Haiti Missions Trip 2018 – Robert Antolak, DDS
Dr. Antolak: Hi, this is Dr. Antolak from The Gentle Dentist. Each year for the last 17 years I’ve been coming to Haiti and helping out with a obviously dentistry and but more even have a gift of that is you oura patient who have agreed to donate. Like for example, after we do a crown or a dental extraction, it has a crown on it. We’ve been able to use the scrap metal for that to generate money to help kids in Haiti. I have been doing that, this our fifth year of doing this. And this year we’re in Jacmel. We’re south of Port au Prince, right on the water. And right now we’re working with an orphanage that has around 30 if not more children and Ruthsmie is the Director here at the orphanage. And lastly, I have Jackie Rychel, who I’ll let her tell her story a little bit about the support of the orphans were doing.
But first of all, I want to donate. I have $1,500 from people who’ve donated. Once again, their things. And this is for her, this is for the orphanage, for the children. And, I like to just thank you for, for all that. Um, and so what I want to also do is to ask Jackie. Jackie’s is from Ohio and she’s one of the people who started this. Just give a brief history of how this orphanage here is taking care of these children.
Jackie: Thank you Robert. And we’re so grateful for Robert giving us this opportunity and giving this to the children. This is a very wonderful orphanage that has a lot of need. It came about after the earthquake in 2010 and these children were living in a school where Ruthsmie it was her own school and she was the administrator of it. And it just so happened that these kids came to pick up supplies, water, clothes, food, and they stayed.They didn’t leave. And some of the missionaries that came to visit would go to the orphanage and help the kids and help Ruthsmie. And it came to my knowledge through those visionaries that there was really extreme need here. And when we went to visit, we saw that these children were not, in fact living in an orphanage. They were living in a school that was used as an orphanage in the evening and all of the sheets that were on the floor, there were no beds, they were pushed aside and the kids would sit at their desks during the day. So from the generosity of Ruthsmie and her husband, Joseph, they decided that they would help these children. And so when we came upon the orphanage, we saw a great need. Our charity is Ministry in Mission and we started raising money and with our partners in Haiti testimony, Sydney Kesa, we began constructing the orphanage that you may see in the background behind this.
And so now we’re about three years from that and we have seen children graduate out of the orphanage and go live on their own and more children in need come in. And these kids come in through social services in Haiti. So we know that they have no families and they have no one to take care of them. And we are delighted that Ruthsmie has such a kind heart that she will do this and this is her mission and we help her.
Dr. Antolak: So I just want to thank you for being able to be a participant in this process. I will continue to do this over the years and if you want more information on how to maybe support this orphanage, how would they do that?
Jackie: Go to our website ministry and Mission Dot Org and you can donate on the website or you can see all of the projects that we have ongoing. And also our contact information is there. My name, I’m the president of Our Name and phone number, all of our board members and email addresses as well.
Dr. Antolak: And so by being supportive of what’s happening here in Haiti, really giving to the greater good, you know, Jesus told us to go and make disciples of all and also to take care of the orphans and the widows. And so by doing that we’re trying to do our part of what he’s asked us to do too. So thank you. God bless you. And please be generous in your offerings and we thank you once again from Haiti, so thank you. God bless.
Thank you.