This Is My Heartbeat
By Barbara W. Russell
Steven White is an athlete and he competes in triathlons. For you “non-sport fans” a triathlon is a “multi-sport endurance event consisting of swimming, cycling, and running in immediate succession over various distances” (Wikipedia). The key word there is “endurance”- these triathletes are in seriously good physical condition.
When I met White for our interview he was carrying a photo album, and I expected it to contain pictures of him competing. He laid it on the table and opened it up, but instead of seeing pictures of him swimming, biking and running, I saw pictures of crippled children in wheelchairs, barefoot children searching for anything usable in a dump, smiling children with toy cars made out of bottles, sticks, and jar lids …. “This is my heartbeat,” he said.
The pictures were of Haiti. He and his wife, Leigh, who is a physical therapist, have been on mission trips there. They fell in love with the country, and they fell in love with the people. “They are sweet, wonderful people,” says White, “and they’re like my family.”
He’s committed to continue helping them, and White organized the fund raising triathlon that was held on May 1 in Pooler. The proceeds will go directly to the Northwestern Haiti Christian Medical Mission.
White became involved in triathlons because of his wife. “She got me into it,” he says. “We’ve competed in several triathlons together, but she’s the athlete in the family. She’s very athletic and outgoing, but she’s also very humble and quiet. She’s won several of the local triathlons in the past few years; she placed first in overall women, and she doesn’t make a big deal about it.
“We met at Savannah Christian Church, and when we found out that we had similar interests in biking. I asked her out. I took her mountain biking with me and the rest is history. We were riding our bikes on a trail and part of the trail went over this log, and you had to kind of pop your bike over it, and as I go over it I kind of turn back and say, ‘You might want to be careful – you might want to go around…’ but I was too late. She went right over it and she did it with style, and I said, ‘Oh – she is good!’ and I started falling in love with her when we were mountain biking.
“God gave Leigh the ability to be a great athlete, but not me! I enjoy doing the triathlons, and I might get first or second in my age group, but my heartbeat is leading people toward a common goal…. It’s not about me - it’s about the people….leading groups for a purpose.”
Organizing events to raise money to help others is a way for White “to lead people for a purpose”. His first experience doing this was as a race director for the Savannah Golf Course Race Series. There were three races, and their purpose was to raise money for the Coastal FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes for high school students).
In April of 2009 White and a small group of five, started a local chapter of FCA Endurance which is like an adult chapter of FCA. Their team is composed of many different types of athletes, and they now have 65 members.
Team FCA Endurance has a twofold purpose:
-to come together as fellow Christians to support and encourage one another
-to build relationships with other athletes who are not on their team
“It’s about the people,” says White. “I love when the people encourage one another.”
He tells me a story that demonstrates Team FCA’s willingness to encourage and help others:
“We (Team FCA Endurance) did some races last year in the triathlon. Some of the people on our team were in the position to place, to get an award, and they were doing really good on the bike, and then somebody else that they didn’t even know had a flat tire, and guess what they did - they stopped and helped him with the flat tire - instead of worrying about winning. What’s more important? To some it would be winning, but really, all of us should be helping somebody else. That’s the team. That’s what thrills my heart – for people to learn about that.”
White has worked hard to put on the triathlon to help the people of Haiti. “We (Team FCA Endurance) have volunteered a lot at other races, because we want to serve, so I knew I could do it, but I needed a lot of help from other volunteers too.”
He pulls out several pages that list the various volunteer positions that he needs to fill, and there must be at least 50 or 60, but a friend helping with the triathlon told him, “I don’t think we’ve ever had this problem before – we have almost too many volunteers!”
“That in itself is a beautiful thing,” says White, “because people want to come and help. The city of Pooler has been amazing about helping us. The city manager, the Chief of Police and the police force as a whole, the Fire Chief, Med Star, and the Chamber of Commerce, just everyone has been so great about helping, and there are going to be about 20-25 Army guys out there helping too.”
White is leading a group for a purpose. The triathlon is to help the people of Haiti. It’s about people helping people.
This Haiti is his “heartbeat.”
Haiti’s Medical Mission consists of a medical building, an orphanage, a nursing home and a feeding station.
Different medical teams rotate mission trips to take care of a variety of medical needs there, and the number of people needing help never seems to dwindle. There is no health care in Haiti, so when people come to the medical mission, small things have become major, as wounds have become infected, broken bones have healed incorrectly etc.
“People would walk for ten miles in a day to get to the medical facility for medicine, operations, anything,” says White, “and they would line up on the street for days just to get in. The surgeons worked 12 hour days. There were so many people, you did not want to turn anyone away.”
One surgery that the doctors frequently performed was to correct cleft feet. Children who had to walk on the sides of their feet, on dirt roads and through sharp gravel, had the operation that would enable them to walk normally.
Medical operations depend on power, and the only power available is from a generator which supplies the medical center. “Everything depends on it, and it runs about ten hours a day,” says White, who helped several times to get it fixed and running. Sometimes it would break in the middle of surgery.
The orphanage is called Heaven’s Waiting Room, and all the children have physical handicaps. “They were orphaned because they were crippled,” explained White. “It’s hard enough to have a child in Haiti, but a crippled one? They just can’t care for them. When a crippled child is born, they just turn them in here.”
These children live in Heaven’s Waiting Room. It’s a small building with small rooms, and each room has 10 – 15 beds. There is another building where the children play, and it is located across a gravel area. In the mornings the children are anxious to go there to play. But their wheelchairs cannot be pushed through the gravel and there are not enough helpers to carry all the children over at the same time. So, the children crawl and pull themselves over the gravel to get to the play room. Can you imagine?
Despite the hardships of their existence, the children don’t complain. “They’re just very happy,” says White. “My wife and I slept in a tent on top of one of the mission buildings, and in the mornings we’d wake up to hearing their laughter.”
One of the projects White worked on while he was there was to build a sidewalk to join the orphanage’s two buildings, and they covered it with carpet.
During the pre-dawn hours, they would be awakened to hear the sounds of singing. Every morning at 4 a.m., some of the nursing home residents would get up, and those who were able would walk to the top of a hill where the Haitian church is located. They would go in the church and sing hymns of praise. There was no musical accompaniment, just voices singing acappella, giving glory to God. That must have been a heavenly experience. While enjoying this heavenly experience, they’d drift back to sleep, and when the sun rose, the voices of children’s laughter rose to their roof top tent, and their day of service would begin.
Leigh would work with those who needed physical therapy, and White’s main job was as part of the maintenance crew, and he worked wherever he was needed. In addition to keeping the generator running and making a carpeted sidewalk for the orphans, he also built and organized a tool room, repaired bicycles, repaired and improved wheelchairs for individual needs, built bed frames for beds in Heaven’s Waiting Room, and took food to people in the street. He also played with the children and sang and danced with the older folks in the nursing home – for what good is service if there is no joy?
Except for the sounds of laughter, and singing, and some chickens clucking, Haiti is a quiet place. There are no traffic noises because there are no cars. Haitian transportation is mainly by foot, and bicycles are popular. Occasionally one will see a car, but if it ever breaks down, it will be left at the side of the road – there is no way to get parts to fix it. Some people ride donkeys - those people are considered well off. Children play with toys they ingeniously make from junk, and rolling an old bicycle tire down the dirt road can provide a child with hours of fun.
“They’re a happy people,” says White. “It’s about the people.”
-He’s directed events to raise money to help others.
-He’s helped organize Team FCA Endurance – so athletes can have a support group where they can encourage one another and make new friends.
-He’s been on a mission to help the people of Haiti, and his mission continues at home.
It’s about the people….think about it.
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