In the late night hours of March 4, thirty-seven dedicated people — teens and adults, doctors and electricians, therapists and teachers — traveled from Sterling, Mass. into the tropical sunlight of La Romana in the Dominican Republic.

Following a bus ride from the airport that afforded us the opportunity to see the country we’d call home for the next week, we arrived at Casa Pastoral and settled into dormitories with bunk beds and modern bathrooms. We took a quick walk around the beautiful town square and returned to our dorm for a delicious Dominican chicken supper, sitting at long tables that gave us the opportunity to get to know each other.

Very tired from our long trip, we fell asleep in the cool evening to the sounds of music, roosters, motor scooters and gentle snores. We woke on Sunday morning to attend a Haitian worship service in one of the poorest barrios on the outskirts of the sprawling city. Despite its bleak surroundings, it was the most Spirit-filled service imaginable, replete with spirited singing and heart-felt prayer.

Back at Casa Pastoral later that afternoon, we began unpacking the 50 duffels and suitcases of supplies we had brought with us and planned our schedule for the coming week. Opportunities to help were numerous and varied. During the course of our stay, we:

• Helped to paint the new Emergency Room area at the Good Samaritan Hospital, known locally as Hospital El Buen Samaritano or HBS;
• Helped improve electrical systems at the hospital by making outlets safer and adding new lighting in the Physical Therapy Room;
• Pitched in to paint and apply finishing touches to new classrooms at a school in nearby San Pedro;
• Provided medical care to more than 500 residents of the sugar cane bateys, primitive villages where Haitian immigrants cut cane and raise their families;
• Played, prayed, and rejoiced with children in the bateys through our Batey Bible School.

The beauty of this mission trip was how each person fit in and found a place to contribute each day, whatever their skills or physical abilities. Egos were readily set aside as people traded assignments and experienced new things. We all ended up doing things we never imagined —taking blood pressures, for example, or singing in a foreign language — and we all felt the joy of working hard as a team.

Bible School sessions were as rewarding to us as they were to the children. We gathered the children together and acted out the story of young Samuel’s call by God, singing children’s songs of faith, making maracas with plastic eggs and stones, and stringing necklaces with symbols of our faith.

We also spent several hours just playing with kids, marveling at the joy that comes from simple games like blowing bubbles, jumping rope, and playing Duck, Duck Goose, using Biblical names to illustrate Samuel’s call by God.

Our big project this year was making 400 string backpacks, personalized with each child’s name and the symbol of their choice. They were a huge hit — fun for kids and so practical that even the adults wanted them!

Two days after our arrival, nine members of our group decided to travel to Haiti to help provide medical care and distribute food, after much deliberation and considerable input from those who’d been before. They worked with us in La Romana on Monday, preparing for their work in Haiti. After a prayerful and emotional send-off, they boarded a bus for the overnight drive into Port-au-Prince.

Most of our evenings were filled with opportunities to learn more about the people who live in La Romana. One night, we met the two scholarship students we have been sponsoring: young adults who still live with their families in bateys to save money. Yvonna is in the third year of her five-year college/medical school program to become a doctor. Juana Iris is in the second year of a college program to become a teacher. Both are the first in their families to attend college, and both are very inspiring in their dedication to help their people. Both Yvonna and Juana Iris joined the medical team and pitched in at Batey Bible School for several days, giving the team a welcome chance to get to know them.

On Thursday we made our annual visit to the small and remote Cañada del Negro, our adopted batey. Señor Julio Zorilla, the elderly professor from the batey school who also serves as a community organizer and advocate, proudly showed us the newly rebuilt school, brightly painted and fenced off, with beautiful new bathrooms—a project completed by the government. We brought with us a few landscaping tools the professor had requested, along with the promise of a basketball hoop, a backboard and a swing set. Larger projects like a new water tank or a community building will have to be negotiated with the foundation established by the company that owns the batey.

We were also met by Anastacio, the regional health promoter, who arrived on the motor bike we purchased for him last year. He was full of smiles at the chance to thank us in person for his bike, which allows him to travel to the two dozen bateys he visits in the San Pedro area. We also met Yesenia Mendez, the young woman who is now the resident health promoter for the batey, thanks to sponsorship from a clinic in nearby Consuelo. We gave her a nebulizer that she can use to provide emergency treatment for children with asthma — a condition most likely aggravated by indoor cooking fires.

Not all encounters brought us such joy. Several brought with them considerable sadness, including a quiet young woman in Cañada del Negro who came to the clinic complaining of headaches and stomach problems. She said they started the day she learned her only sister had died in the quake in Haiti. We also visited with Santa, a mentally challenged mother of five who we have seen each year. We discovered she is pregnant again while barely managing to care for her toddler, a 2-year-old boy who still can’t walk or talk and may have cerebral palsy.

Some stories have happy endings: we managed to get Santa to the hospital for some tests and to plan for her c-section delivery and tubal ligation. Another woman in a barrio clinic was so anemic that she was sent immediately to the hospital for a blood transfusion. She was later diagnosed with an advanced and inoperable form of cancer. Despite that prognosis, she expressed gracious thanks for a time to have less pain and more energy and be with her family. She is a mother of several young children, and if our team had not been there, she would not have had any medical treatment or this extra time with her loved ones.

Very late Friday night, our team from Haiti returned from their intense and exhausting journey. Each day of their four-day stay, they had travelled to different clinics in and around Port Au Prince, standing in the back of a truck as it drove past miles and miles of devastated buildings.

Each day, the team saw hundreds of patients and distributed small packages of food. And each night, the team battled guilt and pain as they were tasked with shutting down the clinic despite long lines of people were still waiting outside.

Sad stories abounded. A baby with severe dehydration was sent to a nearby tent hospital —apparently the only operational hospital in the city — only to be refused treatment because the hospital didn’t have space for her. Thousands of people live under tarps crowded together as close as possible, with some shelters consisting only of a sheet held up by sticks. Children live on highway median strips, where stepping out from their shelter puts them in the path of large trucks rumbling by.

They saw little or no sign of anyone providing significant aid, apart from an occasional United Nations vehicle on patrol with armed soldiers. (Already, Shantia is making plans for the Worcester Area Mission Society to organize volunteers to return to Haiti in the coming months, to build a school and provide needed medical care. More information can be found at www.wamsucc.org .)

Saturday was a relaxing day that gave us a much-need opportunity to unwind from a taxing week. On Saturday evening, our last night together, we listened to each participant spell out the week’s most meaningful moments and shared the ways in which this trip affected our lives. Some were in tears as they recalled the people they met who touched them deeply, forging a deep bond of common humanity despite cultural, linguistic and economic divides. Many expressed gratitude for the privilege of helping, but sadness and helplessness that it cannot be more in the face of overwhelming need.

We returned the following day, glad for new friends, for the gift of a week spent in community, and blessed by the richness of a few days spent bringing hope — working with the poor in a world so different from our own.

Here are some additional reflections from those who travelled with us this year:

“My favorite moment of the trip was playing with the kids at a clinic in Haiti. I will always remember the game of Duck, Duck, Goose with BJ and Ken. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures that capture that moment, nor pictures that capture the sorrow and emptiness in some of the eyes of the people of Haiti. One image that sticks with me is that of the 13-year-old girl who brought her younger siblings and her father to the clinic. I assume the family lost their mother in the quake and this girl was now taking care of the family. The father was a ghost of a man who looked completely lost and completely empty.” – David, Acton, Mass.

“One of the highlights for me was getting to be part of the hopefully imminent accreditation of the school in San Pedro. When we arrived Monday, the work crew was just starting to lay the final concrete floors. The second-floor classrooms had not been painted, and there was a fair amount of sand and debris in the way. And our translator had to leave as soon as we got there. None of us spoke any Spanish, and we were left to find our way with the crew. We did: when our week was done, the rooms and hallway were painted and the crew was finishing the hallway floor.

“My work in San Pedro also gave me the opportunity to meet Gethro, a young and ambitious young man from Haiti who’s incredibly upbeat in the face of considerable loss: his family lost their house in the earthquake and he hasn't been able to return to see them. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have met him, and eager to continue our friendship.” Tom, Acton, Mass.

The Rev. Shantia Wright-Gray
Mission Educator and WAYS Coordinator for
Tthe Worcester Area Mission Society, UCC

shantiawg@gmail.com
978-422-6256 home/office
508-450-2001 Cell

48 Main St.
Sterling, MA 01564