Gama Belizaire – Assistant Treasurer
Gama Belizaire with the 109 year old man in Faugasse, Haiti
My name is Gama Belizaire. I was born in Port-de-Paix,in the Northwest of Haiti. I was raised Catholic. I attended a Catholic elementary school. Church every Sunday was a mandatory requirement of the school. We would go to the school in uniform and were taken to church.
When I was around ten, my mother started attending a conservative Baptist Church. So on Sundays after mass, I changed into civilian clothing my mother would leave for me on my bed and went to the Baptist Church. I could not be late because my mother was there waiting for me. Some kids teased me about being a Baptist. What made it worse is that I had to carry a Bible and a book of songs to the Baptist Church. It was the norm for me to attend church twice on Sunday.
On Sunday afternoon we had a large prayer meeting in our yard. About thirty to fifty people would attend. A man by the name of Cleonasse Box was my inspiration. around six thirty every morning he would visit different homes in the neighborhood to evangelize. This is how my mother and my aunts came to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. He would come at around five oclock to pray with us.
Two years after my elementary school graduation I moved to Port-au-Prince to attend high school. Here I lived with my father. He would tell me to go to church but he did not go himself. Since all my friends in Port-au-Prince were Catholic, and I was the only Protestant I decided to go to church with them. After church all of us would go to the movie theater at ten oclock sharp. This was an appointment every Sunday. When I graduated from high school at eighteen years old I came to the United States to settle in Boston, Massachusetts.
At this time I would attend church sometimes and I felt an emptiness in my life. I always remembered what my mother taught me about Jesus Christ. The most important thing in my life from the age of ten until twelve were the conversations I would have with Cleonasse Box. He would tell me of his experiences with God and he encouraged me to serve Jesus Christ faithfully. I was afraid to accept Christ because I thought I might slide later . I always thought about my own moral values and wonder if I would be able to keep the requirements of the Bible on my own.
In 1988, while I was going to school in Boston I met Joseph Delva. He shared the word of God with me and encouraged me. At first I did not respond but about a year later I went to look for Joseph. At the age of twenty eight I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Joseph began to disciple me and prepare me for the Seminary. Since then we have been working together in ministry. We have worked in the streets of Boston distributing pamphlets about Jesus in the marketplaces around Boston and Salem. We have evangelized door to door. We have visited people in the hospitals. Together we founded this ministry of Doorway to Peace along with other sisters and brothers in the Lord.