*Former Mahomet resident Doug Berkman with James Lazzarre, who runs New Vision for a Better Life organization in Haiti.
By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com
In helping to build a school in another country, what Doug Berkman really built was relationships.
The long-time Mahomet resident — who now lives in rural Champaign — has made 11 trips to Haiti since 2007. More trips are already scheduled for the spring and fall of 2019.
The trips have been orchestrated through New Horizon United Methodist Church, where Berkman said a decade ago, “I was involved to a small degree.”
He was not a regular.
“I attended and occasionally played in the church band,” Berkman said. “I was not a religious person or a Christ-follower at that time.”
It caught his attention when fellow parishioner Stan Sanner traveled to Haiti because “he wanted to see what it was like,” Berkman said, and returned with a story that made an indelible impression.
“The locals and local church leaders explained (to Sanner) the extreme need for a school right in their area that was affordable since such a high percentage of kids in the area didn’t go to school,” Berkman said, recalling the message that Sanner brought to the New Horizon congregation.
There are some folks who make it their life’s work to volunteer and support charitable causes.
Berkman was not yet a member of that club.
“I have always felt a huge need to help the materially poor, but never had even done local mission work let alone going to the poorest country in the western hemisphere,” Berkman said.
And yet, he was one of six members from the church who signed up for the 2007 trip to Haiti. Berkman later served as the group leader on many subsequent trips.
“I didn’t understand the strong compulsion at the time, and honestly none of my family or friends could either, but I went with the intention of helping kids, but avoiding the church part of it,” Berkman said. “I was really only going to church to please my then-wife and for my kids.”
What transpired, in the week or so that the New Horizon group was in Haiti, was a total transformation for Berkman.
“While on the trip, the kids there just totally stole my heart and God performed a miracle by converting me into a Christ-follower with a need to help the poorest in Haiti,” he said.
The original purpose of his participation, Berkman said, was “specifically to help folks that were really, really in need and had no means to improve their lives like many people here have the opportunity to do via various aid groups and programs.”
The miracle was only in its infancy.
“Over the next three years, we were able to build a large three-story building attached to the Methodist church in Thor (an extremely impoverished area of Port au Prince), to house classrooms, kitchen storage and housing for caretakers, etc.,” Berkman said.
In January, 2010, an earthquake devastated Port au Prince (killing more than 230,000 people), yet the area where Berkman and colleagues had worked fared well.
“The building was essentially undamaged,” Berkman said, “and there had been very little loss of life in the immediate area, mostly due to the fact that the houses in Thor were very light weight, made of tin, plywood and cardboard, hence not crushing people as they collapsed as in other neighborhoods.”
New Horizon sent two teams of missionaries in 2010 and their work was wide-ranging.
“We were able to build several families homes, assembled and distributed over 21,000 meals, gave out dozens of tents and general supplies, and listened and prayed with people there,” Berkman said.
In 2012, Berkman said, the local church board in Haiti “decided to rent the school classrooms to an outside school group to administer the teachers and schooling.”
That decision meant a change of focus for Berkman and the others from Champaign County.
“New Horizon and myself helped with various missions and projects in Haiti for the next couple years,” Berkman said, “until I felt called to help orphans there, specifically in an area called Arachaie, which is a city/area north of Port au Prince about an hour.”
Berkman met up with James Lazzarre, who runs the New Vision for a Better Life organization.
“He is a dynamic, young local leader with a vision to help orphans in his home area, where he knew the need was great,” Berkman said. “In fact, he had been facilitating a program called the Thomas Food Project to feed and educate local kids with very little access to either.
“James had land that his grandparents were willing to donate to him for the purpose of building a local orphanage. I went to our congregation with this possibility and got an excellent response. We began raising funds.”
Berkman, who has been running his own home remodeling business for almost 20 years (specializing in bathroom remodels and converting tub areas into walk-in tile showers). accompanied a team to Arachaie in November, 2016. Most of the recent trips have encompassed between three and five people, though as many as 13 from the area have gone at one time.
“Local workers (in Haiti) had already built the foundation of the building,” Berkman said. “While there that year, we built most of the walls side-by-side with local workers and got an amazing amount of work done. Work continued until the building was ready enough for the kids to move in.”
The first residents of the orphanage were 10 children aged 1 1/2 years to 13.
“These are kids who have either no parents or only one parent with no means to support or feed them,” Berkman said.
New Horizon pastor Mark Jordan said it’s impossible to overstate the need.
“These kids were living on the street, without parents or families, and now they are living with proper supervision, meals and support,” Jordan said.
“We fall in love with these little kids who are helpless without someone helping them. To see them move from an impoverished situation with zero hope to being in school, receiving medical care and three meals a day, we’ve put these kids on a trajectory for a productive future.”
As he got to know Berkman, he’s not surprised by his steadfast and unrelenting commitment.
“Doug is the kind of guy who is drawn to the down and out, the marginalized,” Jordan said. “When he had an opportunity to help kids in Haiti, he had an epiphany there.
“He saw poverty like he’d never seen and saw how his efforts could make a difference. He got addicted. He can see his help is incredibly impactful.”
After the most recent trip (October, 2018), Berkman was amazed at the transformations.
“We found the kids in much, much better shape than the previous year after having proper nutrition and medical care,” he said. “At present, nine of the 10 kids are thriving and even attending school, most for the first time.
“The 10th is still struggling with some health issues. She’s recovered from meningitis, pneumonia and being Level 4 on the malnutrition scale, but is still fighting tuberculosis. We anticipate her recovery this year as she is currently in treatment away from the other kids to prevent the spread of TB.”
New Horizon has helped to raise approximately $40,000 for the dormitory project.
The collective “we” in Berkman’s work references encompassed more than the New Horizon members that were part of the travel delegation.
“The school building in Thor was designed with the assistance of a local engineer, who unfortunately was killed in the 2010 earthquake,” Berkman said. “The dormitory was built with the aid of a local engineer who works at a discounted rate to aid his community.
“Virtually all of the materials were purchased in Haiti from local shops and built by local laborers, which is part of the secret sauce of the project. Everything we do impacts far more than just our kids we’ve taken in. Additionally, we employ three caretakers who had virtually no income, hence supporting their families as well.
“It can be difficult to get tools and materials in comparison to here in the U.S., but with good local connections, we can get what we need in a reasonable amount of time.”
Jordan has been part of the trips to Haiti the past two years.
Though he had not previously been to Haiti, he knew in advance what to expect.
“I’ve done work in Central America and was well aware of those kinds of conditions,” Jordan said, “absolutely dire poverty, the worst you can imagine.”
When he arrived at New Horizon eight years ago, Jordan was impressed with how the Haiti delegation was structured.
“I was tickled that New Horizon was on the ground and that it was the people instead of the pastor that made it happen and sustained it,” he said.
Jordan also appreciates how the workload is delegated, citing that concept as one of the major reasons for the success.
“If we go and do it all for them, that’s pretty undignified,” Jordan said. “There is also no ownership, no value placed in something somebody gives you.
“He uses local labor, buys local materials and it belongs to the community.”
Jordan said there is no doubt about how the hierarchy works..
“When we go, we are the grunts,” Jordan said. “We hire them and work as their laborers.
“It’s a really holistic approach.”
The orphanage took parts of three years to complete.
A next phase is in the works.
“I can see us doing a second dorm in the next two to three years,” Jordan said. “They can share cooking facilities and share an outdoor latrine.”
Jordan emphasized that it’s not a requirement to have any affiliation with New Horizon to join the missionary team.
“We’re open to anybody who would like to be a part of it,” Jordan said. “It’s not exclusive to our church.”
The buildings in Haiti are the tangible reward of the work done by Berkman and his associates. The goodwill is the immeasurable component.
Berkman is now a believer, in more ways than one.
