A trip to a Caribbean island sounds like a great 10th anniversary gift.

But Dr. Darren and Ashleigh Machak of Renfrew spent their anniversary working in a clinic in the rural northeast corner of Haiti

Darren, a general practitioner with Butler Medical Associates in Butler, and Ashleigh traveled with the Rev. Jim Lewis, pastor of the Karns City and Chicora United Methodist churches and others on Lewis’ second trip to the village of Mombin Crochu this year.

“My husband and I wanted to do a mission trip. When I found out the dates, I told my husband that would a great way to mark our 10th anniversary by serving God,” said Ashleigh Machak, who works at Shelor School of Dance, 534 Fairground Road, with Lewis’ wife, Lori.

“We had a cake for them,” said Lewis.

During the trip from Aug. 4 through Aug. 12, Lewis said Machak had an interpreter and worked with a Haitian doctor, Maudelin Mesadieu, in the village’s clinic, as well as making trips to villages in the surrounding area.

“Darren worked in the medical clinic and I worked in the clinic,” Ashleigh Machak said. “I would help out in the pharmacy. I would help count out the pills, put them into baggies, label the baggies and give them to the nurse.”

She made a trip to one village by foot.

“We walked an hour to get to the clinic and then hiked an hour to get back. It definitely wasn’t easy,” she said.

“It was fairly hot and humid. You could sweat just by standing,”

“It was stinking hot,” agreed Lewis, who had made an earlier trip to the clinic in March. “It was close to 100 every day and a lot greener. In March, it’s pretty brown. The rainy season had come and gone and the gardens were growing.”

This was the fifth trip Lewis has made to Mombin Crochu. He became involved with the village when he was pastor of the Branchton and West Liberty United Methodist churches.

As in the past, the group of nine took medicines to stock the clinic.

“We get our medicine from Brother’s Brother in Pittsburgh and Global Links,” Lewis said. “We had 12 bags at 50 pounds each. We ran the clinic and we did three mobile clinics in the rural areas around Mombin Crochu.”

“We had one case of cholera. He (Machak) said he would never have seen that here in the United States,” said Lewis. “We had three Haitian dentists who did extractions, fillings and cleaning teeth. They saw 78 patients.”

“Combined with the three mobile clinics, we saw 1,100 patients,” Lewis said.

Lewis said he plans to return to the village in March.

He said things are improving in the impoverished island nation, but progress is relative.

“I hate to say it’s better, but things are better. Well, they are but when you are starting so far in a position of poverty ...”

“There’s a line of poverty and then there’s the Haitian line of poverty but it’s below what we think of as poverty,” Lewis said.

For instance, Lewis said, a $100 donkey can make a vast improvement in the villagers lives.

He said the clinic’s doctor, Maudelin Mesadieu, needed 25 tons of sand for making concrete blocks moved to the top of a hill.

Lewis said he bought 10 donkeys and gave them to 10 women in exchange for the women moving the sand up the hill.

When a woman moved $100 worth of sand, she got to keep the donkey and use it to make money.

“If there is improvement, it is one family at a time,” Lewis said.

He added anyone wanting to make the March mission trip with him should e-mail him at lrchina@zoominternet.net