To Jamaica with Food for the Poor, by Mary Moore

 ​I recently had the opportunity to go Jamaica on a mission trip that was
sponsored by Food for the Poor, a non-denominational Christian relief
organization. When I got their email last spring, it felt as though someone
had dropped a Christmas present into my lap. It described activities such
as visiting schools, a home for disabled children, an orphanage, and a
homeless shelter, and building a house in a day, all things I knew I would
enjoy doing. The trip spanned a five day period, the first and last day being
travel days, and the three middle days being the meat of the trip. There
were 13 volunteers and 2 group leaders, one from the states, the other a
native Jamaican.

Day 1: After we enjoyed a good breakfast at the hotel, we piled onto our
minibus and headed for a homeless shelter in one of the rougher
neighborhoods of the city. There we joined the clients in prayer and song
(hymns) for a little while before serving breakfast to them. We got to chat
with them for a bit before getting a tour of the facility.

When our tour was over, we went to Food for the Poor’s Jamaican
headquarters to work on packing bags of food for families in need. The
massive warehouse consisted of three or four huge buildings for housing
food, building supplies, and other materials. Together, the fifteen people in
our group packed over 100 sacks of food, weighing about 20 pounds

apiece. Each bag consisted of about a month’s supply of staples such as
dried peas, rice, cans of meat and fish, powdered milk, flour, corn meal,
and crackers. Working in 90+ degree heat for several hours, it was a
challenge just to stay hydrated, but we made our quota and then some.
Two days later we would be hand delivering all this food at some schools.

The final visit that day was to a home for disabled children. Having
worked with this population before, i.e. special needs children whose
disabilities ranged from mild to extreme, I was not shocked by the extent of
the problems that these children - and their caretakers - experienced. I
suspect that some of my fellow missioners were. Many of the children were
non-verbal, confined to wheelchairs, and unable to feed themselves.
Others were high functioning enough that, were they living in the United
States, they may have been able to live at home. But Jamaica is a poor
country where a support system such as we enjoy here does not exist.

Day 2: Building a house - a lot of sweat, a lot of hammering nails and
painting, a lot of drinking water with packets of electrolytes added. And a lot
of gratification at a nearly finished product at the end of the day. The Food
for the Poor construction crew still had some inside finish work to do, but
we had a painted, water-tight house, complete with windows, solid doors,
indoor plumbing, and a small solar panel on the roof, to give to a 66 year
old widow who until recently had spent years working as an orange picker

at a nearby grove. In fact, the grove’s owner is the one who wrote the
recommendation for her to get a house. As thankful as she was to the
construction crew and us, she was - rightfully - more grateful to God, and
would not go into the house until after we had said a prayer and did a
house blessing.

Day 3: On our last full day, we visited a regular elementary school, a
second one for students with discipline issues, and an orphanage. At all
three places, we had a chance to interact with the children for an extended
period of time. Our visits to the schools coincided with the arrival of
parents to whom we had the pleasure of distributing the 100+ bags of food
packed a few days earlier. I appreciated that there was absolutely no
shaming of the recipients, as we sometimes see in the states.

At the orphanage, we learned that some of the children were not true
orphans, but came from households that for one reason or another could
not support them. In other words, in addition to caring for orphans, the
Jamaican orphanages perform the functions that our foster care system
does. Also as in this country, once a girl or boy turns 18, they are dropped
from the system. With little to no safety nets to help, these young adults
have little chance to break the cycle of poverty.

Reflections:

Did this trip change me? While I did not see anything in Jamaica that I
had not witnessed first hand in this country, I was overwhelmed by the
extent of the poverty. But I was also impressed by the amount of hope I
saw in the people I met. It seemed as though they were truly trying to build
for the future, as evidenced by their commitment to education.

Would I go again? Yes, if I had the money, but I would rather someone
else from the diocese got to go a first time before I went a second time. I
also think that somebody who is younger than I (that would include a big
chunk of the diocese) would be more profoundly changed by a mission trip.
As I mentioned earlier, I did not see anything in Jamaica that I had not
already seen here, whereas a younger person might not be able to make
that same claim. In addition, there are plenty of local Pioneer Valley
programs to keep me busy. To quote a Franciscan booklet, Feast of
Feasts,* “‘You can … make a big difference in the world if you realize that
the world you are talking about might be very small - maybe one or two
people. … If you can find a place to serve, you can be happy.’” *

What did I enjoy? My favorite activity was building a house in a day,
partially because that had more of an impact than simply visiting places. It
involved more doing and less observing, and I got to work with my hands.
In the morning, the widow was living in a hovel. By 4 or 5 PM, she had a
brand new 2-bedroom house. How great is that?!

As a retired teacher, naturally I enjoyed the interactions with the children
we met at the schools, the orphanage, and the home for disabled children.

Putting together the sacks of food gave us a very concrete sense of the
enormity of the need to fight hunger. The foods we packed were bare-bone
necessities, such as flour, corn meal, rice, dried peas, and a little bit of
canned meats. I valued this activity not only because it provided us with a
chance to help, but for its eye opening effect. The recipients of this food
were destitute.

I appreciated that the group was non-denominational (but all Christian
churches), and that we weren’t supposed to get preachy.

The length of the trip seemed a little short, though we did pack a lot into
just 3 days of activity. I liked too that we started each day on the bus with a
prayer. This was a good reminder of why we were there.

Other thoughts: It would be nice if once a year the diocese or a group of
different denomination churches in the area could sponsor someone -
preferably in his/her 20’s or 30’s? - to go on one of these mission trips. We
might want to send a different person each year.

Mary Moore

*Feast of Feasts by Frank & Victoria Logue, 2022, Episcopal