KINGSTON, Jamaica — Each year, parishioners, clergy and religious from the Diocese of Charlotte travel to Kingston, Jamaica, to support the Missionaries of the Poor in their ministry to “the poorest of the poor.”
The latest group of Charlotte pilgrims recently returned with memories and a new perspective on life after assisting the Missionaries of the Poor in feeding, bathing and loving the poor, the disabled and the sick.
First trip leaves lasting impact
When she saw the trip in Sacred Heart Parish’s bulletin, Melinda Osborne knew this was the time and Jamaica was the place for her first mission trip.
Along with eight other parishioners, plus Father Matthew Dimock and Deacon Maximilian Frei, she boarded the plane on June 17 – nervous and excited, but ready.
What she saw upon arrival shocked her.
“It is so much worse in Jamaica than I could have ever imagined, and it touched my soul so deeply. This truly is the poorest of the poor,” Osborne said.
Makeshift houses were pieced together with metal scraps and duct tape, and people on street corners looked hopeless and lost. Yet the love of the MOP brothers seemed to wash away the despair that drenched the Kingston streets.
The area is rough and high walls surround each residence, yet as Osborne traveled with the brothers, crowds parted like the Red Sea.
“Everybody was really nice to the brothers and respectful because they know what they do for helping the orphans, the disabled, the HIV infected, the mentally ill, the elderly and the sick,” Osborne said.
The love of the brothers matched that Osborne saw in the residents of the six “apostolates,” or centers.
“They just seem so gentle and not have an ounce of frustration,” she said.
She expected she’d change diapers for the deformed, run baths for those unable, and spoon-feed rice and chicken into the mouths of orphans. Yet her heart jumped at unexpected moments – the smile of a 103-year-old woman in the HIV center, her giggles as she sang and danced alongside the children, and the delight she took in painting the toenails of a long line of elderly men.
“God had given these chosen ones a golden ticket to heaven because they are so special and so unique,” Osborne said.
She spent hours washing residents’ clothing, yet when her shift was over, she wanted to stay to share one more smile with “the chosen hand-picked flowers of God.”
“I will go on this mission every year if I am able to because of the joy,” she said.
Osborne left more than just the clothes and hygiene items from her suitcase in Jamaica with the Missionaries of the Poor. She left her heart.
“You can’t go through something like this without it touching your heart. It is so powerful and overwhelming,” she said, noting the brothers “have forever changed my life.”
Trip organizer sees lives changed
Sacred Heart parishioner Renee Washington loves bringing mission groups to Jamaica.
“It is amazing to watch the people that go with me on the first day of the trip, and then by the end of the trip, everybody’s changed and touched in different ways,” Washington said. “Everybody brings something back that they will keep with them for the rest of our lives.”
The poor conditions do not hit her as much as they did when she first visited with her son in 2006. Now, after 19 years, the place feels welcoming.
“I kind of fell in love with it, and I’ve been coming ever since. The first couple of times, I felt different when I came back, but now it’s just a part of me,” she explains.
She’s watched the residents grow up, grow old, and sometimes even die, which is difficult when over the years she has become so attached.
When she walks into a room, time stops as her friends gather around her, shouting her name and giving her bear hugs.
“The highlight of the trip is always seeing (MOP founder) Father (Richard) Ho Lung and spending time with him,” Washington said. “He is just the most holy man. I tell everybody when we leave that you have been in the presence of a saint.”
The MOP brothers are now friends. They communicate on WhatsApp, and she brings donations to the brothers in Monroe to send to her beloved Jamaica.
Her son doesn’t physically travel with her to Jamaica anymore. He died in 2007 of cancer, but she said he is the reason she keeps coming back. The memories still live there, reminding her of him.
Father: ‘Intense spiritual experience’
Father Dimock thinks the trip is becoming a beautiful tradition for diocesan clergy. This is his second time going, and he was thrilled to bring Deacon Frie.
“A lot of men and priests in the diocese have been on that trip and have felt the impact of that experience,” he said. “Staying with the brothers is an intense spiritual experience. It is a beautiful experience of the human condition.”
Instead of caring for the poor, priests are tasked with ministering to the brothers, nourishing them spiritually.
“It showed a different part of my priesthood being a spiritual father to not only the small group from the parish, but being a spiritual brother’s father,” Father Dimock reflects.
He spent his time hearing confessions from the brothers and celebrating Mass, where he molded his homilies for the brothers and his parishioners.
On his last trip, a MOP brother told Father Dimock, “The chrism is still not dry on your hands from your ordination yet can still be mingled with the dirt and the feces of
Jamaica” – a graphic image that continues to resonate for him.
“This trip demonstrates the desperate aspect of the service of a person, and it’s good for all our priests and seminarians to take from that perspective,” he said.
— Lisa M. Geraci