Friday, February 2: Day One!

It is a beautiful, sunny day in Santo Domingo, and I am waiting for our BUMC team to arrive at the airport this evening. I have spent the past few days in Haiti, doing the on-the-ground preparation for the coming week. We will be working a few hours per day with Sadhana Forest, the reforestation project that first drew me to this small border town on the south coast of the island of Hispaniola. The project employs local Haitians and welcomes volunteers from all over the world to live, work, eat, and learn together in community.  Part of the work we will do at Sadhana Forest next week will be directly involved with the care and keeping of young fruit trees, and part of it will be assisting in the upkeep of the project site--maintenance projects, tending gardens, and helping to cook meals for all who are working.
In the afternoons, we will travel to a settlement about 4 miles away, where Haitian immigrants who were deported from the Dominican Republic first set up camp in June of 2015. The community has become a bit more established over the years, and they are trying to get regular schooling hours going for both children and adults. Part of our group will offer classes and practice in speaking English, and the other part will spend time doing crafts and activities with the young children. We will also bring trees and supplies from Sadhana Forest, and plan to spend a day planting fruit trees out at the settlement together.
The word that has been turning over in my mind as I’ve prepared for this trip and tried to articulate its purpose is “catalyst.” I hope that our BUMC group will serve as catalysts for connection among the different communities we encounter.  The folks at Sadhana Forest and in the town of Anse a Pitre have very little connection to the settlement of deported immigrants down the road.  Perhaps our day of planting trees together can sow the beginnings of more interaction and care.  In addition, there are a few young Haitians I am friends with in Anse a Pitre who have ideas and plans--to start a community garden; to build a computer center for students to have internet access; to create a recycling center in the community--and I hope that by visiting, asking questions, and offering a few hours’ of work by their sides, our team might help these “dreamers” to stay motivated, and to start taking the next steps in their projects. Finally, I truly hope that the experiences we share in the next week will be catalysts in our own lives; mustard seeds of change that will have lasting impact in our lives and our church community when we return home.
Stay tuned!
Rev. Kara