LSU soccer players Courtney Alexander and Natalie Ieyoub recently traveled to Haiti with the organization “Lespwa Worldwide” for a week-long mission trip during the Christmas break. In Creole, the word “Lespwa” means “hope.” Haiti is in search of hope now more than ever in the wake of a devastating earthquake that rocked its people on earlier this week.
Lespwa Worldwide is accepting donations from those who would like to assist in the earthquake relief effort. Donations can be made on the group’s official website at www.lespwaworldwide.com.
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In the wake of a crippling earthquake, accounts of unimaginable suffering and devastation in Haiti were plastered on Web sites and broadcast from television stations around the world. For LSU soccer players Courtney Alexander and Natalie Ieyoub, the pictures hit a little too close to home.
“Seeing those images when we have actually been there, it just breaks your heart,” Alexander said. “The people have nothing to begin with, and now they’re literally living on the street.”
Alexander and Ieyoub spent a week in December in Messallier, Haiti, as a part of a mission trip with Lespwa Worldwide. Despite having just finished final exams, both student-athletes felt the opportunity was too good to pass up.
“I had never even thought of going to Haiti before. My heart has always been for Africa,” Alexander said. “I want to do humanitarian medical missions. That’s what I want to do with my life after I graduate college. One of my really good friends moved down there, and he said, ‘You’ve got to come down to Haiti.’ I wanted to see if that’s what I really want to do with my life and if I could handle it emotionally.”
Ieyoub’s decision was spurred in part by similar words of encouragement from a family member.
“I’ve always wanted to go on a mission trip, and Courtney told me about it at one of our team dinners,” Ieyoub said. “The timing worked out perfectly. It was after the season, and it was in a very needy country. My uncle had been to Haiti a few years ago, so he shared his experience with me and that really encouraged me to go.”
Although eager to make an impact, the magnitude of Haiti’s poverty and disorder was worse than either girl expected. As the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is a beneficiary of a substantial amount of goodwill. Unfortunately, the country is handicapped by a lack of organization and resources to properly deal with that level of aid.
The situation would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic – a country blessed with an outpouring of goodwill from the outside world, but cursed with an inability to prosper due to a lack of structure and organization, as well as rampant crime and corruption within its borders.
“They had an entire room of clothes that had been donated, but no one had taken the time to organize them yet. They hadn’t been able to be passed out into the community,” Alexander said. “We spent two whole days just organizing clothes.”
“Going into the trip, a lot of us thought that since we’re Americans, we could bring a lot to this country,” Ieyoub said. “Unfortunately, things fall through a lot in Haiti, and they don’t work as fast or as efficiently as we do, so that was kind of discouraging.”
Alexander and Ieyoub also spent time hosting Vacation Bible School each day and playing with kids from the orphanage and local village.
“In the end, all of us got a lot out of it. I think we all left as better people,” Ieyoub said. “We were probably more impacted than the Haitian people were. It was an amazing experience for the two of us. “
On Tuesday, less than one month after returning to the United States, Haiti was rocked by a devastating earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter Scale and an epicenter less than 15 miles from the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The images and stories being told in the wake of the devastation paints an amazing picture of a country falling to a new level of desperation.
“I found out originally on Facebook,” Ieyoub said. “One of my friends that I met through the mission trip had on her status links to the blogs of the American missionaries, so I read those.”
Upon hearing the news, both players expressed heartbreak and disappointment that comes with seeing how unstable conditions were prior to the earthquake.
“I think that since I’ve been there I can understand the level of damage and the amount of need that the country is in right now,” Ieyoub said. “There are no building standards. People just build houses with whatever they can find. Many times, the houses are on top of each other, so I can just imagine that a lot of the buildings would easily crumble. It has to be very devastating there right now.”
“I was devastated for them. My heart hurts for them,” Alexander said. “They’re my brothers and sisters in Christ. Haiti is in so much chaos and has so much destruction to begin with, and then to be hit by something like this … They don’t really have the infrastructure for people to immediately help, so they’re sort of waiting on the world to get there. It kills me. One of the main hospitals in Port-au-Prince collapsed. They don’t have health care to begin with and they don’t really have the resources to rebuild. I’m so sad for them.”
While that knowledge is overwhelming, the uncertainty of not knowing if the local people they met and the fellow missionaries they worked with are still alive is equally painful.
“I talked to Natalie a little bit about it. We’re all just feeling the hurt,” Alexander said. “We know those people now, and you just can’t help but wonder if the people that you met, all the village kids and all the villagers, whether they’re still alive and what has happened to their families.”
If anything, the tragedy has only affirmed their willingness to help those less fortunate. Both Alexander and Ieyoub have a strong desire to return to Haiti one day.
“I would definitely want to take another trip there,” Ieyoub said. “There’s just a lot of need right now. I’d like to see the progress that Lespwa Worldwide is making during this tragedy. It was kind of discouraging being there, but they’re bringing a lot of hope to the people. The word ‘Lespwa’ actually means ‘hope.'”
“I knew immediately when I got home that I wanted to go back. I still do, probably now more than ever,” Alexander said. “I wish I could go immediately. I think part of my heart will always be in Haiti.”