Lenoir-Rhyne students find hope in Haiti

During a spring 2005 mission trip, Stephen Friedrich (left), a senior at Lenoir-Rhyne College, Hickory, N.C., shares a laugh with Village of Hope students in Port Au Prince, Haiti.

With funds from their college congregations and some of their own money, five students spent a week in Haiti last March. They worked for the Village of Hope, a school for preschoolers through 11th-graders, 30 minutes outside of Port Au Prince.

The school is run by ELCA pastor Larry Bollinger and his wife, Margaret, and sponsored by the Lazarus Project, a mostly Lutheran grassroots organization that helps Haiti’s poor.