As a young wife, Yvette bore five children in a five-year period; then fell to a post partum depression with psychotic features. Treatment helped her function but her reasoning and affections remained marred. When Yvonne was nine and her youngest sibling just four, Yvette abandoned her husband and children. For the remainder of their childhood, the family did not experience the love or nurturing help of a mom.

In 2004 their half brother called to say that he and Mom had been living in their van for the past six years and now that the van was impounded, would they take care of Mom? The once abused and abandoned siblings refused. Then he too left her and Yvette lived in homeless shelters and on the streets until someone placed her in a psychiatric nursing home last year.

Yvonne's father Tony raised five children alone, sacrificially providing for them. Yvonne says, "I am who I am today because of my Father; I never saw him drunk or with another woman. The Marine motto 'Semper Fi' was tattooed on his arm; it was who he was 'Always Faithful' to God and his family." For many years he spent Christmases in Haiti; he lived with us for eighteen months before he entered a nursing home. Tony passed in his sleep on 31 January this year. In San Francisco, Yvonne told her sister, "Find Mom! When you call to report Dad's passing to Social Security, find out where her checks are going."

Weeks later Yvette was located in a Seattle nursing home with a Christian tract in her purse and wearing a crucifix. Questioned about her faith, she said she knew Him! Yvonne flew ten hours from Port au Prince to Seattle to spend twelve hours with her Mom; the woman for whom she had wept now spoke healing words of motherly love for the first time. Today Yvonne grieves "but not as others do", for the Mom she did not have on earth she will have for eternity! 

                     
Listen to their story. . .