C-Falls family heads off on mission to Haiti

A Columbia Falls family has given away most of its worldly possessions this holiday season to help those in greater need. The Collins family plans on working and living in Haiti, an impoverished island country still recovering from the devastating 2010 earthquake.

“We pretty much gave everything away,” Keith Collins said. “We kept our bed.”

Collins, his wife Andrea and their children, Griffin, 14, Aida, 10, and Kanyon, 3, will leave for Haiti on Dec. 31.

On a mission through Hope Church in Kalispell, the family will work with HaitiArise, a nonprofit building an elementary school and children’s village in Grand Goave.

Keith has extensive experience in construction — he worked on several high-end homes in the Whitefish area for years. He has dual Canadian and American citizenship — his family moved to Eastern Montana when he was young and his father found work there.

Andrea is from Glasgow but has always had a Flathead connection — her grandparents had a cottage on Flathead Lake.

The couple has no trepidation about leaving for a country with a markedly unstable political past.

“When you know God has called you to something, you trust,” Andrea said.

The couple has been to Haiti for past projects, two weeks at a time on several occasions, but this trip is for six months. Andrea will home school the children while they’re away. The kids will trade in hockey skates for flip-flops.

Griffin has been to Haiti in the past and says he’s looking forward to returning. The weather is nice and the people are friendly, he said, and he likes helping others. He’s also an avid fly fishermen, and Haiti offers good fishing for bonefish, permit and other ocean fish.

The school and the village will serve orphans and freed slaves. About one out of every 10 children in Haiti has been a slave at some point in their lives, the couple said.

The Collins don’t fear unrest. HaitiArise has an excellent track record in Haiti — the nonprofit built a technical college there that was destroyed by the earthquake and has since been rebuilt.

The Collins also will have some local company — Hope Church will send a contingent of members in February to help on the project.

Andrea has set up a blog to share the family’s adventure at http://fivemangoes.stmnetwork.ca.