Greg Trimble - Dads Who Stay and Fight: How to Be a Hero for Your Family

Text 2017 Greg Trimble

Artwork 2017 Leah McQueen

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, whether by graphic, visual, electronic, film, microfilm, tape recording, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

This is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The opinions and views expressed herein belong solely to the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of Cedar Fort, Inc. Permission for the use of sources, graphics, and photos is also solely the responsibility of the author.

ISBN 13: 978-1-4621-2763-4

Published by CFI, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc., 2373 W. 700 S., Springville, UT 84663

Distributed by Cedar Fort, Inc., www.cedarfort.com

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Trimble, Greg, author.

Title: Dads who stay and fight : how to be a hero for your family / Greg Trimble.

Description: Springville, UT : CFI, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc., [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017000384 (print) | LCCN 2017006583 (ebook) | ISBN 9781462120048 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781462127634 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Fathers--Religious life. | Fatherhood--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Fatherhood--Religious aspects--Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Classification: LCC BX8643.F3 T75 2017 (print) | LCC BX8643.F3 (ebook) | DDC 248.8/421--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017000384

Cover design by Kinsey Beckett

Cover design 2017 by Cedar Fort, Inc.

Edited and typeset by Chelsea Holdaway

To every dad who wants to be a hero for his family.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

Tim Ballard, founder of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.)

SITTING IN AN old rented house in a Latin American country, my team and I worked to set up our next undercover sting operation. As I flipped through a catalog filled with faces of kids who have been taken and sold into slavery, I couldnt help but reflect on all the kids weve rescued in the past. It never gets any easier to look at the innocent little faces that have yet to be rescued.

The catalog I was looking at was used by traffickers to buy and sell kids, as if they were no better than a used car in an auto-trader magazine. While flipping through the pages, I pondered on the nearly seven hundred kids weve already been able to rescue from more than a dozen different countries. I was reminded that there are still so many kids out there who are literally living their worst nightmaresold for a weekend escapade by these child traffickers. Its horrible, horrible stuff. Weve encountered some of the most deplorable circumstances the human mind can conjure up.

Looking at the faces in the catalog, I knew what had led them into this, and almost all of them had a common story: no father in the childs life. A child was vulnerable and left to be taken because their father, who should have been their protector and provider, was gone. But there was one father who made all the difference for these rescued children: Guesno Mardy.

Guesno Mardy is a Haitian man who loved being a father to his son Gardy. Gardy was born in the United States during a fund-raising mission, making him a US citizen, but he and his family lived in Haiti.

One Sunday, during a church meeting, Guesno sent Gardy across the congregation to find his mother, and then became distracted by another conversation. As Gardy made his way through the congregation, he was diverted and ultimately ended up walking toward the patio of the church, which led to the parking lot. It was there in the parking lot that a man grabbed Gardy, placed him on the back of a motorcycle, and sped off. That was the last time Guesno saw his son. Gardy was gone.

Guesnos life didnt get any easier after that. Two weeks after Gardy was taken, Guesno was talking to someone in the street outside of his office building. In that moment, the big Haiti earthquake hit. Guesno stood there and watched his two-story office building cave in on itself. His sister, brother-in-law, and close friend were inside: all died.

At that point, Guesno had an opportunity to move to the United States and take his remaining biological children with him. No one would have blamed him for leaving those horrific circumstances. But Guesno didnt want to leave his post as a father to more than 150 kids in his orphanage. He also didnt want to give up hope that he might find his son Gardy.

This is where I came in. When I learned about Guesno, I was an agent in the US government. When I read about his son Gardy, my heart went out to him. I thought to myself, What is being done for this man?

I wanted to know more about Guesno and his son, so I flew Guesno up to Utah. We met at Thanksgiving Point, and I asked him to tell me about everything hed been going through.

Whats being done to find your son Gardy? I asked. And before he answered my question, he asked me a question of his own that I didnt expect: Do you have children?

I said, Yes, I do. I have six. (I had six at the time; I now have seven.)

Guesno then said to me, Could you possibly sleep at night knowing that one of your childrens beds was empty and you didnt know where they were?

The very thought was impossible. No, I could not, I responded.

In his humble voice, he said, I have not slept since they took my son Gardy from me.

Then he proceeded to tell me (through tearshis tears and my tears), that every night, he gets up, arbitrarily picks some neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, and walks the streets with a flashlight, just hoping that somehow, someway, he will hear Gardy cry.

In that moment, my heart broke for Guesno; right then and there, I decided to change the direction of my life. I made a promise to Guesno that I would do everything in my power to help find Gardy.

Because Gardy was born in the US, I thought I could get the US government involved in finding Gardy. I wanted them to send me down to Haiti with a team and open up an investigation. But, there wasnt a strong enough connection to the United States to open up the investigation. I couldnt argue with their decision. This was purely a Haitian crime, not an American crime.

If I wanted to fulfill the promise I made to Guesno, I was going to have to make the scariest decision of my life. After lots of prayer and fasting and pondering, I made the crazy decision to leave one of the most secure jobs in the worldone that I lovedand leap out on my own. I left to start one of the most insecure companies: a non-profit organization, a company where you dont know when your next paycheck is coming in. But my team and I knew what we were supposed to do, and we felt like we were supposed to do it, so we did.

That was the beginning of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.). We were going to save kids. And we were going to start in Haiti with Guesno and his son Gardy. As we arrived in Haiti, the Haitian National Police welcomed us in and gave us the backstory on the abduction of Gardy. We learned that through phone records and other information, the Haitian National Police were able to identify the person who had kidnapped this boy as a former employee of Guesno named Carlos. This same employee was working at the orphanage when he was caught embezzling money and was subsequently fired from his job. To get back at Guesno, Carlos made friends with some thugs and thought it was going to be a quick rip and ransom.