Local group aids Haitians

The North Jefferson News

GARDENDALE — Mission workers from around the world continue to offer support to Haiti 27 days after the country was devastated by an earthquake.

On Sunday, a group with ties to north Jefferson County was latest to lend a hand to the Haitian people.

The group is organized by Jeremy Sanders, a member of Gardendale First Baptist Church. The 19-member team he put together consists of a mixture of talents and assets, including a retired emergency room doctor from Texas, missionaries and two EMTs.

Including Sanders, there are a total of five members of Gardendale First Baptist who flew into the Dominican Republic on Sunday. Other members include Josh Moody, Heath Kyle, Mark Turner and Richard Bradley. Mt. Olive resident Brett Simmons, a member of Sharon Heights Baptist Church, will also be traveling to Haiti.

The group will return on Feb. 14.

After landing in the Dominican, the team will then travel to Pétionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince in southeastern Haiti.

Sanders said the idea to assemble the group was born out of watching constant news reports, combined with reading Twitter updates from Atlanta-based pastor Shawn King, who has coordinated getting medical teams in and out of the country.

“That really proved to me that you don’t have to be an expert to go down there,” Sanders said. “They really just need people who care.”

After talking it over with his wife, Sanders began e-mailing co-workers at TekLinks, an IT company. He also approached church members who have made other mission trips.

“After that, the resources just starting coming out of the woodworks,” he said. “We have raised close to $40,000 in just two weeks.”

At least a portion of those funds were contributed by the Gardendale Rotary Club, which agreed to give $2,500 that will be used to purchase supplies.

Bradley, who has been on several mission trips through the church and as a member of the Gardendale Rotary Club, said the ease in which the trip and resources came together was proof that “God has His hand” in what the group is doing.

“There are 14 churches represented in this group, so that means 14 seeds are being planted [in Haiti],” he said.

When the group arrived in the Dominican Republic, it planned to rent two school buses to ferry supplies to Pétionville. The supplies include over-the-counter medications, bandages, antibiotics, tooth brushes, toothpaste and other hygiene products.

Bradley said Pétionville was chosen as a tribute to the late Iciemae Fredericks, a Gardendale woman who started a ministry to help Haitians. Much of her time and resources were used to help Pétionville, he said.

In addition to the medical supplies, the group was also able to obtain 10 pallets of individually sealed chicken and rice soup meals from kidsagainsthunger.com that can be prepared to feed the hungry in the village. The pallets have been loaded on a ship in West Palm Beach, Fla., and will arrive in Haiti on Monday afternoon.

The team also planned to buy rice and beans after arriving in the Dominican Republic. Their goal is to feed 750 people per day for a week.

Both Sanders and Bradley said they had concerns about reports of violence and looting in Haiti. However, Sanders said his faith will lead him to fearlessly follow God’s lead.

“If we get stopped and robbed, we have accomplished our mission of distributing  food and medicine,” Sanders said. “If they [robbers] take our tracts, maybe some of them will get saved.”