March 09, 2010, 9:00AM

Courtesy of the Smit family. Members of the Smit family, of Martin, Mich., build a home for a family in the Dominican Republic.

Little did Deb Smit know that serving as a chaperone on a high-school mission trip would lead to the family Christmas of a lifetime. Wife and mother of eight, Smit says of her trips to the Dominican Republic, “You just can’t come back away from there and not change.”

After all but her oldest traveled to the D.R. at least once with groups from Tri-unity Christian School in Wyoming, Smit saw the transformations in attitude and direction that voluntourism brought about in her children.

After taking three trips herself, from her home on a Martin dairy farm to the D.R., she began to think it would be an amazing experience for the entire family to go. That’s just what they did this past Christmas break.

“We wanted to build a house for a family, but that was $13,000 more than the trip itself,” says Smit. So they had to raise some money. Instead of giving each other gifts for Christmas and birthdays, family members put the amount they would have spent into a savings account. They held three garage sales and two community dinners.

“We sent out hundreds of letters to people telling them what we were doing and asking if they’d donate,” Smit says. The response of both community and extended family members was overwhelming. The final result: eight children, three spouses, two girlfriends and five grandchildren spent a week in January building a house.

Daughters and daughters-in-law took turns watching the grandchildren in the base camp. Their leisure activity was a trip to the local market. “I wouldn’t say it was a vacation,” says Smit, “You’re doing brickwork, making cement, shoveling everything from rocks to clay. … You have to be careful of the water, it’s different food … but I don’t think any one of us would say it wasn’t worth it.”

Unto inc., an organization that planned TCS mission trips, organized the family’s tickets, paperwork and immunizations, and set up a schedule of work. The house was part of an ongoing effort of Christian church and school groups to provide the poverty-stricken people of Los Alcarrizos everything from a school and playground to a water filtration process that provides both clean water and community income.

Courtesy of Geoff HickoxGeoff Hickox took an alternative spring break to work with inner-city children in Philadelphia while a student at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Mich.

In an area where families live on $60 a month or less, voluntourism has changed countless lives.

It also changed the life of Geoff Hickox, current development and assessment chair for alternative breaks at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids. He took his first alternative break trip thinking it would look good on his resume. The university  offers a variety of weekend and week-long trips throughout the year. Disaster relief, working in domestic violence shelters, preparing/repairing public parks/trails and refugee assistance are just some of the volunteer opportunities offered.

Hickox’s first trip to inner-city Philadelphia caused him to switch his major from pre-med to public and nonprofit administration. He felt the change would allow him to make more of a difference in the world. “AB is a profound experience,” says Hickox. “Your eyes are really open to a world of social and environmental issues you never knew existed.”

A trip set up by Medical Assistance Programs International working in a hospital in the Ivory Coast during his medical internship was Dr. David Van Winkle’s first experience volunteering abroad. When Hurricane Mitch devastated Honduras in 1998, Van Winkle began volunteering there through MAP.

Eventually, he returned with his wife and again with his children. He took his family to a resort for a fun weekend during his last trip, but Van Winkle says, “What they really enjoyed was getting to know people from a different culture.” The trip influenced his eldest, a student at Western Michigan Christian, to volunteer with missionaries in the African country of Togo.

Voluntourism takes openness to other cultures and willingness to experience less than optimal comfort when traveling, says Van Winkle. Planning a family trip is more difficult, but he encourages people to try it.

“Do some good, learn a little bit more about yourself/about another culture in a way no tour can do for you,” he says. “Help reframe your life here in the United States through the eyes of somebody in another country. It’s a great, refreshing way to think about things.”

Trips can be set up through any number of groups. The Red Cross, volunteeradventures.com and crossculturalsolutions.org are a few.

That was possible because you have responded with generosity and by extending trust that we at the Lighthouse school will use those funds responsibly .

In turn we have wanted help our Haitian pastor partners understand that we have a huge responsibility to you, the ones who have made it possible.  They have reported in writing to us about the people that they have been helping through the resources.   And they have invited all the families  that have been receiving the help be there to  be at the church to meet us and receive their rations.

Consequently, when we reached out destination at the church in Port-au-Prince this  past Friday morning  the trucks were unloaded in record time.  We were able to see the distribution and therefore the joy and gratefulness of our brothers and sisters.

While it may be true that the media has begun to move on to other stories and the  initial crisis response teams have packed to return home,  please know that we want to pack up too.  But we want to pack more hope to deliver to the Haitians.  We want to find a way to provide long-term help and encouragement to our Haitian partners.  Together we want to look forward to the new Haiti that they talk about all the time.

Altogether, so far we have relived : 156,000 bottles of water;  275 tarps; 3 trucks full of food, which represents a total  of over  $ 130,000 US of help distribute among the three churches . This includes  almost $5,000 given from the Lighthouse School from our own general fund.

We will be returning to Haiti next Thursday.

Once again we thank you for your help  to make this possible.  We know that your resources are limited as are ours.  But as the Scriptures tell us in Psalm 50:10, we also know that God owns “the cattle on a thousand hills” and is exceedingly able to provide.  As God continues to use His people, we are excited about how we might be used by Him.

May god bless you.

Cristian santiago.

It’s really awesome as a parent to see your family working, praying and playing together on a trip like this. God blessed us with not just being able to raise the $25,000 for us to go, but then being able to raise the $13,000 to build a house for a needy family. Cristian Santiago and several churches in the area decided who we would build for.  It was the Valenzuela family, who ironically have eight kids also.  We were able to get the house built, and moved the family in on Sunday.  It was a very emotional ceremony giving the family the keys to the house.  We prayed together and sang together and did alot of hugging and crying.  It was a great way to strengthen our relationship as a family, but even more important we were able to grow in our love for God by being his hands and feet, and being used by Him.
We sincerely appreciate all the prayers, and financial support we recieved from the Tri-Unity family!  It wouldn’t have been possible without it.

As I write this to you, a team of 10 people with three trucks of food, medicine and 12,000 bottles of water are about 30 minutes outside of Port au Prince. They will go to the Dominican embassy and deliver some supplies there as well as a local church. Once in Port au Prince, the US military will no longer guarantee their safety. As Cristian called and told me they were leaving this morning at 3 AM, I found myself trying to talk him out of going.  It can be extremely dangerous for them to drive around with food and water.  After listing several reasons why I thought they should not go, he reminded me of our project in the DR and how for 15 years people from the states have given to it.  Literally thousands of Americans have sacrificed their time and money to come and work at our project.

The community of Los Alcarrizos now has a better future because of this. He mentioned Hurricane George that devastated our project in 1998, and how we sent three containers full of medicine and food to them. With our newly donated water system, that allows access to clean affordable drinking water to our community, the group of 10 who volunteered to go to Haiti with Cristian stated “Greg how can we not go?” “If we don’t go who will?”  (Wow, I still have a lot to learn) He reminded me of something that I always tell teams and that is, “you will be asked at times in your life to do things that you don’t really want to do”.  I think the saying is true, “we need the poor more than they need us.”

I wanted to thank all of you for your thoughts and financial support; we will continue to help as long as we can. I will be back in the DR in 10 days and will be updating you with pictures and reports as I get them.

Greg Henslee

Unto International