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Home | News > Sights, Smells and Sounds of Haiti

Sights, Smells and Sounds of Haiti

03/09/2011
These were the words that one of our group members used to guide her through a blog post about our recent Mission Trip to Haiti. After reading that blog, my first thought was that she hit it “head on”. This was the Haiti we experienced, the one you see in the newspapers, in the evening news and in many blogs and pictures all over the Internet.

But we also were blessed to see another Haiti. To experience this Haiti, we had to utilize another sense, one driven by the heart. This was a Haiti of joy, hope, faith and strength.

Haitian School ChildrenWe saw joy in the faces of the children who were on their way to and from school each day, dressed up in their finest school uniforms complimented by the cutest little bows in their neatly braided hair.






We experienced faith in the people who went to church many times per week for two hour services, with some of them starting at 5:30 in the morning (on a weekday).

Haiti MarketThere was hope in the people who day after day came to the work site asking for a job; hope in the vendors sitting on the side of the street waiting for that one customer who would buy anything from a vegetable to a painting or a piece of coal from them.

And there was strength in every Haitian we encountered, whether it was singing at the top of  their lungs in church or filling one wheelbarrow at a time with rubble cleared from the building on the side of the roads.
One can look at the country and see all the devastation, poverty and health issues they face daily. But the Haitian people showed us a different Haiti, one that provides them with a future, with a reason to go on, one step at a time. And as members of the United Methodist Church we are all right there beside them to take this journey with them through our presence, prayers and donations.

I am grateful to our church and to the Haitian people for letting me see this other side of Haiti, one that changed my heart forever.

Peace,
Sylvia Hibbard

The Team was in Haiti February 9-17, 2011
They were sponsored by their local churches and UMCOR. The team included United Methodists from Northern Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky and Texas.

Team Members:Haiti Team Feb 2011
Don Dexheimer (Roscoe UMC/trip leader)
John Sheely (Roselle UMC)
Sylvia Hibbard (Roselle UMC)
Frederic Renold (Northbrook UMC)
Adam Potter (Bowling Green KY)
Pat and Karen Hughes (Grand Rapids MI)
Les Algren (Lansing MI)
Joy Anderson (Richardson UMC TX)