For local woman, Haiti hits home

In the Kingwood area, and all over the world, an outpouring of concern about the devastation in Haiti has sparked fundraising, donations and prayers.

For Kingwood resident Julie Halecki, the prayers and good wishes for people in Haiti are less abstract and won’t diminish over time. Her parents, Sherry and Bobby Burnette, have been in the thick of the crisis since the earthquake tore the country apart Jan. 12.

“I’m so proud of them,” said Halecki, looking a great deal like a younger version of her mother, dressed in medical scrubs.

“They have seen things in Haiti we will never ever see here in the U.S,” said Halecki, a nurse who works for a medical products company. “They could not be prepared for it. The stories of devastation, you can’t sugar-coat it. Their focus right now is on the people of Haiti, doing whatever they can with whatever they have.”

Halecki grew up with her brother and their parents in Florida. Throughout her childhood, the couple traveled to Haiti periodically to do Christian ministry work. Then in 1991, they moved there permanently, Halecki says. The Love A Child orphanage they founded grew over the years to include a fish farm, radio station, school, food warehouse and more.

Halecki remembers going to visit and being astonished.

“I had no idea how much they were doing. When I would think of them I’d think of their little two-room office in Cocoa Beach, Florida,” she says.

But since the earthquake, the already busy compound has been transformed into another place entirely -- a bustling tent city filled with medical personnel, military officers from the Dominican Republic and the U.S., and refugees in dire need of medical attention, food and shelter.

On Love A Child’s Web site, www.loveachild.org [1], Sherry Burnette writes daily about the people she encounters.

“I used to think we were busy all day long with orphanages coming for food and other supplies, or a sick Haitian needing medical care at our gate, but what is going on now gives whole new meaning to busy,” she wrote recently, noting that buses, trucks, vans and helicopters “are in and out all day long.”

In daily conversations with her daughter, she has talked about heartbreaking encounters, such as picking up a young boy about the same age as her two grandsons from the side of the road where he had been left after having his legs amputated. Sherry comforted the boy, gave him a small toy truck and took him to get medical care. She later learned the child had died.

“I read that blog all day long,” Halecki says. “I can’t even imagine what they’re going through. When she posts those pictures, it gives me a small glimmer into what they’re experiencing.”

“When I speak with her I can hear the stress in her voice. I’m just praying they’re OK.”

Sherry Burnette’s journal entries are sprinkled with Creole proverbs.

"Lavi se te glise." Life is a slippery land.

But also, “"Lespwa fè viv." Hope gives life.

Julie Halecki is rounding up a group of people to travel to Haiti to provide help and hope in May. She doesn’t know exactly what the needs will be at that point, but she’s certain she will be there to help.

“The people of Haiti need help now more than ever,” Halecki says. “They are in desperate need of help from all over the world.”

“I’ve had people ask me why Haiti? How do your parents think they’re going to make a difference? And my answer is that in the midst of midnight you light one small candle and it can be seen from a long way away. They might be that one small candle. I know they’ve made a difference.”

To contact Halecki about going to Haiti, email her at Julie.Halecki@CookMedical.com [2]. Information about donations to Love A Child can be found at www.loveachild.org [1].