve chuckles.

“Jeff Eaton said, 'Crazy people follow Jesus,'” he says.

But they also know things will get difficult.

“When Bill Howard talked with us, he wanted to make sure we were on the same page,” Vickie says. “He did not want someone dragging me to Haiti. We have been shoulder-to-shoulder through all of this.”

Their family is in Kentucky.

“Selfishly, I could say I wish they weren't moving but they are a picture of selflessness. They are an inspiration to me and I fully support them,” says Jonathan Haddix, their youngest son.

“I think what confuses people is they think we chose to do this,” Steve says. “We chose to be obedient and this is the door that opened. We have a desire to stay here. We love our family, we love our jobs. We love Lawrenceburg. But we have a greater desired to be obedient to what God wants.

“It is hard to leave the kids and grandkids. We will not see the grandkids at every ball game or cheer competition or dance recital. God told me it is not about what I am not going to see them do. It is about what they will see God do through us.”