Angel Noble

A child disappears, the adults around her shrug, and the question hits like a punch: where did she go, and why doesn’t anyone seem to care? That moment becomes the spark behind our conversation with Angel Noble, founder and executive director of Mission of Truth, a nonprofit working in Haiti to protect vulnerable children from further trauma, exploitation, and trafficking.

We start with Angel’s roots in the Louisiana bayou and the Cajun and Creole cultural mix that shaped her identity. Curiosity about French language, Haitian influence on New Orleans, and the feeling of “home” she experienced in Haiti eventually turned into 15 years of on the ground relationships. Along the way, Angel and her husband built a mission anchored in transparency, truth telling, and trust, even down to the organization’s memorable MOTO acronym and motorcycle logo that invites people to ask better questions.

Then we get practical. Angel breaks down what Mission of Truth actually provides for about 170 kids connected to partner orphanages: trauma therapy with trained psychologists, medical care, food support, discipleship, and age out assistance like secondary schooling. We talk about why trauma informed care is essential when children live in fight, flight, or freeze, and why “doing good” isn’t enough if no one is tracking safety and wellbeing.

Finally, we bring it home. Angel shares clear indicators of concern for parents and caregivers, including changes from a child’s behavioral baseline and the growing role of phones and social media in grooming. We also discuss training communities and law enforcement to recognize trafficking and respond faster. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more families learn what to look for and what to do next.

Transcript

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Welcome And Guest Introduction

Jay Franze 0:11

Welcome to Mission of Truth. I am Jay Franze, and today we are honored to be joined by Mission of Truth, the founder and executive director, Angel Noble. Angel, my friend, thank you for joining us.

Angel Noble 0:23

Thank you for having me.

Louisiana Roots And Haitian Connection

Jay Franze 0:25

Can you tell me what life experiences have led to you creating Mission of Truth?

Angel Noble 0:32

Wow, what life experiences. Well, I will say, first and foremost, I'm from the deep south, the bayou in Louisiana, where I lived in a very small town that was predominantly influenced by Cajun culture. And in the surrounding areas, we have peppered spots like New Orleans that has a heavy Creole culture. And my grandparents, or my grandmother, I would say that's the one that I really remember. And her family, they spoke French. So as a child growing up, my generation had to still take French classes every day, even in elementary school, to be able to communicate with the last dying generation of Cajun ancestors. There are so many similarities, but there were also differences. And it probably wasn't until I got out of Louisiana that I realized, for one, how incredibly different the rest of the country is, man. I just feel like that's a bubble down there. And I really do appreciate the way the people of Louisiana, I mean, I was born and raised there. It's very protective. They do protect their heritage. And once I moved from Louisiana, I moved to Florida. And I think it was around the time of 17 or 18 years old. I was studying and reading something about New Orleans. And the Creole culture was coming up. And then something about the country of Haiti popped up in relation to that. And my curiosity was piqued and started reading a little bit and realized that a lot of the Creole, if not the majority of the Creole influence, came from Haiti when the French pulled out of Haiti and they docked into the port of New Orleans. And it just blew my mind because no one really talks about that growing up. Honestly, I just feel like there was a very cutthroat difference. If you were Cajun, you had this ancestry. And if you were Creole, you had this. And that usually included, they would say when I was growing up, black people, black ancestry. And I just became fascinated because I know I have that ancestry in me. And you go to Haiti, and they're all speaking French. They eat food that tastes like what I grew up on. And um I felt right at home. But yeah, all of those things are what led to me first wanting to get to Haiti, coupled with when I finally moved to Tennessee, attending a church that took something called missions trips to Haiti.

Jay Franze 3:53

Nice. Okay, I've got questions

The MOTO Name And Logo

Jay Franze 3:55

now. First of all, can you speak French?

Angel Noble 3:58

You know, French proper is different than Creole French. Creole French has the African dialect descent in with it. So it's kind of crazy. When I get there, I can understand some. And after a long period of time, I can speak back. I just have to tell them to slow down. Dusmas, like speak slowly so I can get it. So I get by. I pick it up pretty well. And then I communicate with my staff every single week, and we speak in broken creole to each other.

Jay Franze 4:31

So my family's Italian, and my grandmother used to say she couldn't speak Italian until she would get on the phone with somebody else who could speak Italian, and then all of a sudden she's speaking Italian.

Angel Noble 4:42

That's right.

Jay Franze 4:44

So the the name Mission of Truth, how did that come about?

Angel Noble 4:49

Well, that's a fun question because we kind of worked it backwards, Jay. We started with the logo, and here is why. My husband's been an avid motorcycle rider since he was, I think he got his first dirt bike when he was like eight or nine. Which is cool. And in Haiti, you know, they ride these little motos everywhere all over the island. There's seems like there's no road rules. Someone's always honking, and you'll see six Haitians piled up on one of these motorcycles carrying chickens, and the middle three are carrying a mattress. I mean, it's hilarious. So during the time that he and I, my husband and I were working for another organization, he designed a shirt where the logo was just this moto, and he wrote Haiti Moto Club. And he said, you know, out of all the nonprofit and Christian shirts, this is one that I would want to wear, right? Like I'm in the Haiti Moto Club. And so he designed it and had some printed, and we would wear them, and it would be hilarious because Haitians would stop him and want to buy it right off his back. So when he and I left the organization that we were working for at that time, we wanted to come up with a name that would be very meaningful. And one thing that was very important to both of us is that everything we did to be extremely truthful, vulnerable, transparent, whether we are speaking with the locals or speaking with our donors and supporters, being truthful and honest was very important to us. So Peter said, Well, first we've got this wonderful logo. What can the title be? And so we said, you know, Mission of Truth Organization gives you the acronym of MOTO. And truly, that's how it came about. And at first, I thought, man, that that's gonna be scandalous. I mean, we're gonna have a motorcycle logo or a Christian nonprofit. And my husband was like, no, think about it. People are gonna ask questions and we'll be able to explain what we do and why we do it. If it just said mission of truth and nothing else, people might look on. So that's how that came about.

Jay Franze 7:20

Well, that's a good point. So you said people might ask you what you do and why you do it. So let's start with what is it you do?

What Mission Of Truth Does

Angel Noble 7:30

Well, in Haiti, we work with vulnerable children within orphanages, and these children are not our children that we oversee. These are not our orphanages, but we provide services to approximately 170 kids. That number does fluctuate because some kids will come, some kids will go, and when we can have children reunited with their parents or a family member, that's obviously the best thing if the circumstances are in fact the most healthy choice. But we provide trauma therapy, discipleship, food, medical care, and age out assistance, like secondary schooling for these children that live within the orphanages we serve.

Jay Franze 8:27

And how do they come about finding you and getting involved in the program?

Angel Noble 8:31

Well, we found them. My husband and I have been working in Haiti for 15 years now. At one point, I was working a little north of Port-au-Prince in a village called Tomazo. And when he and I first ever started taking trips to Haiti, we were going down uh west of Port-au-Prince to Jockmel. So we started to just get connections all along the way. We were volunteering, going on trips, taking other people, going by ourselves. And I would say it was during the time that he and I were both working for an organization that did chicken farming that we made a lot of relationships with various orphanages because we were bringing chicken meat to these children to have animal protein in their diet.

Jay Franze 9:30

Oh wow, very cool. So you say you were doing this in the past, and we talked about your what, but how does that tie into

The Missing Child And Dark Reality

Jay Franze 9:40

your why?

Angel Noble 9:43

Well, it was goodness, I want to say um 2013, when Peter and I were visiting an orphanage that you know was just um a recipient of the chicken that we would bring. And we weren't there working, we were just visiting the kids because we were in the area and we were there sitting around. And I noticed that one of the young ladies that always came out to talk with us and sit down and laugh with us, she wasn't there. And so I started asking the other children where she was, and they said she was missing. And I said, What do you mean she was? Well, they didn't say that she was missing, they said she left. And I said, Where did she go? And they didn't know. And I said, Well, do you know when she's coming back? No. It felt like not only did they not know, but sadly, because they're such a desperate culture, they didn't care because now this meant more resources for them, you know. But it broke my heart and I wanted to know where she went. And Peter and I had been working in Haiti for a number of years. We had other partnered organizations and people that we networked with and connected with, and we started making calls and doing some homework and learned that when you really dig deep in these orphanages, and I want to preface and just say not all of them, but a great deal of them, these children are exploited, they are traded and trafficked, they're sold sometimes across the border to the Dominican Republic, I have heard, for as little as $8 a child. And honestly, that wrecked me like nothing else. You know, going there and seeing poverty, seeing children, sleep on the ground, that is all heartbreaking. But to know that a child is missing and the people that should care and do something about it, uh, you know, they didn't. That wrecked me like nothing else. I didn't even know what to do with it yet, Jay. Like once we started doing the homework and realizing that people that we thought were good people taking care of kids, and again, I want to say not all of these orphanage directors are bad. But that is when we proposed to the organization that we were working with at the time, going, you know what? We need to go deeper. We need to keep a pulse on these kids, not just come in and do VBS. And I'm speaking broadly now, not just come in and build a water well or build a school or drop off food. We need to go deeper and make sure these kids are not being exploited, endangered, trafficked, abused in any kind of way. And how can we do that? Because we didn't know at the time any other organization doing that. And the organization we worked for agreed. And they said, wow, you are absolutely right, but that's just not our wheelhouse. That's not what we do, that's not what our grants are for.

Jay Franze 13:11

So is that what led to Mission of Truth?

Angel Noble 13:14

That's exactly what led to Mission of Truth.

Jay Franze 13:17

So can you tell me now from all of that, how you came up with the actual mission statement itself?

Mission Statement And Haiti’s Challenges

Angel Noble 13:25

Yeah. Knowing that there are some incredible people in Haiti J, and I will say some of the most wonderful adults. I know I'm a little biased, but it's our staff. There are people and adults all throughout Haiti that love their country. They they love their communities, and they want to do all they can to see them thrive. It's very hard. Haiti is in a in a really difficult place and it has been there for years. It's experiencing gang violence and um really not a really good sense of government stability. They always have struggled with government stability, but we know that we can't save the entire country, but just our relationship with these orphanages that we have worked out, a partnership will allow us to protect these children from further trauma, trafficking, and exploitation.

Jay Franze 14:34

We hear terms like that a lot: trauma, trafficking, exploitation. Is there something that we could do to be more aware?

Angel Noble 14:46

When Peter and I first started this, I don't even think trafficking was the word we would have used at that time. Honestly, our mission statement has grown with the way our culture and how we speak now is adapting. And what we're in alignment with, we at one point said we are caring for the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of these children, and we are right. But while we were in Haiti, I think that these indicators that I think you're referencing that people overlook, it is really easy to overlook them when you're in a third world country, because so many things are custom there that would not be custom here. So the way we operate, Jay, is different in Haiti than it is in the United States.

Jay Franze 15:50

So if somebody were to say, come across the show for the first time, say, come across the website or the organization, what are some of the core

Core Programs And How To Help

Jay Franze 16:00

programs that are offered and what can we do to get involved?

Angel Noble 16:05

Well, in Haiti, we knew that the first program that we needed to get up and going was our trauma therapy program because these children are all living in a state of fight, flight, or freeze, you know, 24-7. So having psychologists on board, that was our first hire, actually. And our chief of staff, who he has been with us since the beginning of time, he actually just volunteered for the first few years. He's he's an awesome guy and believes in what we do. And I will say this right now, our programs, but besides trauma therapy, we have our medical care program and our discipleship program and our feeding program and age assistance program. But one way that people can get involved, especially here stateside, is to coordinate opportunities for myself and my staff to come out and either talk about what we are doing and share the work with them, or have trainings on how to recognize human trafficking and exploitation here in our own communities and how to prevent it and respond accordingly.

Jay Franze 17:21

That's a good point. Could you share one or two things that we could be looking out

Trafficking Red Flags For Parents

Jay Franze 17:25

for?

Angel Noble 17:26

Starting with your own children, I'd say the number one thing to look out for is there any sense of change in behavior? I always use the word behavioral baseline. We know that there is a behavioral baseline for our children. We're with them every single day. And when something, whether it's the way they act, speak with you, whether they isolate or their physical appearance begins to dramatically change, that's astray from their behavioral baseline and definitely warrants you having a conversation in question with them. And I will say another thing: a lot of the craziness that's happening with human trafficking today amongst youth is beginning with telephones and social media.

Jay Franze 18:17

So, how would one approach their child to bring up the discussion of a cell phone where cell phones are so embedded in our lives these days?

Angel Noble 18:28

Yeah. It is getting increasingly more and more difficult. I was just speaking with a parent last week and said it's not that we should start and just have a conversation with our children more like we should always have conversations with our children. We have nightly conversations with our daughter. And then my husband, when at school, he drives her and he gets his daddy time, and then I pick her up and I have mommy time. So we have this rhythm that is just part of our entire day. We have dinner together, we have family game night. We can constantly monitor, monitor her and her behavior. Once my daughter was able to have an iPad, the conversation just started. You know, like these are the things you can have on your iPad. Here are the things you cannot have on it. We have protections on them. We check it daily, and she's got limited time she's allowed to be on an iPad. It's usually during the school year, one hour a day. And it's not always every day. It's usually Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We don't want to create that habit of being on a screen every single day.

Jay Franze 19:52

Well, with all this said and done, what's been the most rewarding thing that you've come across so far?

Rewards Of The Work And Training Others

Angel Noble 20:00

Um, in Haiti, one of the most rewarding things for me has been some of the older children that I've known since they were super young. And I know their lives, and I've watched them grow for over 10 years, and I've seen their hardships. And one, for example, right now is in the school. She's studying pharmacology, and she'll write me letters, and she's so sweet and so grateful. Her letters are incredibly detailed and sincere. And I told her the other day, I said, MG, I still have letters you hand wrote me like over 12 years ago. And just being able to see her ask someone to take pictures of her and her scrubs so she can send it for everyone at Mission of Truth to see that's that's pretty big deal. It kind of gives me, ooh, gives me chills. I never dreamed in my life that I could impact someone like that. And it's not me, it's everybody, you know, that supports what we do. And ultimately it's God. So that that those things are amazing. Even my staff just saying, you know what, you provide lunch so we come to work and can have lunch. I mean, all of those things, just knowing that we're making a difference in their lives, knowing that someone that they're not getting to see right now is caring enough to do something about it. I love that. Here, stateside, anytime I get with a group, maybe I'm doing self-defense trainings because I do that as well. It's very important to me that our moms and young adults that are getting out on their own, whether it's college or they're just driving, I want them to understand situational awareness and be aware of their surroundings. So anytime I can get with moms or groups like that and help them figure out situations that they have found themselves in and didn't know how to get out of it, that is huge. And we also um I train different law enforcement agencies on indicators of human trafficking, kind of specific to what their role may be. And not that I ever want to hear this, but when I do, like I did two weeks ago, sergeant said, Oh my word, I never thought of that. I think I missed something on this last call that I did. That is not what I want to hear, but just to be able to be valuable and know that what's that feel like? Uh it makes me want to keep going, honestly. I'm like, if you know, we'll never know how much is missed. We miss probably something every day here. And when I say we, I mean me, you, our audience, it's easy to miss something in America because a lot of trafficked kids are right under our noses.

Jay Franze 23:17

I think this has been fantastic information tonight.

Final Advice And Closing

Jay Franze 23:20

I think we're gonna have to do it again.

Angel Noble 23:21

I'd love that.

Jay Franze 23:23

If you have enjoyed the show, please tell a friend, share it, get the word out. We'd really appreciate you doing that for us. You can also reach out to both of us over at missionoftruth.org. Angel, my friend, I would like to leave the final words to you.

Angel Noble 23:39

Now more than ever, I think that our generation is going to grow increasingly more and more dependent on technology. And with that, unfortunately, we're gonna also see bad people doing bad things. You know, the enemy is on the prowl and he's after our families and children. So have conversations with your children and ask that question. If there is something you want to know, if something seems off, go with your gut.

Jay Franze 24:12

All right, folks. On that note, have a good night.