By CHRIS MORRIS
Chris.Morris@newsandtribune.com
NEW ALBANY —
Many of Hanna Aven’s friends are taking trips to Florida or other popular destinations this week.
Not Aven.
She is spending her spring break helping residents in one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.
Aven and 18 other high school students are joining seven adults from Northside Christian Church in New Albany for a 10-day mission trip to Haiti. There, they will host Bible school and sports camps for children, and also will go door-to-door offering a helping hand and talking to residents who struggle just to find a hot meal or clean water.
“I can’t wait,” Aven said. “I hope I can help someone, even just one person.”
The high school ministry group, known as The Rising, left Friday for the trip. Members spent last week packing everything from jars of peanut butter to soccer balls.
Haley Schell, director of the trip, said Northside will team up with the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission to visit orphanages and the elderly in the adopted community of Chansolme. Northside makes two mission trips a year to the area.
“I’ve never seen such extreme poverty,” Schell said of her first trip to Chansolme. “The people here [in the United States] just don’t get it. We’ve never done without.
“We can go to McDonald’s to get a clean cup of water. It’s a totally different concept there.”
Schell will be making her fourth trip to Haiti. She said she has been trying to prepare the students — many of whom have never made a mission trip there — what to expect.
“I’ve never seen that level of poverty,” said Aven, a Floyd Central High School senior. “I think it will change me to see something like that.”
While the area was spared from the January earthquake which rocked Haiti, many of the refugees have made their way to the northwest zone, which presents new challenges. However, Schell said she has never felt threatened.
“They are very protective of the mission,” she said. “I feel more scared in downtown Louisville than I do over there.”
This will be 18-year-old Ryan Eldridge’s second trip to Haiti. He traveled with the group in June and said “it was very eye-opening.”
“I’ve been to Mexico, and I’ve seen that poverty. But this is a different type of poverty,” he said. “It kind of showed me who I was. It was just a great experience.
“I got very close with the people I went with and we still stay in contact.”
While the group will be on spring break, there will be little down time. The days are long, but Eldridge said “very rewarding.”
“It’s exhausting work,” he said. “But it’s the kind of work I like to do. It’s better work than if you work for a paycheck.”
This will be New Albany High School junior Mekenna Dement’s first trip to Haiti. Her sister also is part of the group.
“I’m really excited about it,” she said. “I will be doing things that I have never done.”
She said having others in the group who have gone before is helpful.
“They are telling us what to expect. But there are things that happen, like a bus breaking down or something, that they can’t prepare you for.”
The group has been meeting for months preparing for the trip and getting to know one another, group leader Lucas Goforth, said. The students have been involved in fundraising and have collected supplies to take on the trip.
“They have done a lot of work to get ready for this,” Goforth said. “We have to be united as one team.”
The group will return March 28.
