Six weeks removed from their trip to Haiti, the hands still haunt them. Hands without faces, hands squeezed through a small opening in iron grating, hands reaching out to make contact with anything, anyone on the outside.

It was a surprise when Father Dick Martin, pastor of Nativity Parish in Burke, ended up at a jail in Cap Haitien, Haiti’s second-largest city, located on the country’s northern coast. In 15 trips to Haiti in the last 10 years, Father Martin had never before visited a prison. This time, he and the 18 others with whom he traveled, not only visited one, but released four nonviolent prisoners, paying the fines imposed on them for stealing food or being unable to reconcile debts.

Then, emulating Jesus, they washed the feet of the newly freed men, gave them new shoes, toiletries and a little money, and sent them on their way.

For Father Martin, freeing these prisoners was the “most powerful” moment of the five-day trip — an event that made this “Operation Starfish” visit, in collaboration with international relief and development charity Food for the Poor, unique among the others.

“The one element in Matthew 25 that we had never actually done was visit the imprisoned,” said Jim McDaniel, a Nativity parishioner who has been to Haiti almost as many times as Father Martin.

Now they can cross that one off, too.

The visit went from the highest of highs — setting a handful of prisoners free — to the lowest of lows — seeing the conditions in which the rest of them were left. Walking past each cell’s small opening, unidentified hands reached out, grasping at whatever they could find.

It was “an entanglement of arms,” said Cynde Mausolf, a Nativity parishioner whose November trip to Haiti was her second this year. “I would be holding a hand, but I couldn’t tell whose.”

“They just wanted to touch another human being,” Father Martin said.

The inmates are housed 15 to 30 per cell, with stacked bunks and one toilet. They sleep two to a bed.

The group from Nativity, which was traveling with a priest and three parishioners from St. Michael Parish in Canfield, Ohio, distributed food and additional toiletries, but their real ministry was one of presence. They talked to inmates about their families; they promised to remember them in prayer.

As monumental of an experience as it was, visiting the jail only amounted to one morning of one day of the trip. The group held babies at the Little Children of Jesus Home, an orphanage for mentally and physically handicapped children, and saw flies stuck to eyes and arms that were not physically able to wipe them away. They watched a woman make “biscuits” out of dirt, bouillon and salt, given to children to stave off hunger pains. They saw another woman, barefoot and up to her thighs in polluted water, straining tiny crabs to feed to her family. Her house, nearby, was built on a pile of garbage.

At one point, while packing boxes with food for villagers, Mausolf realized that they weren’t going to have enough food to feed the entire crowd.

“I just remember turning around and looking at all the people and knowing there wasn’t enough to feed them, that there was not enough to go around,” she said. “I was standing there … crying. There’s lots of other moments like that, too. The whole trip was like that.”

The Nativity parishioners also visited the site of Nativity VI, the future site of the sixth village built with funds from the parish. In each of the first five villages, McDaniel said, they started with the basics: attaining clean water, creating housing and developing a food program. Then they focus on creating schools, jobs, businesses and health care.

Though the American visitors provided the Haitians with material things, they received much in return in hospitality, love, strength and gratitude.

“We bring them things, (but) they give us lessons, examples of faith,” McDaniel said. “That’s the gift that the poor have to offer to us. It’s an equal exchange. It’s not us up on high giving down low.”

The Haitian poor have a tremendous spirit and resilience about them, Mausolf said.

“Life is hard for them, but yet there’s still a certain amount of happiness there and hope. They’re really no different from other people. Just like people here want a better life for their families, they want the same thing.”

Without having experienced it, it’s impossible to understand the plight of the poor in Haiti, Father Martin said. Writing or reading about it is a “feeble attempt” and no substitution for the real thing.

“You’ve got to smell the smells and walk in the muck,” he said. “Your heart is changed. I’ve never had one person come back and operate normally.”

“Life is different after you go,” Mausolf agreed. “Haiti is just with me every single day. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about the overwhelming need there and the fact that I have to do something.”

Though it’s difficult for her to explain, Mausolf said she feels a peace when she’s in the country — despite what she’s seeing.

“It smells, it’s dirty, you’re seeing horrific things, but I know the Lord is calling me to go and I’m there,” she said. “It’s peaceful because I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. When you go, you’re really living the Gospel.”

To help

starfishmission.org