“I Am With You”
Je suis avec vous. In English, this translates to "I am with you". Erica Payne traveled with her mother from Raleigh, North Carolina on a trip to Haiti to the help a dental team and visit a boys school to distribute uniforms and supplies. Citi Soleil, Jacmel, and Port Au Prince were the three places they visited on their five day trip. Sponsored by the White Memorial Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, NC, Erica and her mother reached out to those in desperate need and did what every citizen has the capacity to do: care for one another. Erica created a short video of her trip so she could share it with others.
Read the rest of her story and watch her video. It is truly inspiring and eye-opening.
I recently took a five day trip to Haiti with my mother. During my time there, I worked with a volunteer dental team in Citi Soleil (the largest slum in the Western Hemisphere), and visited Trinity House (in Jacmel) and St. Joseph's House for Boys (in Port Au Prince) where we provided school uniforms and other supplies for the children who live there. The trip was sponsored by White Memorial Presbyterian Church of Raleigh, North Carolina where my mother is an active member.
I got back a few days ago and put together a short video about the trip. Click to watch the video.
The video is about 10 minutes long and includes footage from all of the areas I visited as well as conversations with the administrators and several of the children at both orphanages. Needless to say, it was an overwhelming trip. Port Au Prince and Jacmel are about 2 hours apart and both seem completely devastated. The country was of course poor prior to the earthquake, but the suffering now is almost unimaginable. There are shanty towns as far as the eye can see and people are scared to sleep in the buildings that are still standing for fear of another earthquake. So many people sent money to various organizations after the disaster including a lot of much appreciated support to the orphanages I visited – thank you!
When I was there I thought more than once – what good is this small thing that I am doing in the face of such a tragedy. By the end of the trip, I understood that the help a single person can offer to another might not mean much to the world, but it means a lot to the person being helped and to the person lucky enough to be able to help them.
~Erica Payne
Posted Friday, July 9, 2010