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CRUX 2019

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Photo: Marc-Yves Regis<br />

Campers, and inset, founder Marc-Yves Regis, at this year's summer camp in the Dominican Republic.<br />

When faced with a moral dilemma, many people in the<br />

1990s used a phrase that was in vogue in popular culture<br />

— “What Would Jesus Do?”<br />

In the Gospels, Jesus set many examples for Christians to follow.<br />

He commanded us to love our neighbor, give to the poor, feed<br />

the hungry, and take care of the widows and children, especially<br />

orphans. He also commanded us to follow Him.<br />

Marc-Yves Regis, parishioner at Trinity, Collinsville, decided to follow<br />

Jesus and start a summer camp, first in the Dominican Republican<br />

in 2009, and a year later in his native country of Haiti. While growing<br />

up in the island nation, he saw Haitian farmers leaving in caravans to<br />

go work in bateyes or sugarcane plantations across the border, and<br />

they never returned home. He always wondered what happened<br />

to them, and as an adult, he pursued a lifelong dream to document<br />

their peril.<br />

Beginning in 1994, he began traveling to the Dominican Republic<br />

each year to research, photograph, and gather enough material<br />

to write a book about what he witnessed. He fell in love with the<br />

people, and instead of only documenting what he saw, he spent<br />

more time helping them with their basic needs. He began taking<br />

clothes and money to share among farmers — eventually they<br />

began to feel like family.<br />

“I stopped looking at the people as subjects for a book and began<br />

looking at them as brothers and sisters.” Marc explained.<br />

Eventually, after many years, he finished the book, When Freedom<br />

Comes, about the plight of Haitian braceros (farm workers), and is<br />

looking for a publisher.<br />

Over the years, he noticed that the children in the sugarcane<br />

plantations did not have any toys to play with. Nor were there any<br />

fun activities to occupy their time during the long, hot summer. As<br />

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