The Forest Baptist Church mission team enjoyed a wonderful and productive mission trip to Haiti from June 30 through July 6. During their time spent in the Caribbean nation located on the island of Hispaniola they were in the small mountain village of Thoman which is home to approximately 900 native villagers.
During their mission in the welcoming village, the group provided dental care in a dental clinic lead by Dr. Randy Reynolds of Forest, offered motherhood classes and supplies to new and expectant mothers, helped with the construction of a new home and worked to spread the word of God in daily Bible studies.
The mission group found the villagers of Thoman to be inviting, friendly and extremely generous throughout their stay and had no idea their departure would put them in eminent danger. When the group prepared to make their way back to the capital city of Port-au-Prince for their return flight home an already volatile situation was ready to explode and that they would be blessed to be one of the last flights out of the city before violent riots began.
Unbeknownst to the mission group relations between the Caribbean nation’s government officials and underprivileged Haitian citizens where already at a boiling point and ready to boil over into civil unrest and total chaos. On July 6, the very Friday, the mission group had to travel back to the capitol city of Port-au-Prince for their return flight home the Haitian government announced a price hike on already high fuel prices which led to the deadly rioting throughout the country. The most intense and dangerous rioting was in Port-au-Prince which is where the airport is located where the mission group was waiting to board a flight back to the states.
Forest Baptist Church Youth and Education Pastor and mission team leader, Rob Hunt, along with the rest of the team, had no idea they were right in the middle of a dangerously volatile situation as they traveled through the capital city headed to the airport. “Throughout the week we had no problems and had not heard of any problems so when we where going back through Port-au-Prince we were not aware of anything that was going on,” Hunt said. “Our flight left at around 4 p.m. local time and we had no problems at all, but the following morning we found out that our flight was one of the last flights that was allowed to depart before the airport was shut down because of the riots.”
The group was extremely blessed to barely make it out of Haiti before the riots began and could have easily been stranded in the country and caught-up in the riots. A mission group from Colorado that had spent the week in Thoman with the group from Forest was not so lucky and had to remain in Haiti until the riots ceased. “The mission group from Colorado that we worked with during the trip did not plan to fly out until Saturday so they got caught in the middle of the riots and had to have a police escort to a hotel,” Hunt said. “The Colorado mission team and a mission group from Petal did not make it back home until July 10.”
There were numerous mission groups that got stranded in the capitol city during the civil unrest. The mission groups that were forced to remain in Haiti during the rioting were placed in local hotels that were guarded by police and government law enforcement. Even though they were being protected by armed law enforcement the stranded mission groups had to suffer through three days in the highly stressful and dangerous environment. There were reports of numerous unsuccessful attempts to overrun the armed guards and set the hotels on-fire during the three-days of rioting.
When the fires were put out and the smoke had cleared all mission teams from the U.S. were able to make it home safely and without injury. However, having to suffer through the harrowing experience will surely be a memory that will not be easily forgotten.
As for the Forest Baptist Church mission team, they will not allow the dangers that are known to exist, and in this instance actually played out, deter them from continuing future mission trips to the underprivileged nation. “We all know that these mission trips can be dangerous but that will not stop us from returning to help the wonderful people of Haiti,” Hunt said. “We are already making plans for our mission trip to Haiti next year.”
