Volunteer group travels to Caribbean to help

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Thirty Gleed church members who had long planned a mission in the Dominican Republic are now scrambling to see if they can also provide medical and food relief in neighboring Haiti.

"We do this every year at the same time, and nothing like this has happened where there is a catastrophic event," said Jan Brazeau, a registered nurse who is leading one of two volunteer groups from Memorial Bible Church. "It could be that God has sent us there at this time on purpose."

How Tuesday's devastating earthquake in Haiti will change the mission's work in the coming weeks is not entirely clear. Haiti borders the Dominican Republic to the west on the island of Hispaniola.

Church members -- 11 of whom set off early this morning -- still intend to fulfill their commitments in the Dominican Republic, but they will also split up to go into Haiti. In the Dominican Republic they plan to help provide medical assistance and build a Sunday school.

With the help of faith-based organization Score International, they hope to rent trucks, buy food, water and other supplies to distribute in Haiti -- and share their medical expertise.

Authorities fear the earthquake may have killed as many as 50,000 people.

"What happened in Haiti has intensified the excitement and the urgency, definitely," said Babs Gleason, who left early this morning with her husband, son and eight others to the Dominican Republic. "Looking at the pictures on the Internet or on the news and seeing some of their families, pictures of children in school uniforms digging through the rubble for their friends, it's much more personal.

"We've spent a lot of time in tears, praying."

Gleed church members who'd never gone on a mission before said going to the Caribbean island was stressful before the earthquake.

"My wife, she worries a
little more now that there's the potential for a trip to Haiti," admitted Morgan Rowe, a 34-year-old Naches orchardist who leaves this morning with the builders group and is unsure whether he'll ask to go to Haiti. "I tell her to pray and be strong because it's in God's hands.

"But it's a little scary. The poor Haitian people didn't need any of that. When you have nothing and then this happens, it makes it pretty bad."

The Gleed church has sent mission groups to the Dominican Republic each January since 2002. This year, two groups will go -- one today, one next Friday -- to a village southwest of the country's capital of Monte Largo.

The first group plans to build an addition to a concrete one-room Evangelical church there to serve as a Sunday school. The second group of 19 dentists, nurses and others planned to provide medical and dental care to villagers.

In a large way, the church members will be providing help to Haitians even if they stay in the Dominican Republic. Much of the sugar cane plantation work is done by Haitian immigrants living illegally in the Dominican Republic, which is a richer country, relatively speaking.

Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, has been wracked by political strife and natural disasters for decades.

Gleason, who is leading the first trip with her husband, Dave, said the sugar cane village is inhabited by about 160 workers and their families. The typical diet is beans and rice, rarely more than once a day. Electricity comes and goes. Supplies, such as bath soap, are extremely limited and the nearest town is an hour away by cattle truck -- standing room only.

"When anyone has gone to a Third World country and actually spent time with the people, they're people like you and I," said Gleason, who is 54. "They just live in very different circumstances and very much more urgent concerns than what to make for dinner tonight from your abundant cupboards."

For many in the church's mission groups, this will be their first trip ever conducting relief work.

"I've always wanted to do some medical mission work," said Tallie McClary, a 35-year-old cardiac nurse at Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital, who leaves next Friday with the medical and dental relief group. "And now, I'm like, oh my God, are you kidding me?

"This with Haiti -- it's good. Extra help is needed."

* Melissa Sánchez can be reached at 509-577-7675 or msanchez@yakimaherald.com.