By Randy Gonzales<\/p>\n
HAYS, Kan. — Despite the sweltering heat, despite the lack of electricity and water — despite everything — once someone makes a mission trip to Haiti that person feels compelled to go back. The reason? The children.<\/p>\n
Dr. Jeff Burnett, professor of health and human performance at Fort Hays State University, recently returned from leading his third mission trip to Haiti. Burnett is also the director of Encounter, a faith-based organization on campus through which the trips are sponsored. On the first trip in 2014, 43 students signed up. Last year, it was 59, and this year, it was 55 for the six-day trip. Burnett has had several students who have made all three trips to the poverty-stricken nation in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trip is definitely a humbling experience,\u201d Hays graduate student Kelsey Billinger said. \u201cI\u2019ve had a kid that\u2019s been with me the past three years. I met another little baby this year, and this was probably my hardest trip to leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes me super emotional,\u201d she added. \u201cI get really attached to those kids. I still think about them all the time; makes me want to go back every year to go see these kids I get close with.\u201d<\/p>\n
The FHSU students give attention to the children, teaching them the basics of living, from good hygiene to proper nutrition. Some students also help build schools and churches. It\u2019s all for the children.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey really don\u2019t have anything,\u201d said Kade Spresser, who is from Hoxie and will be a junior in the fall. \u201cThey don\u2019t have anything to look forward to. It\u2019s just survival, day by day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lauren Clark founded \u201cHere Am I Ministries\u201d after moving to Haiti in 2004 as a missionary. She started a feeding program for the street children and, in 2010, she partnered with a local pastor to start an orphanage, church and school. Meanwhile, Burnett had some Encounter members who wanted to go on a mission trip. He mentioned it to his mother-in-law, and she put him in contact with Clark, a friend of hers.<\/p>\n
The trip costs $1,200, but what the students receive in return is priceless.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never experienced anything like this,\u201d said Spresser, who made his first trip. \u201cI think it\u2019s good for people to get out of their comfort zone a little bit. God can call you to serve in the mission field. I think everybody should go see a third-world country and experience how nice we have it back here in the (United) States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Billinger, who said she was heavily involved with the Encounter group on campus, saw the trips to Haiti as an opportunity to grow in her faith.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know we\u2019re super privileged in the U.S., and I wanted to see how other people lived, knowing they still had their relationship with God,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
What the students find out upon arriving in Haiti is that the children are craving love and attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing we do is play with kids and love on these kids that truly have one parent — or many of them (who) have no parents,\u201d Burnett said. \u201cThe next thing we do is make sure they\u2019re all fed and they all have water. Water down there is gold.\u201d<\/p>\n
The students stayed in the evenings in Clark\u2019s guest house, which had security in place for their safety. During the day, they ministered to the children or worked on construction projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe humidity, it\u2019s so sticky, you just sweat all night,\u201d Spresser said. \u201cThey don\u2019t have air conditioning. They don\u2019t have a lot of good, running water. They don\u2019t have a trash system. It\u2019s pretty sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet, still, the students were encountered by young, smiling faces every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kids just love you,\u201d Spresser said.<\/p>\n
And the FHSU students keep loving back and coming back, year after year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does go back to the quality of students we have, looking beyond themselves,\u201d Burnett said. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the great things about Fort Hays State. It\u2019s a testament to the administration all the way down to the students, the parents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burnett sees what the students accomplish during the mission trip and sees how they are changed, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI so much enjoy watching their faces and their reactions and how their lives can change and they get moved on a daily basis,\u201d Burnett said. \u201cEvery day down there, we cry together. We all smile, we all laugh, we all cry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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