One of our international students is Shamma Lorrean from Haiti. He has a wonderful testimony how God used his circumstances to bring him to Clear Creek.

“I grew up on a small island west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, called La Gonave,” said Shamma. “I was born into a poor family in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.

“My father is a Christian pastor. He led one church to start two others and is now the pastor of all three of these churches,” he said. “My mother is always by his side to encourage him and give words of wisdom. My oldest sister is a nurse at a mission hospital. My other siblings are studying to be able to enter college.

“When I was a teenager, I gave my heart to the Lord and was baptized,” Shamma continued. “However, a few years later, looking for what the world offered, I walked away from God’s presence. I wanted things that would please my desires, such as material wealth, money, pleasure and so forth.

“God gave me several talents, including music, but I used my music to worship the gods of the world, not Him, and to make it pleasant for my own satisfaction,” he said. “I was famous in some places because of my music, and I had everything I needed, but peace.

“Everything I had worked for fell apart when an earthquake hit our country in 2010,” he recalled.

“On Jan. 12, when the earthquake hit Haiti, I was in a recording studio in Port-au-Prince, where I used to do some part time jobs to help myself and my siblings,” said Shamma. “After spending the whole day waiting for the electricity to come back on, at 3 p.m., I heard, “Yay, yay, yay!” This is the usual cheer from the whole town when the electricity comes back on.

“I didn’t get much work done however, because at 4:54, the earthquake hit us. I was on the third floor, which probably saved my life because the building fell on me, but most of the people on the floors underneath died. I was pinned in, unable to move in a door frame that collapsed on my head and chest. I could not breathe.

To be continued …

Donnie Fox is president of Clear Creek Baptist Bible College, 300 Clear Creek Road, Pineville, KY 40977; toll-free: (866) 340-3196; ccbbc.edu; email: dfox@ccbbc.edu.