Winston Justice: Eagles offer some Hope for Haiti

Eagles right tackle Winston Justice wrote a weekly column during the season for the Daily News. In a special offseason column, Justice writes about his recent visit to Haiti to help with the relief efforts at an orphanage.

I FIRST HEARD about the earthquake in Haiti when I was home in Naples, Fla., for the offseason, and I immediately wanted to help. Although I do not have any familial connections to Haiti, the photos and news articles flooding the TV were enough to grip my heart.

Even before the earthquake, I knew my church in Naples was working with an organization in Haiti. So, when it happened, I contacted my pastor to see what I could do.

The organization that my church, Summit Church, worked with was called Mission of Hope Haiti. And we immediately worked on a plan to organize a group to go to Port-au-Prince and work with the Mission.

Mission of Hope (MOH) is a home for more than 60 orphans. It has its own educational and medical services on the premises. Even before the earthquake, it was serving thousands of meals to the men, women and children of Haiti. After the devastation hit, there were days when the MOH passed out more than 300,000 meals, even more than the U.N. and Red Cross combined.

It's hard to get a bunch of guys to commit to leaving the comfort of their own lives and volunteer in one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, but Quintin Demps was one of the first ones to say yes. So along with one of the Eagles' chaplains, minister Theodore Winsley, Summit Church pastor Jay Richardson, my brother-in-law, Evan Inatome, and Eagles' staffer Doug Interrante, six of us spent the last week down there.

Getting off the plane, we noticed the difference between the two countries. The airport was still chaotic and lacked a system of order. As soon as we walked outside the airport there were children dressed in worn-out clothes, without shoes, pleading for money or food.

All of us felt like we needed to do something, but it was recommended that we not just hand over money. As shameful as it seems now, we still were carrying with us some leftover sandwiches from the airport McDonald's in Miami, and we ended up handing out our uneaten Egg McMuffins and breakfast burritos. We watched these kids light up over our leftovers, realizing how much we take for granted back home.

As we first drove through the devastation in Port-au-Prince we were taken aback by all the damage. The people were back to their daily routines, living like nothing had happened, all in the midst of rubble.

Gone were the concrete walls, homes and buildings; now stood thousands of homes made of sticks and old bedsheets. There are so many different tent cities that the people started naming them. One that I remember was called "Obama." It is crazy to think this poor nation is only an hour away from the richest country in the world, and prior to the earthquake few even thought of it. And even now, 3 months after the destructive earthquake, Haiti has faded from most of our minds.

When we reached MOH, 15 minutes outside the city, it was clear to us that life was different here and that change was beginning. It was almost like an oasis of peace in the middle of deprivation. MOH was single-handedly changing the community around it through education, access to medical supplies and Christian teachings of hope.

Brad Johnson, the president of MOH, took us to some of the villages to meet firsthand the people we came to help.

One image I keep mentally revisiting is the experience of walking through a squalid marketplace in the center of an impoverished village. People were selling goods that none of my friends at home would ever have in their house, let alone purchase. Third-hand T-shirts, unsanitary food, flies everywhere, a boy sitting at a table covered in different adaptors and cords selling cell phone battery chargers, a concrete table covered in goat intestines and goat heads.

I saw an old man in his underwear, looking sick and full of despair, as he walked up to a table and gave a woman a big coin. The woman uncovered a bucket, grabbed a serving spoon and an old cup and poured the man one spoonful of water. It is just amazing how much we all take for granted, and to realize the water I so easily drink at home is a treasure to so many people in the world.

Back at the MOH compound, we helped build one of the new wings for the children. We shoveled rocks and concrete and pushed around wheelbarrows for hours. It was hard to imagine the men working with us had to do this all day for only $4 in wages. Luckily for us, we even had a lunch break, while our co-workers were not allowed time off.

All around the country, these men and women were working hard to rebuild their land.

The Eagles were kind enough to donate T-shirts, toiletries and footballs to the parentless children of Mission of Hope. The kids were so happy to just have another shirt. The effect this seemingly small offering had on these children was priceless.

Haiti was an experience I never will forget.

Often we sit back and dream about helping others less fortunate. To give of your time and of yourself is life-changing and sometimes worth more than what even dollars can do.

A lot of people criticize going to another country to help out when there are so many problems in our own backyard, but we have to start somewhere. It is important just to begin. It is important that when you see a hole, to follow through to fill it.

Mission of Hope's Web site can be found at http://www.mohhaiti.org/