Student travels to Haiti for senior project

MOSES LAKE - Moses Lake High School senior Tyler McFarland had watched his dad visit Haiti two times before.

Curt McFarland, pastor of Moses Lake Presbyterian Church, first traveled to Haiti with other members of the church after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the already poverty-stricken nation.

Tyler had gone on other mission trips, including trips to New Orleans, but when another trip to Haiti came up this year, he decided he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and help people there.

Tyler's mom, Kathleen McFarland, a third-grade teacher at Park Orchard Elementary School, got her students in on what would become Tyler's senior project.

Before Tyler left for Haiti with a group of about 12 people, Kathleen's students made books for the Haitian children Tyler would meet.

When Tyler arrived in Haiti, his group stayed at a compound run by an organization called Haiti Bible Mission. The compound is located in Jeremie, Haiti, about 120 miles west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capitol city.

"They worked with the people there and they had Haitian employees working for them," Tyler said. "So they're just really about the people."

Tyler and his group worked on fixing up a schoolhouse and a couple other buildings, including a church.

"We worked with school kids there and helped maintain the school building there," he said, including painting the walls and installing doors.

The group brought several luggage bags full of supplies, including toys to give to Haitian children.

The trip taught Tyler that people can be happy with whatever they have, he said.

"A lot of it is just having each other," he said.

His experiences in Haiti have made him feel like he can be more open with people, he said.

"I just felt like it's a great way to realize what's most important in your life and not over-value the trivial things and look for the compassion in people," he said. "I feel like I can be openly nice to people I've never met before. I just felt the warmth from everybody we passed on the street. I felt like it was a really close community. In our society we just have our lives that we want to focus on, but really we should be more open to each other."

Tyler returned to Moses Lake last week and visited his mother's classroom. He told the students about his visit to Haiti and brought back books made by the Haitian students.

"It was just kind of cool for them to connect in that way," said Kathleen. "I think the neatest thing for them was to see pictures of their book that they created, and their books in the hands of these kids we were talking about ... For them to go, 'Wow, they actually made it there, they're actually looking at them.'"

The books the Moses Lake students made were the first books the Haitian children had ever owned, she said.

"I just think that's so amazing ... that an eight-year-old or a nine-year-old can make a difference like that," she said.

"It's amazing to be able to watch the change that takes place," said Curt, who went to Haiti with his son.

Five teenagers went on the group with their parents, he said.

"I just really love the fact that we had parents and kids that went together ... For somebody that's in their high school years, it just helps put everything in perspective," he said. "It was just amazing for me just to sit back and watch (Tyler) and the other kids absolutely just fall in love with the Haitians and just engage them."