Timeline: 1960s -1999

1969 - to Early 1980s - Dorothy Exume’, an American woman who ran an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, employed Pastor Dijuste for thirteen years as her driver and personal assistant. She took a personal interest in him, and helped make it possible for him to attend Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, Texas.

1976 - Haitian native Jean Michel Dijuste felt called from God to go into ministry reaching lost souls for His Kingdom. He started with a street ministry, and shortly thereafter started his first church, Church of God Philadelphia (Philadelphia meaning “Brotherly Love”) in Carrefour-Mariani, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Since that time, he planted sixteen satellite churches throughout Haiti. Some of his churches have physical buildings, while others are called “home churches.”

1978 - Pastor Dijuste purchased land in Gressier, Haiti, a small coastal town approximately ten miles west of Port-au-Prince. He began building his second church on the property at that time.

1982 - Pastor Dijuste graduated from Christ for the Nations Institute after a two-and-a-half year course of theological study. He was ordained as a minister after graduation.

1984 - Pastor Dijuste attended Faith Tech Ministries, Lansing, Michigan, and was issued a certificate of Bible and Theology when the school was originally located in Flint, Mich.

1985 - Pastor Dijuste started a twice-weekly feeding program for poor children in the area of his Lester Church near Gonaive. This was a great undertaking, as it was a five-hour drive one-way to bring food to these at-risk children.

1986 – Pastor Dijuste started a Christian school at his Gressier Church compound.

1997 - Twenty members of Faith Tech Ministries attended Pastor Dijuste’s annual church-wide convention and provided the Bible teachings for the convention.

1998 - Dayspring Ministries School of Theology, Flint, Michigan, sent teams of two Bible teachers for three weeks at a time, to do an intensive three-month Bible training for Pastor Dijuste’s ministers. At the end of the training program, Pastor Dijuste’s ministers were ordained into an official pastoral capacity.

1999 - Pastor Dijuste started an orphanage for boys at his Gressier Church compound.

Timeline: 2000 - to present

2001 - Construction began for second story over school building for future guest housing.

2003 - Patty Sauve spent 33 days in November through December visiting Pastor Dijuste’s orphanage for boys and Christian school to assess the needs there first-hand.

2004 - In April of that year, Patty Sauve and three others visit the orphanage on a short-term mission trip. As a result of that visit, members of Hidden Springs Church raised funds to purchase and ship a ten-yard Mack dump truck to Pastor Dijuste in Haiti. The dump truck was gifted to Pastor Dijuste as a means provide supplemental income for his work in Haiti, and also provide the driver with an income.

2005 – Hands on Haiti was incorporated February 25 of that year as a non-profit organization, to raise funds, and help support Pastor Dijuste’s ministry to orphaned and poor children under his care.

2006 - Pastor Dijuste and his wife Leane became US citizens in September. Hands on Haiti raised funds, purchased and shipped a 12-passenger diesel van to his ministry.

2009 - In January a single donor provided the funds for continuous-pour reinforced cement roof to be added to the unfinished second story over the school. At this time Pastor Dijuste’s orphanage had thirty boys who called the orphanage home, and his Christian school had approximately one hundred twenty-five students in attendance.

2010 – January 12 at 4:53pm Eastern Standard Time a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the island country of Haiti only 5.6 miles from Pastor Dijuste’s orphanage, church and school in Gressier. In less than a minute, thirty-two years of his life’s work in terms of infrastructure was reduced to rubble. In terms of human loss, two young orphanage boys died in the earthquake and five boys were seriously injured. Pastor Dijuste also lost seventeen members from his three churches located near the epicenter. Most of those who died were children, whose family homes were also destroyed. His Gressier and Macon churches were completely destroyed.