They dug the first toilets the orphanage had ever had, built a kitchen, and constructed showers for the school. He returned to Detroit and brought roofers, plumbers, and contractors back to Haiti with him. Meeting the children of the orphanage, Albom was overtaken by their spirit, their faith, and their deep immediate needs. It was just heartbreaking, and two hundred and fifty people had jumped the walls of the orphanage and took it over.” People missing arms and legs in the streets, doctors performing triage in a field, people scrambling for any water dripping down the dirty street. “Most people still hadn’t gotten back into Haiti but the military let us in. I arranged a small plane trip through a friend, even though I’d never been to Haiti in my life and probably wouldn’t have been able to find it on a map.” “He came on a radio show in Detroit to raise money, but he couldn’t get a flight down there because all of the commercial airlines weren’t flying there. “He couldn’t get word through to the orphanage and he had heard a rumor that all the children had died,” remembers Albom. In 2010, right after a brutal earthquake rocked Haiti, a Detroit-based pastor approached Albom for help. While he and Sabino have been married for more than twenty-five years, it’s not until 2010 that he visited Haiti and entered the sphere of influence and community that would lead them to adopt a Haitian orphan. When asked what launched the idea for his latest novel, The Stranger in the Lifeboat, Albom speaks about the little girl that he and his wife Janine Sabino adopted from the Haitian orphanage that Albom now runs. But the second line represents the ideals that cause Albom to light up when speaking about his life retrospectively. The first line represents what most people know about Albom, the author of Tuesdays with Morrie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Have a Little Faith, and five other books that have collectively sold thirty-eight million copies. Mitch Albom, journalist, musician, screenwriter, author.
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