Journey to Haiti
The Rev. Jim Lewis, pastor of the Karns City and Chicora United Methodist churches, was in Haiti from March 3 through 10 as part of a group of 14 people who delivered medical supplies and helped break ground on a new medical clinic in the extremely rural northeast part of the island.
The group included some of Lewis' parishioners, as well as people from Butler, Saxonburg and Grove City.
Each member of the group paid $1,500 for the trip, which covered airfare and food. The leftover funds went toward the work of the clinic the group was visiting.
“We flew from Pittsburgh to Atlanta and from Atlanta to Port au Prince (the Haitian capital),” Lewis said.
He said the capital city showed little effects of the devastating 2010 earthquake that nearly leveled the capital.
“The rubble is pretty much gone. There are still United Nations peacekeepers. And the traffic is still crazy,” he added.
“The next day we flew in five- and nine-passenger prop planes over the mountains to Pignon. From there, it was a 90-minute truck ride to the village of Mombin Crochu,” he said.
“Not too many people go there. It takes two days to get there and two days to get back home, so a lot of folks don't go up there.”
He said the landscape was very mountainous but sparsely forested. “Most of the trees have been chopped down,” he said.
“It's very rural. The town up until last year didn't have a paved main street. Last year, they came in and concreted Main Street,” Lewis said.
“People ask me if it is getting any better in Haiti, and it is, but when you are starting so far below the poverty line, it's like in negative territory.”
The village and surrounding 5-square-mile area is home to nearly 30,000 people.
“They're pretty much all farmers. There's not much industry,” Lewis said. “They work at whatever they can pick up.
“They pretty much grow beans, rice, vegetables.”
The American group stayed in a guest house attached to a barely functioning hospital.
“It was the beginning of the rainy season in March,” Lewis said. “So, it was misty and hot. It was a little cooler for that time of year; usually it's around 90 degrees.”
Lewis said the hospital used to receive funding from various churches and the Haitian government, but church funding eventually dried up, and the hospital was down to one doctor when the Americans arrived in March.
“The food was mainly goat, chicken, a lot of beans and rice,” Lewis said. “They butchered a goat for us for our going-away dinner. And they did make a cake for us.”
“The people were very nice, very open, very hospitable,” he said. “They spoke Creole, so we had interpreters there.“I wouldn't feel fearful walking through town at night. They realize we were there to help them.”The group's first priority was to take medicine and medical equipment to the village clinic. Lewis said the visiting Americans two years ago brought a mobile dentist chair.This is the fourth trip Lewis has made to Mombin Crochu. He said he became involved with the village when he was pastor of the Branchton and West Liberty United Methodist churches. Overall, he has been to Haiti eight times.“We started this by putting a young Haitian through medical school,” Lewis said. The student, Maudelin Mesadieu, graduated from a Port au Prince medical school in 2012 and returned to his hometown of Mombin Crochu to practice medicine.“We take medicines so that he can run the clinic and he has mobile clinics,” Lewis said.“He rents a clinic right now. We broke ground on a new clinic for him. We are in the process of building a new clinic for him,” he said.“We cleared the plot of land and started the footers. It will take a few years to finish.”The new clinic and a just-completed grain depot built by another group are in Chevron Two, a small village outside Mombin Crochu.When the grain depot was being built, Lewis said, Mesadieu needed 25 tons of sand for making concrete blocks moved to the top of a hill.With no heavy equipment in the area, Lewis said, the doctor bought 10 donkeys for $1,000 total.“He gave the donkeys to 10 women who would have been moving the sand in five-gallon buckets and said, 'I need sand.' He measured the sand and when each woman had delivered $100 worth of sand, they got to keep the donkey as their own and use it to continue to make money,” Lewis said.Lewis said the villagers had a party for the Americans on their last Sunday in Haiti.“They had a party at the church. It was two hours of choir singing and solos. It was a talent show type of thing and it was packed,” Lewis said. “And the cake was very special. There aren't very many ovens in the town.”Lewis said his group took the cake back to the guest house as a birthday gift for one of the Haitian dentists they knew.“He was very grateful. He never celebrated his birthday before, because in Haiti there really aren't any birth certificates,” Lewis said.Lewis said he plans to make another trip to Mombin Crochu in August to bring more supplies and do more work on the clinic the group started in March.“It's a life-changing experience. It's a great opportunity to get out of your comfort zone. It gives you an opportunity to be blessed and be a blessing,” he said.“It's not always what you do; it's the relationships that you make. You make relationships and you see some progress.”
