If you are reading this with your morning cup of coffee and breakfast, you are among less than 5 percent of people in the world. This was part of the speech given by guest speaker Rickey Minton at a recent meeting of Breakfast Rotary.
Minton, a nurseryman and minister, and his wife, Greta, a nurse practitioner, have traveled several times to places such as Haiti and Africa for mission work.
“I’m here to tell you everybody doesn’t live like we do. Less than 5 percent of the people in the world live like you do this morning. Most of the people in the world did get a breakfast. They may not get a lunch or a dinner. That is just the way it is,” said Rickey. “I do not say this to make you feel bad because God has blessed this country. There are some places in the world that are not as blessed as we are. We need to remember that. It behooves me to try and help these people.”
Greta said, “We try to tell stories to inspire people to change our society around us and to change our world around us.”
The Mintons focused on their visits to Haiti during their presentation to Rotary members.
Greta said she boarded a plane to Haiti approximately six weeks after an earthquake which measured 7.0 on the Richter scale hit the country in 2010.
The Mintons work through Mountain Faith Mission, which was started in the 1940s and presently has more than 20 churches, seven schools, a medical clinic, a bakery, an orphanage, a vocational school, an agricultural project, a water filtration project and a prison ministry. The mission is non-denominational, nonprofit and is funded by donations.
“When I go to Haiti, we do medical clinics in small churches. We do clinics under trees. We do clinics on front porches. You just never know where we may end up having to do clinics,” said Greta. “We treat a lot of different problems. After the earthquake, we treated a lot of trauma victims. We treat a lot of high blood pressure. They use something called Maggi to season their food that has got lots and lots of sodium in it. So, we will actually see kids in their teens having extremely high blood pressure. It is not because they are overweight. It is not because they don’t exercise because they walk everywhere they go.”
Greta told of three patients who left a major impact on her.
One was a lady had been going to see a voodoo doctor or a witch doctor. Greta said the voodoo doctor had been pouring magic water on the lady’s feet.
“She had these huge sores on her feet. They just would not heal. She had no shoes and they walk everywhere they go. She would walk for hours to get to our clinic. We gave her a tetnus shot, gave her antibiotics and cleansed her wounds. One of the nurses paid $4.50 for her to have a pair of shoes and a motorcycle ride back to her village. It is just a huge testimony to what we did that she is able to walk now. She doesn’t have sores on her feet anymore,” said Greta.
The second lady had her house crush her during the earthquake.
“Her family had carried her under her arms and under her legs everywhere she went. Now realize this was six weeks later. She could not walk. She was paralyzed from the waist down because the house falling on her had broken her back,” said Greta. “We networked and got her to the University of Miami and a makeshift hospital at Port au Prince. Just so happened, when we got her there, an orthopaedic doctor took her in, repaired her back and she is now able to walk and take care of her family. That was an amazing story.”
Greta said the third patient was a man named Lewis who was carried in for eight hours. His family put him on a makeshift stretcher and carried him to Mountain Faith Mission.
Greta said, “It was late at night. When I first saw him, I thought he was dead. He had been kicked by a horse and he had a laceration on his lower leg that was way beyond what I ever thought I could take care of. I don’t like to do lacerations and certainly nothing like this. It was very deep. I kept saying I wasn’t sure I could do this. I am not a doctor or surgeon. They told me I was his only hope. So, by flashlight, three hours later, we repaired his leg. It is by the grace of God that he is able to walk and farm and take care of his family. It is not because of me but by the grace of God.”
Greta said her motto is, “Life has lots and lots of opportunities. We have to seize them. We can’t take things easy. Sometimes there are hard things we have to do.”
Rickey said he started a prison ministry here in the United States several years ago. From there, they decided to make a mission out of this prison ministry. He said the prisons in Haiti have horrible conditions.
“Normally, their food is brought in a five-gallon bucket which is set down in the center with one dipper. It is filled with something that looks like mush. It looks very similar to what my grandfather fed his pigs. It is set down in the middle of the room and they eat out of it. That happens about five times a week. They live in a cell that is 25 feet by 25 feet typically 70-80 men in a cell. They do not get out any. They are there 24 hours a day with no room to lie down. They have to stand up or lean on each other. They live in their own filth literally. They use their bathroom in their cell where they live, where they eat, where they sleep,” said Rickey.
The mission feeds the prisoners one good meal per month such as pork, rice, beans and other vegetables.
For more information on Mountain Faith Mission, visit their website at www.mountainfaithmission.com. Donations may be mailed to Mountain Faith Mission, P.O. Box 433, Sparta, TN 38583.