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WELCOME
In 1962, at ten years old, Marie-Solange Benedict learns that she has to leave her home and her country of Haiti, to escape from the bloody dictatorship of President Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier. The Benedict family has to seek refuge in Africa. As the author struggles to adapt to the new cultures in her temporary homes in Liberia and England, before eventually settling down in her adopted country of the United States, conditions in her own native land continue to deteriorate. Thousand more refugees, that at first include the professional and trained work force of Haiti, leave over the next forty years.
Their story unfolds through the author’s lyrical narrative recalling of a refugee’s long search for a home and struggle to overcome the challenges of racism, alienation and unfulfilled dreams. This particular refugee, however at the age of twenty-eight years old, starts to read the Bible for the first time. After so many years spent in the shadows of an oppressive world, the author’s perspective is illuminated by truth. Her life is transformed.
This book will challenge you to re-examine your personal code of ethics. How did Haitians and others around the world help Francois Duvalier dismantle a country and set up conditions that continue to push even more of its people into exile? Through the story of her own family the author brings to light the basic reasons why people groups have been and continue to be displaced from their native land around the world. The root cause of the making of refugees, the author contends, lies in the pervasive greed of humanity. Greed inoculates each succeeding generation through the ages. As the book points out, humanity is doomed to repeat its history because it has the wrong set of instructions for living life on planet earth. The right set of instructions for life on earth remains in the pages of the manual given by the Creator of all humanity: God in the Bible. |
