I’ve never inhaled more appalling air or experienced more gracious, welcoming people than I did during a recent week spent in the Western hemisphere’s poorest country.

Haiti continues to be a place where tires smolder in the streets and garbage flows through streams of gray water. The landscape inland is a stark contrast to the pristine ocean waters, never more than a few miles away.

Even before the devastation from the 2010 earthquake, corrupt leaders stripped the country of money and resources. To survive, the people stripped the lush mountains bare.

But amongst the concrete rubble, landslides, abject poverty, and continued government mismanagement, exciting partnerships are giving Haitians a much-needed helping hand. I’m blessed to be a part of Wareham’s Church in the Pines that has developed a strong relationship with a church in the southern city of Jacmel.

The Evangelical Baptist Church of the Orange Grove, aka EBO, is a vibrant community in rural Jacmel, accessible from Port-au-Prince via a three and a half hour (if you’re lucky) drive through the mountains.

Climbing out of the back of a truck, church members greeted our team of five as did fresh air and an endless supply of mangos.

Sunday was my first real experience of our sister church. Following a lively Easter service, we were hugged and kissed by the majority of the congregation who never once treated us like outsiders.

Our partnership with EBO began before the earthquake and has continued to grow through yearly trips, frequent emails, and phone calls.

Partnership is exactly what the members of both of our churches are committed to. With unemployment over 80 percent, the goal is help provide resources that will empower EBOs members and the surrounding community.

Over the years, our churches have prayed together, worked together to rebuild homes, provide school supplies and food to EBO’s elementary school students, found a vocational school, and initiate an agricultural co-op that will eventually enable farmers and women in the church to generate much-needed income.

But beyond the desire to build up the community’s resources, we just really like the people of EBO (and judging from all the hugs we got, I’d say it’s mutual).

For our youth minister Scott Egan, the Easter trip marked his second visit to Jacmel.

“It’s not Americans going in trying to ‘make a difference’ We’re going to support a family,” said Egan, a Rochester resident. “We’re building on what we’ve already established with relationships and projects.”

In hours spent spiffing up the church with paint, we got acquainted with the young people as we talked in a mixture of Haitian Creole, French, and English.

Over some intense chocolate chip cookie making and cupcake decorating, we had the opportunity to interact with the ladies of the vocational school’s cooking program. And daily walks through the surrounding countryside, gave me hope for what the future can be for the people of Haiti.

Although I’m no expert and my experience was with a small corner of the country for only one week, I am hopeful.

The country still has decades, if not longer, to develop the infrastructure it needs to be a healthy, thriving place for the Haitian people. I’m looking forward to seeing that reality take shape.

Georgia Sparling is a reporter for Sippican Week, the sister publication of Wareham Week.