Churches cut off involvement with Haiti mission

Pat Freebury, a Kalispell woman who has raised money for a Haiti orphanage, announced that the American board for Haiti Mercy Mission has severed its ties to the group that runs the orphanage in Pignon and four churches.

“I’m just feeling that I need to let the community know that I’m no longer involved,” she said. “It’s been my life for four years. It’s finished. I can’t send anything over. They’ve stopped the mercy flights.”

The move caught Freebury by surprise.

She recently held a concert to benefit the orphanage building fund. Just days ago, she presented a program on the mission as part of Flathead Valley Community College’s senior lecture program.

“The day I got the phone call, I had been over there to collect all the stuff that people had brought me,” she said. “I had the back of my van full. I came home, unloaded and got the phone call that we’re all done.”

Freebury said $2,500 collected to finish orphanage buildings remains in Minnesota, where she intends to go in May. She will meet with Frank and Jeanette McLaughlin to sort out the Flathead Valley donations for a check made out to Epworth Methodist Church.

She wanted to alert the people who have contributed to the mission’s building fund that she would return money to anyone who wants a refund.

“So far, no one that I have talked to wants it back,” she said.

According to Freebury, the conflict that led to a severing of ties with Haiti Mercy Mission developed over several months.

It climaxed when a Pentecostal church group from Oregon, without warning, took over the four mission churches that had been supported by an interdenominational group spanning several faiths.

Freebury said that move followed months of the Oregon group operating outside the multi-faith support group.

As an example, she said the Oregon group was planning to come to the mission with a medical doctor. Jeanette McLaughlin learned of the trip and discovered the physician had lost his license for inappropriate behavior with women patients.

McLaughlin stopped the doctor’s visit but was appalled that the church group knew he had a problem with his license but hadn’t checked the details.

“That was kind of the last straw,” Freebury said.

She said the Haitian board had voted to ask them to leave, so the interdenominational group considered the problems were solved.

Freebury said the Oregon Pentecostal church then sent 20 people over and somehow made arrangements with the Haitian board to take over the churches.

Prior to that, the churches had nondenominational Christian services.

“They ordained our pastors while they were over there, but they don’t fundraise,” she said. “They want us to keep funding everything but they want to run the churches. As of April 1, there’s no money going over there.”

Freebury expects to donate dollars not returned to contributors to local and Haiti charitable causes. She still hopes to find a way to send food for the 50 orphans who depend upon American donations for much of their support.

“That’s what’s tearing me apart,” she said. “Who is going to feed those kids?”

She and her family, along with others in the Flathead Valley, have sponsored various children for years. During her many trips, including one when the earthquake struck, Freebury has become attached to all of the children.

“It’s been devastating,” she said.

Freebury was sad that she won’t be able to give the orphan girls the little dolls that she bought for next Christmas. She said, however, that she believes she will find a way to continue to help Haiti.

“My heart is with those Haitian kids — I just love them,” she said. “I’ll find a way to still be involved over there.”

She said her pastor gave her good advice. He told her to give it some time and not rush into anything.

“He said, ‘Pray about it and look for another door to be opened and feel good about what you did’ and I do,” she said. “We did a lot of good over there.”

For more information, contact Freebury at 752-1153.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.