NETCONG When 23-year-old Sarah Cho, youth minister at St. Michael Parish here traveled to Haiti during the last week of August with a team of six people from her parish, she considered herself an expert mission trip traveler. She previously traveled to Nicaragua on a medical mission during her college years. But although she was armed with experience, she was humbled by the country and the Haitian people and said, “I am not needed. I need them. This trip was not for them. It was for me.”
For one week, Cho and the team from St. Michael’s led by Father Michael Lee, parish administrator, stayed with the Missionaries of the Poor in Cap Haitien, which consists of homes for the elderly and disabled, orphans with disabilities and children living with AIDS. They stayed the entire week serving these people most in need and learning about how they hope to serve them in the future.
“These people are closer to Jesus than I ever was,” said Cho. “In our first-world-led lives, we are so quick to listen to what the world tells us, that we are better off than others because of job security and money; and that people who live in poverty are lesser than us.”
One priest and 12 religious brothers run the Cap Haitien compound, where almost 250 people, mostly children, with various special needs live. With the orphan children, who were disabled and nonverbal, the Netcong team helped bathed them, cloth them and fed them. There were about 60 orphans at the monastery. With the elderly and disabled adults, it was similar duties and the team got to know some of the 120 adults in spite of the language barrier. For the 50 or so children living with AIDS, they provided different activities and played games with them.
Other days the teams bagged hundreds of pounds of rice so that the brothers of the monastery could hand them out to the citizens outside the compound. Father Lee said, “If you look into their eyes, you saw their faces are full of joy.”
The missionary team experienced challenging conditions in Haiti, facing extreme heat and humidity and mosquitoes. At times, it was difficult to sleep at night. All of those difficult conditions were just reminders of eye-opening lessons they learned.
Cho said, “Every time I smiled at someone, held someone’s hand, showed them some sign that I loved them as an equal, I received that much more love.”
The trip to Haiti was a pilot t for St. Michael’s in the hope of traveling to other missionary areas of the world. Father Lee and the team from St. Michael’s are working to plan an international mission trip for young people of the parish.
“Often , going on a mission trip is not for the people. Yes, you are going to help people, but you’re somewhat dreaming if you think you’re going to make a substantial change in the culture and the country’s policies. You go primarily to make yourself better and go face to face with poverty. When you return home, you reflect on what I have to change in my own lifestyle to be in solidarity with others around the world,” said Father Lee.
The parish hopes to bring a group of young people to Nicaragua or Guatemala next year so they fully understand what it means to serve others. “When people face the problems around the world,” said Father Lee, “often they as themselves ask what can I do in my daily existence that I can change?”
Cho will continue to minister to the youth of the parish in the upcoming year with future ambitions to become a doctor. “My mission is to see the face of Jesus in everyone around me outside of Haiti,” she said. “It was so easy to do there. Am I able to do it when its most difficult here? I must let go of my pride and instead walk the path of love that the Haitians have shown me through this short week.”