Parents of Haiti quake victim realize her final wish

Every day since their daughter Britney died in a catastrophic earthquake while on a missionary trip to Haiti, Len and Cherylann Genglel have been driven by the final words she sent them in a text message:

"They love us so much and everyone is so happy. They love what they have and they work so hard to get nowhere, yet they are all so appreciative. I want to move here and start an orphanage myself."

Those words fortified them as they waited 33 days after the Jan. 12, 2010, quake before Britney's body was found under the rubble of the Hotel Montana, a popular hotel for Americans and Europeans visiting or working in Haiti.

The words guided them through their grief as they decided to honor her last wish and build an orphanage in the impoverished nation.

And the words strengthened them as they navigated the cultural, bureaucratic, financial and language hurdles of building in a developing country that was devastated by the 7.0 earthquake, which killed more than 200,000 people, injured another 300,000 and left 1.3 million homeless.

Now, on the fifth-year anniversary of the deadly earthquake, the Gengels' efforts are complete in a brick-and-mortar tribute to their oldest child and only daughter. The Be Like Brit orphanage is a 19,000-square-foot building in the shape of a B high on the mountainside of Grand Goave, a town about an hour west of Haiti's capital, Port au Prince.

The orphanage is home to 66 children -- 33 girls and 33 boys to remember the 33 days they waited for Britney to be found.

"We always felt an obligation to her and how three hours before the earthquake she sent this text message saying how happy she was," her father says. "We started this with nothing, but once we committed to it we were not going to stop until it was done."

The plight of orphans in Haiti is considerable. UNICEF, the U.N. agency that provides emergency care to children globally, estimates there are 430,000 orphans in the country.

The subject of those orphans became more controversial after the earthquake, when 10 Americans were accused of kidnapping and trying to smuggle 33 children out of the country. At least a third of the children had parents. Haitian authorities dropped the charges, but the arrests raised questions about who should care for Haiti's orphans.

Faradhia Moise, who oversees child protection programs in Haiti for the charity group World Vision, says the state of orphans there has improved since the earthquake but remains a critical issue. She says abandoned or orphaned children end up in orphanages, living on the street or as child slaves working as domestic servants, known as restaveks in Creole.

Since the earthquake, the Haitian government has been working with groups such as World Vision to get abandoned children off the streets, reunite children with relatives and improve housing in orphanages, Moise says.

Brit, as she was known to her family and friends, was a 19-year-old college sophomore who was in Haiti to work with children living in orphanages. She'd been in the country two days when the earthquake struck. A photo of the smiling Brit surrounded by school girls in uniform became an international image symbolizing foreigners who died while in the country to help.

Britney was one of four students and two professors from Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla. killed in the earthquake. In all, 122 Americans died.

The Gengels have been consumed with realizing their daughter's final wish. Len, a Massachusetts homebuilder, retired. He cashed in his 401(k) and the couple sold properties they owned so the family would have enough to live on while they focused on the orphanage.

Len oversaw the construction. Cherylann, a homemaker, focused on how to care for, feed and clothe the children once the orphanage was built. The couple's two sons, Bernie and Richie, helped with construction, fundraising and hauling supplies to Haiti.

None of them had ever been to Haiti or had any connection with the island nation, save for Britney's fateful trip.

They took to social media with the Be Like Brit Foundation, spoke to churches and colleges and reached out to friends, family and business contacts to find volunteers and raise $2 million in money and services.

They connected with members of Boston's sizable Haitian community. They worked with a Haitian pastor who helped them find and buy 3.5 acres of land overlooking the Gulf of Gonave for $140,000 and who dealt with all the government requirements.

A Massachusetts structural engineering firm volunteered to design a building meant to withstand an earthquake of up to 9.0.

They even had to build the roads up the mountain that would reach the orphanage.

It took two years to build, employing 110 Haitians. They made their own cement on site but had to ship almost everything else from the United States.

The children, 3 to 14 years old, come from other orphanages or have been left by relatives who could not afford to care for them. Most of them come from within an hour of Grand Goave.

The children come in hungry, they've never slept on a bed, and have medical problems like malnutrition, ringworm and scabies, says Jonathan LaMare, the orphanage's program director, who has worked in orphanages in Rwanda.

The orphanage takes only children who have lost at least one parent or come from extremely violent or abusive situations.

Now the Gengels and the staff of 78 Haitians, plus the two American directors who live in the facility, are working to help the children see the orphanage as a permanent home.

"This started being all about Brit," Cherylann says. "But now it's about the children of Haiti."

Neither Len nor Cherylann says building the orphanage eased their heartache over losing their daughter, but it helped them pour their pain into something meaningful, they say.

"We thought we were going to help Haiti, but Haiti ended up helping us more," Cherylann says. "I don't think anything eases the heartache, but when I dance with the children like I used to with Brit, Bernie and Richie, I realize I can make new memories. And that's exciting."