Staunton church's Haiti ministry renews bonds with parish twin on La Gonave

(Originally published July 7, 2013)

Marie Thomas of Staunton wasn't on the Haitian island of La Gonave an hour when one of the neighborhood kids grabbed her heart.

I wasn't surprised. It always happens that way.

The little island off the coast of Haiti is a poor backwater of a very, very poor nation. It's not the big city of Port au Prince, which has seen it all, suffered it all, dreamed big and had those dreams crushed by crime, earthquakes and despots.

Instead, La Gonave is a simple place — largely forgotten by the mainland. People are less jaded, maybe because they've never expected much. People are friendly and curious because outsiders are not as plentiful as they are on the mainland.

And there's a difference of attitude.

Even poor, desperate mainland Haiti has to have some place to look down on. That's La Gonave. Has been for a century of recorded history, and probably before that, too. Being called moun mòn (hillbilly) isn't good, but islanders are proud and pull together.

Of course, Thomas, arriving in such a place, didn't stand a chance of leaving unaffected.

She had come to the island on a first trip — in all likelihood the first of many trips — after volunteering to take over leadership of the Haiti ministry of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Staunton. It's one thing to become fully engaged in a mission and then grow into a leadership role, but to say yes to the people and place sight unseen — well, that's the sign of a good heart, a good sales job or both.

Personally, knowing everyone involved, I'd say both.

Woodson is the little boy who caught Thomas' attention on that first day, in Anse-a-Galets in April. As we pulled into a church compound where we stayed overnight before heading on to our destination, he greeted us.

Eight or so years old. Eyes bright, curious. Dressed for play in a T-shirt and short pants. She says it's the image she keeps returning to after meeting hundreds more kids and adults over the next six days.

Thomas knew before arriving that school was a luxury in Haiti. With Woodson, that reality had a face. He explained that his family had stopped sending him to school. No, he didn't know why. He didn't seem upset. It just was.

Lots of things just are in Haiti.

Thomas knew before arriving that people were hungry. This boy looked like he knew what an empty belly felt like.

She knew that people on La Gonave, a place with few jobs and less money, had few options. Now she looked at this child, most of his life presumably ahead of him, and projected him against that yardstick.

Statistics and real life met. And it hurt. It always hurts.

And that's why people who go to Haiti come home changed. Or, in some way, if they truly get caught up in it, they never fully come home at all.

I didn't.

I told my first-trip-to-Haiti story on these pages a couple of years ago. It was the fall after the 2010 earthquake. Just after the election. Just in time to have my trip extended a few days by political violence that closed the airport.

Thinking back, I didn't tell that part of the story back then, mostly because I didn't want to detract from the stories of the people I met, the places I visited and the things I saw out there on the island. Those things good and meaningful and treasured. In hindsight, I told the story the right way because the delay and stress faded. Those first impressions remain vivid now after four trips, just as Thomas' are for her after one.

Visiting a third-world country that's at the bottom of the economic heap is initially unnerving. Or it was for me. Haiti is the poorest country in the hemisphere. La Gonave is poorer still. Nothing I saw growing up in and around Detroit, nor any of my travels in desperate places since, prepared me for that first time. Thomas grew up in New Orleans, and will tell you much the same.

After that first trip I'd be enjoying one moment, catch a scene unfolding somewhere in my view and need to turn to collect myself.

Even another of our group, the Rev. Joe Wamala was taken aback by the poverty and the hopelessness, compared to his homeland of Uganda.

But there we were, five of us: Thomas, Wamala, Jim and Tamara Ridenour and myself. They represented the core of the Haiti ministry at St. Francis. I am am part of a different parish, but was along as a guide who could conduct them safely to St. Louis King of France Catholic Church in the small town of Pointe-a-Raquette.

They were rushing into a role pioneered in their parish by Colette Pettit and later perhaps perfected by Dr. Linda Kofelt, a retired physician who, in partnership with St. Louis' previous pastor, the Rev. Roosevelt Leriche, had worked something close to miracles. OK, maybe not just close.

In less than a decade they and their supporters had created a medical clinic and a school where none previously existed. They improved water, launched agricultural programs and fed and housed the poorest of the poor.

Those were the macro stories — good works for the community. But so many stories were more personal for Kofelt and Leriche. One-offs.

Like the story of Ti Mangou, an uncontrollable mentally ill woman chained to a log by her family for 14 years. For her safety. For the safety of those around her.

Kofelt worked with Leriche to get Ti Mangou the anti-psychotic drugs she needed. It was a tough sell in a land where treatment for psychiatric disorders is nearly non-existent. Every town has a "crazy lady" or a "crazy man." Life's tough.

Eventually, the woman's adult children, who had put faith in voudoo practitioners and been disappointed, saw a change. After a time, they released the chain and Ti Mangou was free of her shackle, if not free of all illness.

Just one of the dozens of stories where one-on-one outreach changed lives.

Now, with physical infirmity interfering with Kofelt's ability to travel — but not with her passion for Haiti — the four from St. Francis were there to extend the relationship between the twin parishes into a new era.

Thomas was in the lead.

Each time she was introduced as "Dr. Linda's replacement," the weight upon her shoulders grew. In the one-on-one moments she'd recover. Their halting English. Her basic French. Beginnings were forged.

Most energizing of all, the kids, so full of hope and possibility. They're curious, eager and open. They touch something in visitors and compel us to reach out.

It's always the kids.

The roadmap to Pointe-a-Raquette seems simple. A drive, three flights and a drive.

We leave for Washington at 1 a.m. Fly to Miami. Fly to Port au Prince. Change terminals and fly to La Gonave.

We end up landing on a beach around 3 p.m. We complete our journey the following day, traveling by truck across the rocky mountain paths. No pavement here.

Thirteen miles as the bird flies; 2.5 hours.

A good half-hour before we actually arrive, we can see Pointe-a-Raquette. So near; so far. We're nearly 1,000 vertical feet up on the mountainside looking down to the village at sea level.

To complete that last mile, we travel many miles. Switchbacks snake down the mountainside toward the small town along the bright blue water. Tarantulas scurry for their holes on the exposed rock face as our truck bounces past on the rocks.

Travel is never easy, and we do so much of it. Once we're there, we don't stay put. We go to the market. We go to the chapels — each parish has several in addition to the main home church. We go to a village. If it's a short trip, it might be on the back of someone's made-in-China motorbike. If it's a village without much of a road, we might go by boat. But for most of our travel, it's a well-worn Toyota truck.

We become one with its seats. We intimately know every crease and bump after a few trips on the island. And the truck probably knows ours.

Unless of course we blow a tire on the rocks, which so often happens. Then we walk.

At Pointe-a-Raquette we arrive at St. Louis King of France church, its school, its clinic and its poor house.

The poor house is supported by St. John the Evangelist Church in Waynesboro. It's another way the Valley of Virginia pulls together for this little island.

St. Louis is a tall faded yellow church on a narrow unpaved street, the town's main through affair. From its tower blinks the town's only navigation light, a beacon for boats plying the coast. The town is boxed in between the mountains and the sea, a salt flat "uptown" and a salt flat "downtown." In between a few thousand people, a dock, some churches and some homes. When it's dry, the salt flats are popular soccer fields.

A few homes wouldn't look out of place in a tidy, modest neighborhood of south Florida. But most are made from simple sticks and wood and tin.

Near the church is its medical clinic. On any given day you'll find people visiting for a range of ailments.

Behind the clinic, a school. Three levels of kindergarten, then grades one through seven last year. Eighth grade will begin in the fall, adding a new grade at the top each year as the school has done since its founding. Just less than 200 children. They learn Kreyol, French and a little English. They study math and other basics. Most of the work is on the blackboards with chalk. Books are few.

And they're fed daily, which is no small feat, and an expensive proposition for the school's supporters back in Staunton.

The visitors from St. Francis were new to town. They didn't know much of anyone, except by reputation. They already had a hint that the central figure in the visit, the parish priest, was up for transfer and soon would be gone. That made building connections and understanding in the community even more important.

Their best ally was our interpreter and my friend, James Galbart. He's a Pointe-a-Raquette-born, Florida-raised man whose family still lives in that town. He interprets words and meaning, actions and customs.

The few people he isn't related to on the island, he seems to also know well. Especially the women.

Along the streets, people come out to talk. Pleasantries from some, requests from others, complaints from a few. Kids gather around and we hand out a few brightly colored plastic bracelets, always a hit. Galbart interprets the substantive conversations. The visitors listen, probe, listen some more. It's a time to learn, and questions outnumber answers.

By the fourth day, the newcomers know uptown from downtown. They recognize the man who just retired from his job in Brooklyn and is visiting his mother in Pointe-a-Raquette. They nod knowingly at the older ladies who arrive at the church before dawn each day to recite the rosary.

And it's almost time to go home.

After several days when we've emphasized one-on-one connection, it's a day that instead emphasizes coming together in community. It's Sunday.

And with pews full of people in prayer, music that extends the church far beyond its open windows and a homily by Wamala translated by Galbart, we celebrate another day. A visit with family. Relationships renewed.

The five of us rode away from Pointe-a-Raquette the next day.

I, thankful and inspired as always by people who remain so faithful and hopeful in the face of such difficult odds.

My colleagues, often alone in their thoughts, processing the experiences, making sense of what they saw and heard, thinking about this relationship they have joined. It's not an easy process.

But it's a rare person who steps away willingly after a trip to Haiti. Because the people charm us and challenge us. They need us, but we also learn we need them just as desperately. And with that connection, we walk together even when apart.

Just like twins.