Maumee Grad To Make Second Trip To Haiti With BGSU Group
BY KAREN BERGER— MIRROR REPORTER
When Kirby Shuey arrived in Haiti last May, a pig was running loose on the gravel airstrip and her suitcase got stolen in Port-au-Prince.
But the 2007 Maumee High School graduate returned with so many fond memories of working with orphans in the northern coastal city of Port-de-Paix that she’s looking forward to returning on May 19.
A Bowling Green State University student, Shuey is involved with Active Christians Today on campus. She’ll be one of six team members traveling to Lashbrook Family Ministry’s Port-de-Paix location.
LFM serves impoverished children, widows and families through a boys’ home, adoption center, church and school.
Because Port-de-Paix is 100 miles away from Port-au-Prince, it didn’t suffer the same devastation from the January earthquake.
But aftershocks damaged two of LFM’s buildings, which were declared condemned. Teams of other volunteers will come in to work on constructing a new church and school, Shuey said. Since the first earthquake hit the capital, floods of refugees have come to Port-de-Paix seeking help.
Most of the children who were already in the process of being adopted have been sent to the United States on humanitarian visas, but the orphanage just took in 25 new children and eight babies, Shuey said.
Last year the ACT team ran a Vacation Bible School program at the orphanage and at the school.
“The kids are a lot of fun. For their situation, they’re pretty happy. They love getting attention,” she said.
The LFM school is similar to a one-room schoolhouse, with children sitting at benches and watching as a teacher writes with chalk on a board.
Papers and pencils are absent, so when the ACT team arrives with papers and crafts for Vacation Bible School, the children are elated.
The kids play with dominoes and throw a net out the window into the bay, to see what they’ll catch. They dive off the remains of either a boat or plane into the water.
“Some were my favorites and I wanted to just take them home,” she said of the children, pointing to a photo of a 10-year-old and his brother. An uncle took them in after their parents died, but dropped them off when he was unable to care for them.
Another photo shows a malnourished boy, with yellowish hair, visible ribs and distended stomach. In addition to serving youth within the LFM walls, a team of ACT volunteers heads out into neighborhoods to visit with other children.
Most families’ homes are cement block with dirt floors, no windows, furniture, running water or electricity.
“My perspective changed. I thought we’d just be helping the orphans. They had toys and three meals a day and people who hug them. They’re lucky compared to the kids we see on the streets,” Shuey said.
The volunteers deliver home hygiene kits with soap, baby powder, shampoo, toothpaste and toothbrushes.
“But it’s not like they’re sad. They don’t know that they’re not supposed to live like that,” she said of the children on the streets.
An early childhood education major, Shuey said the experience will help when she begins teaching children in kindergarten through third grade.
“It’s definitely helped me to relate to students from lower income families and will help me understand students from different cultures,” she said.
During this trip, she will be better prepared, as she’s taken Creole lessons and studied more about the culture.
She’ll pack a rope, an air mattress, bug spray and some old clothes. Like last time, she’ll sleep in a tent on the roof of a building and buy old clothes that she can later leave behind.
With no running water, she’ll wash her clothes and body with buckets of water, and use a privy that’s similar to an outhouse.
Shuey will also get shots, take malaria pills and go on antibiotics while there.
“I try not to take as many things for granted,” she said.
Shuey is the daughter of Barbara Knisely of Whitehouse and Mike Shuey of Bowling Green.
For information, visit www.bg.actoday.org or www.lfmintl.com.