Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) is a Minnesota based Christian organization that provides healthy meals for children around the world. Meals are packaged by volunteers, and all food costs and expenses are paid by donors. This year they will pack and ship over 400 million meals.
FMSC began their work in 1987. One of the early recipients of these daily meals was a little boy named Junior Obrand, living in the small village of Gris-Gris in rural Haiti. Junior grew up in a poor, but religious home.
In his 41 years, Junior’s life has come full circle—from receiving aid as a child, to now helping provide it for others. He grew up eating the very meals he now helps deliver around the world.
Junior works for FMSC supervising the distribution of food in over 100 countries. He tells his story in his recently published book No Grave for Grace. He now lives in Apple Valley, Minnesota with his wife, Paula, and their two children. They belong to Risen Savior Catholic Church in Burnsville. “God has been pushing the right buttons in my life,” he says. “It’s nothing I’ve done. It’s all about the power of his grace.”
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In the following interview, Junior discusses his amazing life journey. (from article by Christina Capecchi, posted March 31, 2026, at: http://www.thecatholicspirit.com )
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Q) Take me back to Gris-Gris, your hometown in Haiti. What did an ordinary day in your childhood actually feel like?
A) Gris-Gris was almost a different world. I grew up with nine siblings, mom and dad and a few cousins — so on any given day, the minimum number of people in the house would be a dozen. The house had one bedroom during the day and two at night, when we turned the little living room into a bedroom. We did not have beds. We slept on the floor. We would have anywhere from five to seven of us on a mat on the floor. Sometimes, we had to lay diagonally or parallel trying to make sure we’d all fit. We walked several miles a day to get water for cooking and washing.
Q) Hunger was a constant in your childhood. How do you explain it?
A) Hunger is more than an empty stomach. The hunger I grew up with was not just an absence of food but an absence of hope.
Q) Your mother taught herself to read at 50.
A) She would get up twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and go for three to four hours to sit down and learn how to read, in a culture where that’s not normal. She did it for one reason: so she could read her Bible.
Q) You were raised Catholic. What did faith look like in your home growing up?
A) Faith was the foundation. My mother is as Catholic as Pope Leo. Faith is not something she does only when things go wrong. It’s something she uses in her everyday life. I would fall asleep every night listening to the whispers of my mother’s prayer. And I would wake up to those same whispers.
Q) Growing up, did you ever have a hint that your life might take a different path?
A) Zero. It was an 18 hour trip to reach the capital city. My mind could not think beyond Haiti.
Q) You’ve described your life as a “statistical abnormality.” How so?
A) A combination of three things had to happen for my life to be the way it is today. The first one is the power of God’s grace. The second one is the love of my parents and the tenacity they have. And the third one is the power of education.
Q) You’ve shared the story of your father running back into a collapsing house during a hurricane to find your sister. It feels almost like a living parable. What do you see in it now?
A) It reminds me God will always run back to look for the lost one. My dad was a man of a few words, but he taught us without saying much.
Q) What role has Risen Savior Church played in your life?
A) Risen Savior has been my church before it was my church. Growing up in Haiti, Risen Savior had been supporting my home church in Haiti for over two decades. I met my wife because of Risen Savior. She went to Haiti on a mission trip. I was living in Haiti, working as an interpreter. She is from Lakeville. We got married at Risen Savior. I came to the U.S. in 2009, at 24, coming straight to Minneapolis from Port-au-Prince. I think that was the best place that God had for me.
Q) And now you work for Feed My Starving Children.
A) Yes, it is amazing, because this is the very food I would eat in Haiti. The packaging and the smell of it — I knew it right away.
Q) You once received aid. Now you help deliver it around the world. What does that feel like?
A) I don’t see it as a job. It’s an assignment, and it’s deeply personal. When I tell kids I know what hunger is, sometimes they look at me and think: “Yeah, sure. If you’re too busy for lunch, you might not have time to eat.” No. I knew it. I grew up where you’d have no food on Monday or Tuesday, and you weren’t sure if you’re going to eat on Wednesday.
Q) What’s something people think they understand about global hunger but don’t?
A) There is enough food on the planet. The food is just not properly distributed.
Q) Are Americans who travel to Haiti surprised by the joy among locals?
A) I call it a ‘recalibration’ that happens, and I have seen it more times than I can count. The people I depart the U.S. with are very different people who re-enter the country with me. They get recalibrated and they look at life differently to say: What really matters in life? When you have nothing, Jesus is everything. When people see the joy they have, it’s not happiness. It’s a deep joy that comes from within.
Q) Now that you live with comfort and convenience, do you ever take it for granted?
A) I do. It’s human nature. But I remember.
Q) I bet you make a point to remind your kids how fortunate they are!
A) They hear that all the time! They each have their own bedroom. When I was a kid, we didn’t even have beds! I use it less as a comparison but more as a lesson to tell them: Hey, how we live here in Apple Valley is the exception, not the rule. Many people — in fact, the majority of the people in the world — don’t live like we live here. We are privileged and blessed to live this life, so let’s look at it and say: What can I do for somebody else?
Q) You published a book last year. It’s a dramatic memoir with stories of poverty, near-death moments, and change. Why did you feel called to write it?
A) I see it as a way of leaving a trace. What if I could leave something that would outlive me? My dad died in 2006, and none of us even have a picture of my dad. My kids don’t know what my dad looked like. That haunts me. I know that by having this out there in the universe, my kids and their kids and their kids will get to read it. Being able to sell copies becomes a secondary objective. We all can do something to leave a trace. Not all of us will write a book. Oftentimes leaving a trace can be an act of kindness. Bringing cookies to the neighbors who just moved in. Shoveling someone’s driveway without being asked. People will always remember how you made them feel.
Q) What do you know for sure?
A) I know for sure, with every fiber of my being, that grace is accessible to all of us. Life here on Earth is like being on an airplane. Some of us will have extra leg room, some of us will board first, some of us will have a complete meal during the journey, but some of us will have to buy water. But when we hit turbulence, all of us are shaken. The best way to make that journey more enjoyable and more worthwhile is by being kind to the other people on that journey with us. We are not yet at our destination. This is not our final home. That I know for sure.
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Jeremiah 29:11 — “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Matthew 25:40 — The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Mark 9:41 — (Jesus said), “Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.”
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Lord Jesus, teach us that the world’s misery is our opportunity to witness to your love amid the pain, to your presence amid the suffering, and to your triumph amid the world’s defeat. Amen.
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