Penel was fourteen years old when I first met him at The Habitation Hatt Hotel in October 2002. This was my second trip to Haiti, and I was visiting my soon-to-be-adopted daughter Magnalie. The hotel was full of Americans who were in Haiti to adopt children. Penel, along with his brother Smith, would come to the hotel after school to beg for money. I had been told it was really bad to give the children money, so I would order the boys food and drinks instead. After they had finished eating, I would send them home.

As I became more aware of the hazards that begging presented, I wondered how could I change Smith and Penel’s begging into something more purposeful? I decided to hire them to do jobs for me, such as carrying donations to the baby orphanage, delivering messages to Magnalie’s mom, walking me to the big kids orphanage, and other tasks. When I came home to the U.S., I logged on to the adoption message board and asked other parents going to Haiti to do the same: “Don’t just give the children money. Let them earn it.” I told them that Smith and Penel were very reliable and shared all of the ways in which I found them to be helpful. Soon other families visiting Haiti began to do the same.

In September 2003, I spent three weeks visiting Magnalie and her sister Mykael, which gave me lots of time to spend with Penel and Smith too. Tyler joined me at the beginning of the third week. At the end of the three weeks, just before we left for the airport, Penel presented me with a beaded necklace he had made. In the center of the necklace was a stone with a raised heart carved into it. The necklace was beautiful; however, Penel’s carving made our mouths drop.

Seeing his talent, Tyler and I wanted to provide Penel with the opportunity and resources to develop it into something marketable. So on our next trip to Haiti, we brought him supplies to make more necklaces as well as safety pin jewelry. In addition we gave him a rechargeable Dremel to encourage his carving. Then we made the following arrangement with him. We would buy all his supplies to make necklaces, and we would also buy each necklace he made for one U.S. dollar. Out of the money he received, he was to give half to his mother for the family. We asked Ernst, our interpreter, to explain to him that we were trying to provide him with a way to help support his family.

Over the next year, we returned to Haiti two more times, and each time Penel was waiting for us at the hotel with completed necklaces, first 100, then 200. Per our agreement, we purchased the necklaces from him and gave him new supplies. During the second trip, Penel’s mom visited us. She told us that not only had Penel given her half of the money he earned, as we had agreed, but he had also given 10% to his church. Tyler and I were thrilled. Penel had done everything we had asked, and more! But that was not to be all.
 

He who has a generous eye will be blessed, for he gives his bread to the poor. Proverbs 22:9

Begging in Haiti Begging is common in Haiti, and it holds a particular danger for children. In one day, a child can make more money begging than an adult can earn working all month. This provides an opportunity for children to be exploited. I saw this first hand in Port-au-Prince: Tyler and I were sitting in a tap-tap when a little girl, scantly dressed and dirty with charcoal dust, came up to us begging. As I watched, a well-dressed, pipe-smoking, grandmotherly woman came up to the little girl, scolded her, and sent her across the street to beg. I gave Obenson some money to buy the little girl some food. She took the food from him and quickly snuck behind a tree to eat it as fast as possible. To give into a child who is begging is to support a system of adults who abuse and exploit children by sending them to the streets to beg. These children grow up deprived of the opportunities of school and a childhood in order to support adults who care nothing for them.