From Albuquerque to Haiti

By Ahmed Dawson
I traveled from Albuquerque to Haiti with a faith-based organization named Hope For Haiti’s Children.  This was my first trip ever to that country. I was part of a team of 29 people from around the U.S. who went to the Caribbean nation  for an eight-day mission trip to host a youth camp. I led group sessions with the kids and spend extensive time interacting and hearing their life stories.  We also visited the organization's two orphanages, their schools, their earthquake emergency housing camp, and their food programs for the community’s children.  Many of these facilities are in or near Port-au-Prince.

The poverty and malnourishment is so real in Haiti, and the work of non-governmental organizations is vital to get proper medical care and food to the community and sustain it over a long-term period. There is hope that future leaders are being molded and that communities can be supported through a very difficult period until they are able to be self-sufficient. But for now it is still an emergency and crisis situation in Haiti. I hope to return again next year and have recently become a sponsor of a 6-year-old child so he can go to school.

At left is a picture I took of a mother and her 1-year-old baby girl  for whom the medical mission team  cared for and prayed for over a year ago. The mother was told the child had a severe health issues that could be fatal very soon. But one year later during our visit the team was so excited to see the mother with her baby child.

The Haitian teens of today are the Haitian leaders for tomorrow. The HFHC Christian Leadership Camp combines devotionals, discussion groups, and recreational activities for about 180 sponsored Haitian teens to encourage and equip them to become mature Christian leaders in their communities.

(The author is a member of Fellowship Missionary Church in Albuquerque.  He has been on mission trips with his church to Guyana and China. But the recent trip was not with his church; he accompanied his uncle, who lives in Houston, and his mother, who lives in Louisiana, on the trip to Haiti.)