Helias students to take mission trip to Haiti

Helias Catholic High School is planning to take 19 students on the school’s first international mission trip since 2010 — this one in June to Haiti.

“I know these experiences have the opportunity to transform us,” said Maureen Quinn, Helias campus minister and theology teacher. “To see God in each of these people and have a desire to serve all people, no matter their circumstances, no matter where they’re at,” she added, “you don’t need to go to Haiti to volunteer, but there is a need there.”

Helias is hosting the trip, though the juniors and seniors who get to go will work with Family Missions Company on the ground in Haiti.

Quinn said Zach Rockers, Helias theology teacher and assistant coach, has worked with FMC in Haiti before — “(because) he has been there, that really opened up the door to us.”

Quinn said, since Helias’ last international mission trip to Mexico almost a decade ago — the school does mission trips every year, though, she said, often in recent years to Wonderland Camp in Rocky Mount at the Lake of the Ozarks — the school has looked into other cross-border options.

“But we said that we wanted to wait for the right opportunity. We didn’t just want to jump into something that we were not necessarily exposed to previously,” and Rockers’ specific experiences let them know what to expect.

Helias is hosting an informational meeting for interested students 7-8 p.m. today in the school’s chapel.

The mission trip itself, open to boys and girls, is planned for June 9-17, 2019. Quinn said the cost currently is estimated to be $2,000 per person, but the exact number will ultimately depend on the final cost of flights, and Helias does have ideas for fundraising.

Quinn said FMC’s missionaries are families or single people, and the description for the information meeting tonight says FMC missionaries have lived in Haiti since 2015.

“We will be visiting the sick and home-bound, hiking to local chapel villages to visit those who live in the most extreme poverty, assisting in the material needs of the poor and also helping in Kay Ezekyel (Ezekial House), a catechesis and crafts program for the children,” the description says of what Helias students are planned to do on the mission trip.

Quinn said this trip is limited to juniors and seniors. Because of the extreme poverty they will see, the school wants to make sure students are mature enough to experience it. She said students who go — there will be an application committee that will review students’ seniority, skills or spiritual gifts that would bring to the trip, and the impact the trip could have on their lives, if more than 19 students apply — will also have monthly meetings ahead of the trip, have prayer partners to pray for them and will be taught about important things such as basic vocabulary in Haiti and what meals and sleeping and bathroom facilities will look like.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas — the result of a violent and turbulent history over the past couple centuries and into the present day of internal and foreign-influenced political, economic, ecological, geological, health and infrastructure challenges and disasters, according to media coverage and U.S. government resources.

The safety of students and the six or seven adults planned to go with them to Haiti are being considered for Helias’ trip, Quinn said.

“We will not be in Port-au-Prince,” Quinn said — “that definitely is more dangerous” — adding the Helias mission trip group will have “constant security” as they leave Haiti’s capital city after flying in, flights will arrive early enough to make sure the group leaves Port-au-Prince during daylight hours and FMC will help them make sure they stay safe.

Quinn said the Helias group will work in a mountainous area away from the capital, and FMC’s website says accommodations are on the grounds of Saint Joseph’s Church, “which has electricity and potable water,” in L’Asile, approximately a three and a half hour drive from the airport in Port-au-Prince.

“We may get to see the beautiful land. We may get to see the beautiful mountains or the beach, but that is not the point,” Quinn said — it’s to be present with the people there.

“We’re hoping that this experience allows students to see human dignity across borders,” Quinn said.

She added she hopes students not only see there are people in the world struggling to a degree greater than most can imagine, but those people “deserve human dignity no matter their circumstance” and students develop “the ability to see that joy and happiness is not defined by money, but instead it is defined by the act of love.”

She said Helias hopes to go to Haiti again in 2020 if next year’s mission trip is a good experience.