Sophomore Lindsey Usry walks along a dirt road beside a young girl without shoes. They are in Haiti, walking toward a mountain village filled with young children, many with little clothing, and houses built of tin. That is when Lindsey realizes that this little girl and all of the other villagers without shoes might not be the most privileged, but they are overflowing with  happiness.

One month ago, Lindsey took a mission trip to Haiti with a group of 15 others from her church. Over the past few years, the First Baptist Church of St. Charles has been building a church in Haiti through their partnership with a pastor there. This year, they went back to paint, tile the floors and make other improvements to the church.

Lindsey was looking forward to the trip, but she was also a little apprehensive about it. She knew she couldn’t pass up the opportunity, that it would be a good chance to get out of th e country and help people that really need it.

“Up until the week that we left I was really excited and ready to go,” Lindsey said. “Then the realization hits you that you’re going to a third world country, and it’s poor, and you don’t know what it’s going to be like, and you don’t know the conditions you’re staying in, so it was really nerve wracking to think about that.”

Lindsey’s family were very supportive of her making the trip. Lindsey’s older brother Chase Usry feels that Lindsey was impacted by the trip, and he thinks she learned a lot about how much people take things for granted in America.

“I was really proud when I found out she was going and got most of the money for the trip put together by herself,” Chase said. “I think she learned a lot about how blessed we are with the things we have in America since Haitians live with so little.”

Lindsey’s mom Julie Usry was also very supportive of Lindsey’s decision to go on  the trip. She believed that by jumping at the chance and going on the trip, Lindsey was able to learn more about people who don’t have much.

“She learned that it’s a good thing to take a chance and follow through in doing something that scares

you,” Julie said. “She realized how spoiled we are as Americans.”

Before leaving for Haiti, Lindsey and the group had meetings discussing what to expect on the trip. She had an idea of what she’d be seeing in Haiti and prepared herself for the worst.

“I kinda knew what was coming,” Lindsey said. “I was definitely expecting a lot worse. In the city, I was expecting worse. There was trash everywhere. They didn’t care about cleaning up, and they didn’t care about their businesses looking nice; it didn’t matter. If they’re making money, that’s all that mattered.”

Lindsey saw and experienced something else unexpected on the trip when she and the rest of the group took a trip to the mountains to a Voodoo village, where they met met a witch doctor named Daniel. He makes a living casting curses on people, and it puts him at the top of the village. People from around the world specifically come to Haiti for just this.

“That is where most of the poverty was.” Lindsey said. “That is where they were lucky if they had pieces of tin taped together. We went inside one of the temples, and you could just feel the oppressiveness of Satan working. The weirdest part was that Daniel believed 100 percent in God but chose to follow Satan just because that is the only way he had any  sort of money. When we left, he told us that God had brought us to him for a reason. It was incredible.”

Lindsey was most impacted by witnessing how the Haitians lived and found that most of them live a happier life than most Americans, and it doesn’t take much to make them happy.

“It’s a blessing to see those people,” Lindsey said. “I mean we were going to church services, and they worship more than I’ve ever seen before. They have two to two and half hour services, and most of them are singing and dancing, and it’s incredible to watch them be as poor as they are, and to see them still worshiping as much as they are. They’re happier than most of us.”

Unable to sum up her experience in just a few words, Lindsey was able to see her life from a new point of view based on what she witnessed in Haiti.

“It’s not really a feeling you can put to words, just kind of light and refreshing to experience a new way of life,” Lindsey said. “It puts your life into perspective. But there were definitely those heart breaking moments of seeing how these people really lived and how they had to survive on close to nothing.”

While she looked forward to getting home when the trip was over, Lindsey still knew she would never be able to forget her journey to Haiti or all of the people she encountered while she was there.

“I was ready to be home, but I still wanted to be there.” Lindsey said. “It is not a place where you can just kind of forget about. It was a big culture shock.”