FERGUS FALLS — Before Lonnie Berger went to Haiti for the first time two years ago, he did not quite know what to expect.

He flew into Port-au-Prince and took a four-hour land-rover trip to the small mountain village of Bleck in the northeast part of the country. During the course of that trip, he encountered many patients who did not have so much as aspirin for headaches.

Many people were at serious risk of stroke. Berger, an emergency room physician at Lake Region Hospital, did what he could on that first trip, but he knew he wanted to do more. So he came back a year later. Then he came back again after less than a year.

Now, just four months after his last trip, Berger is returning to Haiti from Jan. 25 to Feb. 1 on another medical mission trip through the First Church of the Nazarene in Fergus Falls.

“I think it means something to the people that you keep coming back,” Berger said. “You’re not just doing Band-Aid care for a week.”

The Nazarene began making yearly mission trips as a church in 2005, according to the Rev. Steve Hoffman. Hoffman has traveled with Berger on his first three trips to Haiti, but will not be attending this next trip.

Berger and the other volunteers who make these trips have come a long way in their work since the first visit to Bleck. Volunteers from the Nazarene built the Bev Bullock and Paul Dennis Memorial Clinic, which now stands year-round in Bleck.

The waiting room now has benches for the large crowds that gather at the hospital during Berger’s visits. He estimated he can see up to 75 patients per day by himself.

There will be less than 10 people traveling to Bleck on this trip. Berger will be bringing with him lab equipment and a portable ultrasound machine.

Bringing new and improved equipment on each trip is important to Berger, who said the Haitian patients he sees are much sicker than patients at Lake Region.

“We see 20 patients a day with blood pressures dangerously high with no medication, so they could have a stroke at any time,” he said. “Here, we just take that for granted.”

 

This will be the second time Berger and his fellow visitors will bring a mobile clinic to a nearby village as well. The mobile clinic runs off a generator, so Berger drives about five miles from Bleck to serve more patients.

In the future, Berger hopes to have a surgery unit set up in the clinic to better serve the patients. For now, Berger will recommend those who need operations to a volunteer group from Wisconsin who travel to another nearby village five times a year and perform surgeries.

The group from Wisconsin will next be in Haiti in February. This kind of more frequent help is what Berger hopes to bring to Bleck as well.

He aims to travel to Haiti every few months for the indefinite future. He has gotten a lot of support from the Nazarene congregation and hopes these increased trips will give more people the opportunity to experience a trip for themselves.

Hoffman also believes more trips will lead to more involvement for the congregation. The church will be making a trip to Guatemala next month and will return to Haiti in October.

Berger’s leadership on these trips has been great for the church, according to Hoffman.

“It’s great to see someone use their God-given ability to help those who in many ways can’t help themselves,” Hoffman said.

Berger recently spoke to three different Sunday services at the Nazarene. Church members have donated generously, giving several thousand dollars that will be used for medical equipment.

He sees this as a sign that the work he and the other volunteers are doing is important. Berger said he keeps the Haitian people in his heart all year and looks forward to each trip.

“You just feel like if you can make a difference in one little part of the world, it’s so overwhelming,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about. It’s rewarding just to help people.”