Local team ministers to poor in Haiti
View slide show They went to Haiti to minister to the poor; eight days later they returned to their southwestern Pennsylvania homes feeling that they were the ones who had been blessed.
“They live closer to God than we do. Their church services will really blow your mind. They live their faith,” said Glenn McClelland of Brownsville, who is the commissioned lay pastor of Mingo Creek Presbyterian Church in Finleyville.
A team of 16 people, including medical technicians, a dentist, and three high school students, traveled to Haiti for a medical mission with Harvest International Feb. 24-March 4. Volunteers from Mingo Creek Presbyterian Church and First Presbyterian Church in California organized the trip.
Many of the participants had been on previous mission trips to Haiti, including 15-year-old Garrett Kurilko of California.
“I felt it was important for me to see what the other side of the world was like. When I came back home, I realized how much I have and how much I take for granted. I wish we were more like them in how we worship,” Kurilko said.
The team flew in to Port Au Prince, then drove to the town of Les Cayes, about 250 miles to the southwest. The truck carrying their luggage broke down on the way, making the already long trip to Les Cayes even longer.
“It looks like a town that was built in the ’40s or ’50s, then fire bombed,” McClelland said of Les Cayes.
“The roads are so bad it takes six hours going as fast as you can,” McClelland said. “We left from Cayes to go to the island of Ile-a-Vache. It means Island of Cows, but the natives call it Island of Hell.”
This was McClelland’s seventh mission trip to Haiti, though he didn’t get to stay long this time.
The second day of the trip, as the team was preparing to head to the mission site, McClelland received a cell phone call that changed everything for him and his sister.
“We were literally getting into the vehicle to drive away when the call came that my father passed away. We got out of Haiti fine, but we couldn’t get out of Miami,” McClelland said.
McClelland turned the coordination of the trip over to another of the team members when he was called back to the United States for the funeral.
“I’ve been doing this since 1996 and leading them since ’98. Jim Zeaman stepped up and took care of a lot of the financial matters,” McClelland said.
The mission team continued on its way to Ile-a-Vache without McClelland, crowded into a boat for the trip to the remote island for three and a half days of medical and dental clinics.
“We treat their physical situation to earn the right to treat their spiritual health as well,” McClelland said. “More often than not, they minister to us. They are people of tremendous faith.”
Haitians are also people of tremendous poverty. It is listed in the CIA FactBook as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and one of the poorest in the world, with 80 percent of the population living below the poverty line. McClelland said Haiti is only 565 miles southeast of Key West, Fla., or about 700 miles between Miami and the Haitian capitol of Port-Au-Prince.
“There’s a reason for that and it’s not because God likes us better. We’re supposed to be there doing something,” McClelland said.
And so the team did. Dr. Richard Birch, who has a dental office in California, pulled 280 teeth during the three and a half days in the clinic. The medical team saw 500 patients, McClelland said.
“This is the first time we’ve had a dentist with us. In the past it’s just been medical,” McClelland said.
In addition to the medical and dental clinics, the mission team also handed out medications, vitamins, and items such as soap and toothbrushes and ball caps.
“The interpreter was a Haitian nurse, so she was a big help. We were able to fill the prescriptions as they came in,” Zeaman said.
Although the mission team donates all the items, a nominal fee, the equivalent of about three cents, is charged for the clinic services by the missionary church in Les Cayes.
“They don’t want to engender a welfare mentality,” McClelland said.
The evenings were spent prepackaging the vitamins and other items and the Rev. Paul Min, who pastors the First Presbyterian Church in California, preached two of the evenings. McClelland said the trips are not heavily evangelical, though converts have been made.
“They come to see how we treat their mothers and brothers and children. We’ve had people come in and say they want to accept the Lord,” McClelland said.
The voodoo religion is strong in Haiti.
“In the northern part of the country the voodoo is much more volatile. In the southern part, the voodoo priests are generally the leaders of the community. They are willing to lose one of their people to get them (medical) help. We’ve even had a voodoo priest who accepted Christ,” McClelland said.
McClelland said one man who had been referred by the medical team for hernia surgery in 2003 recognized some of the team members on the most recent trip.
“He came back to say thank you and he gave God the praise,” McClelland said.
Min said the group is considering adding a spiritual team and children’s ministry for the next trip. Min said there is a need for more in-depth Bible teaching.
“They know about God, but they really don’t know who Jesus is,” Min said.
“They don’t have money for books. The pastor’s Bible is probably the only one they have,” McClelland added.
Min said all of the participants were strongly affected by the mission trip, but the three teens will most likely be affected by it for the rest of their lives.
“At the end of the mission trip we had a meeting and it was great to hear from them how they felt. They may never forget it,” Min said.
Zeaman said the trip helped one teen, Alexis Miller of Washington, to bring her career plans into focus. On the trip to Haiti he asked her what she wanted to do and she said she didn’t know. He asked her the same question on the way back.
“She wants to go into nursing so she can help the people of Haiti,” Zeaman said.
Kurilko said he is now considering becoming a full-time missionary once he gets out of school.
Editor’s note: See related multi-media slide show at www.heraldstandard.com.