Polk County man faces rising dangers as he runs orphanage in Haiti

In the video, only a window screen is visible as rapid blasts of gunfire erupt nearby.

“Y’all get down,” a man commands in an urgent voice.

The shooting continues as the screen shows only blackness. After a brief pause, the shooting resumes, while dogs bark frenetically in the background.

David Wine captured the 63-second recording on Aug. 17, as he huddled with the children in his charge at an orphanage in Haiti. Wine, a Polk County native, has operated the shelter for a decade in the Caribbean nation, which has descended into chaos since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021.

Gang violence is rampant in the country, with kidnapping common and United States citizens prized as targets. Gangs also fight each other for control of areas, and they employ rape and mutilation against those living areas controlled by rivals, the Associated Press reported.

Wine had previously endured some frightening moments at the orphanage, he said, but nothing like the incident in August.

“The bullets were pinging off our house,” Wine said of the nighttime fusillade. “And, I mean, the street was riddled with bullets.”

Wine was forced to flee the orphanage with the 60 or so children in his care. Three weeks later, he was still trying to determine if it was safe to return.

Responding to a tragedy

Wine, 56, grew up in Alturas before moving to Texas as a young man. He developed a drug addiction and spent time in prison, he said, but about 20 years ago he rededicated himself as a Christian and became an ordained pastor through Joan Hunter Ministries, a Pentecostal ministry based in Texas.

Wine, who had since returned to Polk County, traveled to Haiti following the earthquake of 2010, which killed at least 100,000 people and affected an estimated three million. As he helped erect temporary shelters for those left homeless, Wine became alarmed at the prevalence of abandoned children he saw in the streets.

“I never knew when I came over here in 2010, after the earthquake, that I had signed on for such a crazy situation 13 years later,” Wine said. “But, you know, you do what you’ve got to do.”

Wine spoke in a recording shared through WhatsApp. He said his phone service is unreliable, making phone calls to the United States difficult.

In 2012, Wine created a nonprofit organization in Florida, Black and White for Jesus Ministries. A year later, he opened an orphanage that is licensed through the Haitian government.

The compound is in Lilavois, a few miles outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The children in the facility are orphaned or abandoned or from families unable to support them, and several have special needs.

In a video posted June 8, Wine offered a tour of the facility, walking past a wall painted pastel green as palms and other trees cast shade. Young boys wandered the yard as several dogs weaved among them.

Wine’s camera captured a basketball court and a ball field, which he said the children use every day. Sighting a parked, yellow school bus, he said it was broken and that he hoped to have it repaired soon.

Buildings with peach exterior walls housed 24 girls and those with special needs, Wine said. A missionary house at the back of the compound will be turned into a transition home for girls who are aging out of the orphanage, he said.

The video showed a grassy section of the property, now occupied by goats and chickens, that offers room for expansion of the orphanage, Wine said. The tour included a church building that also houses an “accelerated Christian school” with 14 students, he said.

The ministry dispenses 600 gallons of filtered water a day to neighborhood residents, Wine said.

Amid the idyllic narrative, Wine also depicted the tall, cement wall that surrounds the compound, its gray surface contrasted by painted blocks in primary colors. Razor wire topped the wall.

The solid entrance gate was black, adorned with an image of a lion and the phrase “Lion of Judah” in gold.

The fortifications reflected the grim reality of life in Haiti, a nation of more than 11 million occupying the western section of Hispaniola, an island it shares with the Dominican Republic. A former colony of Spain and France, Haiti is officially an ally of the United States, which occupied it from 1915 to 1934.

Violence rises in Haiti

Haiti has endured dictatorship and unstable elected leadership in recent decades, a situation exacerbated by a series of natural disasters. The country “lacks fully functioning legislative and judicial branches,” according to a U.S. State Department overview from this year. And Haiti has only about 10,000 active police officers, or about one per 1,100 residents, the Associated Press reported.

The State Department advises Americans against traveling to Haiti.

Wine’s aunt, Barbara Nooe, operates the ministry’s office in Lakeland and manages the finances. Nooe said that the nonprofit subsists entirely on private donations, with some churches in Polk County providing regular contributions. In 2019, the most recent year with available IRS records, the nonprofit reported total donations of about $255,000.

Despite spending much of his time in Haiti since 2010, Wine does not have dual citizenship and his visa requires him to leave the country periodically. He said he generally returns to the United States every two or three months, staying for a month to six weeks.

While in Florida, Wine frequently speaks at local churches, describing his work in Haiti and seeking financial support.

After the recent gunfire episode, Wine received a tip from a local resident that the gang members might return and target his compound, Nooe said. Wine said he took some of the children to the house of a friend, about two miles away, as gang members continued to roam the area.

New Life Ministry in Lakeland dedicates dwelling for homeless veterans

“I stayed there two more days, and it just got incredibly dangerous,” he said. “I mean, I had literally a helmet on and it was really bad. And I had the special needs children still there because they're so difficult to move.”

Wine obtained a flatbed truck and gathered all of the children for a move to a safer location. He shared photos showing boys loading onto the back of the truck, which had partial sides painted sky blue.

The group ventured to an orphanage operated by a friend of Wine’s in Petion-Ville, south of Port-au-Prince. The friend and his family had fled to the Dominican Republic because of threats, Wine said. The children from Wine’s orphanage have been residing at a school on his friend’s property, joining the residents of the Petion-Ville orphanage to make a total of about 200 kids.

A couple of adults have remained at Wine’s property, and he learned from them that gang members had gotten inside the gate. He said his “security force” of nine dogs had apparently prevented the intruders from looting the property.

“We’ve been in a dangerous situation over there for a while, and if I go back this weekend I'm going to have to really keep a low profile because there still warfare going on,” Wine said. “We never know when it's going to come into our place — not in our place, but in the area. It's not the first time we've had to deal with it there.”

Despite the dangers, Wine said he has no intention of leaving Haiti permanently.

“You really have to be careful there all the time, but It's the place God's called me to,” he said. “And many of these children I've raised from little babies. I've had the home now for 11 years, and I just can't imagine leaving them here.”

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk County man seeks to keep children safe as danger rises in Haiti