Faithful Mission: Haiti
A bimonthly online column by Linda Valentine
November 2013
Enante Petit-Frere, a junior, doing clinical rounds at Hopital St. Croix. Photo by Laurie Lounsbury.
Four years ago, participants in a program at Montreat Conference Center—from which this new Faithful Mission column takes its name—dreamed with me of how a Time cover story about Presbyterian World Mission might be titled in the year 2015. “Mission Possible” was one response.
One seemingly impossible dream that became a mission possible—and still inspires the nation of Haiti as it continues to rebuild following the devastating earthquake nearly four years ago—is the Faculté des Sciences Infirmières de Léogâne (FSIL), the nursing school of the Episcopal University of Haiti.
Perhaps the face of FSIL belongs to its dean, Hilda Alcindor, whom I met last month while visiting Haiti with representatives from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, World Mission, and the Presbyterian Hunger Program. When Hilda walked the school’s hallways, her students regarded her with awe and admiration. And so did I.
FSIL is the fruit of a deep mission partnership. The nursing school was begun out of the vision of First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Hilda Alcindor (bottom right) and Ruth Barnard (bottom left) with new graduates at 2011 baccalaureate service. Photo by Laurie Lounsbury.
By the grace of God—and at the urging of the congregation’s former pastor, Michael Lindvall—church member Ruth Barnard, a University of Michigan associate professor emeritus of nursing, became a cofounder of what is now FSIL. Ruth recalls that Bob Young—a member of the church’s first medical mission teams, which were started in the mid-1990s—had come back from a medical care trip to Haiti with a request for help from the director of the Hopital Sainte Croix to start a nursing school to improve the quality of nursing care at the Haitian hospital. Ruth knew that an undergraduate nursing program was just what was needed in Haiti, as none yet existed there. The Medical Benevolence Foundation had already obtained a grant from USAID’s American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) for school and dormitory buildings.
“When Michael [Lindvall] contacted me in the spring of 2001 and asked me whether a school of nursing could be started in Haiti—and I said it could—he asked if I would lead the effort,” Ruth says. “After praying about it, I said I’d try. Fortunately, God sent a lot of people to help besides myself.”
In conversation with Ruth, Hilda—a native of Haiti who was then working as a nurse in Miami—was able to capture the vision to return there to become the dean of the school, which has graduated over 80 nursing students since the first class of 36 entered in January 2005.
October 25, 2013, marked the sixth graduation ceremony at FSIL.
“The congregation’s relationship with Haiti is one of the oldest and strongest international partnerships we have,” says Fairfax Fair, the Ann Arbor church’s pastor and head of staff since 2011. “It’s such a powerful witness and such a great example of the proverb that says rather than give somebody a fish, teach that person to fish. We can and we do benefit people in Haiti when we go and serve for one or two weeks, but by training up nurses, that life-saving medical intervention can take place 365 days a year.”
Hilda Alcindor (left) with Lisa Kerr Johnson. Photo by Laurie Lounsbury.
Because the Ann Arbor church is blessed to count among its members a large number of medical, dental, pharmacy, and nursing professionals, the congregation continues to send two medical mission teams to Haiti each year. Lisa Kerr Johnson, a pharmacist at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, currently heads up the church’s efforts.
“There are so many places around the world where there is such tremendous need,” Fairfax says. “It’s difficult when we hear about catastrophic events around the world to personalize them unless we have a real connection.”
But because the church has built and nurtured such a deeply personal relationship with Haiti, Fairfax said that whenever members of the church hear about hurricanes headed in that direction, they are able to picture—and to act and pray for—real people with whom they are in relationship.
“In my mind, whenever I hear any mention of Haiti, I think about Hilda and some of the nursing students who have been here to Ann Arbor,” she says. “Because we know real, living, breathing human beings who are there, it makes it much more personal and makes our connection so much stronger. It’s very moving and powerful, and we are indeed in partnership with our brothers and sisters in Haiti.”
These are the new patterns, models, and faces of global mission. The founding and the fruits of FSIL bear witness indeed that “with God all things are possible.” For so they are.
