The story goes back to December 2017, when a 22-year-old Haitian man called Jimmy Amisial came home to visit his mom Elicie on the island during a study break from Texas State University.
“When I woke up that day, I was totally unaware that my life was about to change forever,” Jimmy said. Since he was a teenager, Jimmy had kindly helped out at the orphanage next to his home, and on this trip, he’d brought back presents for the children.
En route to the orphanage he came across a large group of people huddled around a trash can. Jimmy made his way to the front of the commotion, and, to his disbelief, there was a four-month-old baby inside. Brave Jimmy scooped up the baby and took him home to his mother Elicie Jean, 66, where they washed, clothed and fed him milk, before taking him for medical help. The police launched an investigation to find the boy’s parents, but they were never traced.
With nowhere else to turn, a judge asked Jimmy if he would become legal guardian to the baby.
“I was already behind on my university fees and my family has always struggled to make ends meet,” he explained. “But I didn’t have a dad growing up, and this poor child was facing a lifetime of instability and uncertainty. Something inside was telling me that this had happened for a reason, so I took a leap of faith.”
Ever since those fateful days, Jimmy has been splitting his time between the States and Gonaives, Haiti, where the boy is being cared for by Elicie. He decided to name his charge Emilio.
Now Jimmy has applied to formally adopt Emilio, who has just started school at age 5. “I had to do what I had to do when no one else wanted to do it, and I’m so grateful for the past four and a half years,” said Jimmy.
Jimmy is trying to raise the money to cover all the adoption fees through GoFundMe
