Tracey Montgomery's heart ached as she watched news of a massive earthquake in Haiti that shook the impoverished nation to its foundation.
The 7.0 quake's epicenter was located a few miles from the Mission of Hope, where Trinity Baptist Church members have made several mission trips since they fell in love with volunteers' mission in 2006.
Montgomery has made several trips to the mission, which includes a church, hospital, school and orphanage. As the news sunk in of the devastation, tears rolled down her cheeks as she worried about the friends she had made there and an orphan boy named Linder, who her family helps sponsor.
“There hasn't been a day I haven't cried,” she said. “My heart breaks for these people, who have worked so hard to survive and thrive.”
Her friend Sherry Fulton found hope in a message posted to the mission's Web site that most of the group's staff and families were “spared major calamity,” and workers were beginning to survey their buildings for damage.
Fulton said she feels she's left her heart behind in Haiti, with the 1,200 children who attend the mission's school and 40 orphans who call it home. Her first impulse was to travel to the mission, but since commercial flights are not available in the earthquake's aftermath, she urged her church to host a donation drive.
This Saturday, members will take donations for Haiti from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the church, located at 600 N. Cemetery Road in Oklahoma City. Fulton said they are collecting clothing and shoes for people of all ages, soap, toiletries, toothpaste, tents, blankets, baby formula, baby bottles and cloth diapers with plastic covers.
The church mission volunteers were scheduled to travel to Haiti in May, but Fulton said they are now trying to move up their trip dates. She said they aren't certain yet how they will get the donations to Haiti.
“We are waiting to see what God will do, what doors he will open to get it over there,” she said.
Heartbreak
During their visit, missionaries from Mustang and Yukon helped build fences, make repairs and teach Bible school. They visited surrounding villages, handed out candy and played games with children.
While Byers said she feels she needed to travel to show Haitians God's love, Haiti changed her more deeply than she ever expected.
The children she met in the villages near the orphanage — malnourished with bloated bellies and orange-tinted hair — they opened her eyes.
Other children who were brought to the orphanage had faced such horror in their young lives, but Byers said they still managed to face each day with joy.
“Boy, if Americans can just get that right,” she said. “It's not about what materialistically we have. It's about your life. It's just amazing — they just have a different philosophy down there.”
Byers told of a young girl she met named Maggie. The orphanage workers told her Maggie was raped, put in a trash can and set on fire before she was brought to the Mission of Hope. The teenager still suffered from her injuries and scars, but Byers said she smiled as she worked to figure out how to use a toy loom missionaries had given her.
After the Trinity members returned home, they later learned Maggie became ill and died. Byers said the Mustang and Yukon area volunteers shared in her caregivers' grief, but they found comfort in the girl's spirit.
“They lost her, but we will see her again someday because she knew Christ,” Byers said.
With the heartache, there is also triumph. The mission's staff have fallen in love with two twin infants, born to a young teenage mother on a roadway. Byers said in Haiti twins are considered a bad omen, and the girl, scared and alone, abandoned the newborns.
The mission staff nursed the infants back to health, while searching for their mother to help her.
Byers said the social situation in Haiti is complex and further strained by high unemployment and poverty. While Haitians have strong and large extended families, because of the lack of jobs and resources, people lose hope.
“There are some who, parents really love the kids,” she said. “They know they can not take care of them, and they go and give them and sign over their rights. But a lot of them leave them on the streets, abandoned.”
The situation was dire before the earthquake, and Byers said she can't imagine what the people are going through now after the devastation.
Enduring spirit
Montgomery said Haiti's strength is its people and their patriotism. Despite all of Haiti's problems, she said the people aren't looking to migrate to other nations. She said they want to stay, improve themselves and lift up their homeland.
“There is a spirit to the Haitian people that is to me, it's infectious, she said. “They live in such extreme poverty and such extreme conditions. We truly cannot fathom the way they are here in the U.S.”
Fulton took her teenage daughter and son, and the trip opened their eyes to all of the things they take for granted. These communities do not have clean water, electricity, sewer systems or trash service. Families must pay tuition for their children to attend school, but since most can't afford it, many never get an education.
“They learned that their lives weren't so hard after all,” she said. “Some of these kids don't have parents, literally they don't have clothes. It's a very rocky nation, but they don't have shoes.”
When they are given the opportunity, she said, the children seize it.
“As you educate these kids, and they grow up loving God, it gives them the tools to better their country,” Fulton said.
The people she met made the best of the situations they were given, Montgomery said. She said Haitians are strict about their hygiene, and many iron their clothes using warmed stones from the hearth. She said she saw women put on their best clothes for Sunday church services.
“They are still a very proud people,” she said. “They care about how they look. They care about who they are — they care about being educated.”

'Hooked on Haiti'
As soon as she returns from Haiti, Fulton said she starts planning their return trip. The trips are like pilgrimages for the volunteers, she said, and she comes back recharged and full of spirit.
The mission is filled with “a lot of people, who love God and love each other, and it just filled my heart,” she said. “I fell in love with it.”
Montgomery said the church congregation calls it being “hooked on Haiti.”
When they learned of the earthquake, she said she just wanted to hug her Haitian friends, comfort them and let them know they aren't alone.
“You want to go do something,” she said. “You have got to help. You are sitting here feeling so helpless.”
Fulton said they still plan to make their May trip to Haiti, unless the mission workers aren't ready for them. If possible, she said they'd like to make their visit sooner.
“There is always work to do,” she said. “It doesn't matter if all you can do is love on a kid.”