Gesu Mission Team Visit to Haiti - March 18 - 26, 2002
This Sunday at the 9AM Mass, our first parish mission team to Haiti
will receive a special blessing and commissioning. They will travel as
representative of the Gesu faith community to meet a possible sister
parish in or around Haiti's capital city, Port-au-Prince. Our
ambassadors are: Ronni & Ron Pruhs, mission team leaders,
Social Ministry and Twinning Core Team members ; David Goelzer and
Hannah Dugan, Parish trustees and members of the Parish Council; Judy
Keyes, Parish Council Liaison to the Social Ministry Committee; Pat
Coffey, Social Ministry Committee and Twinning Core Team member and his
wife Maureen; Barbara McCann, Twinning Core Team member and Stephanie
Quade, Social Ministry Committee chair and Twinning Core Team member.
They will be the guests of Fr. Gerry Kirby, our twinning guide, of
Norwich Mission House, our mission base. Norwich House has been in
Port-au-Prince for over ten years, setting up programs with the Haitian
people and serving as a base for parishes interested in twinning. It is
a ministry of the Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut. The goals of Norwich
House are to live out the missionary mandate of the gospel and to build
relationships of mutual support, sharing and prayer between American
and Haitian Parishes. Norwich House Parish Twinning Program Overview
states: "The mandate of our work here requires us 'help Haitians help
Haitians'.
In this way, we hope to provide lasting support that will make
a meaningful contribution to the struggle for self-determination and
justice in Haiti." It further states: "Every relationship between
parishes is different and must grow to respond to the needs and
concerns of both parishes involved. The key to being part of this
program is a commitment to a long-term relationship." For the growth of
this relationship Norwich House requires, at least one annual American
parish mission team visit to the Haiti twin parish.
Please pray for each member of the mission team and for the
success of this first twinning mission journey. May we, as a faith
community, remain open to the work of receiving and giving that the
Holy Spirit unfolds to us in our first meeting with our Haitian
brothers and sisters.
Our mission team has visited some of the projects of Norwich
Mission House in Port au Prince. These include Clinic Notre Dame des
Lourdes-a health clinic with a new eye clinic for eye surgery; La
Maison Arc-en Ciel, a home for children with AIDS; Foyer des Filles des
Dieu, a girls orphanage which includes vocational training in cooking,
baking, cosmetology, secretarial and sewing; The Madam Son Son
Nutritional Support program for starving and malnourished children in
the neighborhood near Norwich House; Open Gate, the door ministry of
Norwich Mission House which helps with immediate assistance for costs
of funerals, rent and other emergency needs-like our own door ministry
and the work of our St. Vincent de Paul Conference. All these
ministries are with and for Haitians.
Every night our Gesu Mission Team has come back to Norwich
House for dinner and prayer/Mass in the Chapel with Fr. Gerry who also
guides reflection and leads discussions about their experiences of the
day. On several nights Fr. Gerry has brought in speakers who will
deepen our team's insight of Haiti and its people.
On Saturday and Palm/Passion Sunday, our mission team spends
time in a parish-meeting it's pastor, lay leaders and parishioners and
worships with them on this Palm Sunday! Together Gesu and Haiti
parishioners will journey with Jesus to Jerusalem-with fresh palms,
perhaps, in heat and humidity of Haiti!
Let us pray that our faith communities, from this Palm Sunday
celebration of the Eucharist, will continue to grow in understanding,
friendship and love, so that "their joy and hope, grief and
anguish... become our joy and hope, grief and anguish" [Vatican II] and
we come to cherish a feeling of deep human and spiritual solidarity
with each other.
March 22, 2002
Bondye bon, e li toujou bon
God is good and God is always good
As we write this, we are halfway through our journey to Haiti. We were
warmly welcomed by pè Bichara, the sisters, school children
and staff of St. Jude Parish, in the mountains outside Port-au-Prince.
We will return this weekend to celebrate Palm Sunday with the people of
St. Jude.
Entering Holy Week with our new friends, we are filled with
hope about this growing relationship and excited to share our stories
and the beautiful country of Haiti with the people of Gesu.
Happy Easter! Jesus Christ is Risen Today!
Bon Fèt Pak! Jezu Kri resisite!
- Ron & Ronni Pruhs, Pat & Maureen Coffey,
Hannah Dugan, Dave Goelzer,
Judy Keyes, Barb McCann, Stephanie Quade
"The second day in Haiti we got our first peek at our
potential
twinning parish, St. Jude. We were to spend a few hours there talking
with the pastor and then return on Saturday morning for an overnight
stay that would take us into the Palm Sunday liturgy. Father Bichara
was the new priest assigned to St. Jude after a drought of 18 years
without a priest. He was very excited about our coming. He provided a
lavish spread for us for lunch. There were three women in the kitchen
making up the roasted goat, fish, macaroni salad, fresh vegetables,
black rice, potatoes, chicken in a wonderfully spicy sauce and pumpkin
soup! We were advised us to accept all hospitality, but I couldn't help
thinking this spread would have provided lunch for 50 poor parish kids."
- Judy Keyes
"After a week in Haiti is it easy to see why the country is
identified
as the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. With the exception of an
oasis here and there, poverty and squalor seem to abound in the
Port-au-Prince, the country's capital. I also experienced signs of
light during our visit. I had that experience especially during our
stay at St. Jude's Parish (in the hills above Port-au-Prince), Gesu's
prospective twin parish in Haiti.
At St. Jude's we Gesu travelers were welcomed with open arms
and open hearts (plus an open pantry.) The parish pastor, the sisters
and the lay parishioners whom we met are faith filled people with a
deep sense of the presence of God in their lives and in their country.
We stayed overnight at St. Jude's and were able to participate in Palm
Sunday Mass in the simple parish church. This was a rich experience of
a eucharistic celebration enhanced by a vibrant youth choir, drums,
guitar, keyboard, incense, candles etc. It was very impressive that
some of the parishioners had walked miles to get to Mass.
Despite being in short supply of such basic necessities as
food and water, many of the school children we saw (and tried to
communicate with in our inept Kreyol) had bright faces, laughed easily
and were well mannered and respectful. Pere Bichara, the young Haitian
pastor, and Sr. Ann Marie, the dynamic school principal are bright,
enthusiastic mission oriented folks who were an inspiration to us all.
In brief, there are strong beacons of light and hope in the parish of
St. Jude."
- Pat Coffey
"Going to Haiti for the purpose of exploring a sister parish
relationship was a joyful and enlightening experience. The travel team
were faith-filled and open to the guidance of the Spirit. The parish we
visited, St. Jude, is in a beautiful location in the mountains above
Port-au-Prince.
We were able to meet with parish staff and leaders and
determine areas of mutual interest and mutual benefit. Because Ron is a
dentist and I am a nurse, we spoke at length with Sr. Adrienne, a
Haitian sister in charge of the parish clinic. She told us she would
welcome the involvement of health care workers in her clinic. Ron and I
hope to help out by doing a dental clinic some time in the fall. As our
relationship progresses, perhaps others in our Gesu parish would join
us in helping improve the health status of the people of St. Jude."
- Ron and Ronni Pruhs
Can Only God, Working Through Ordinary People, Solve Haiti's
Problems?
Our stay at Norwich Mission House in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, included
many visits to orphanages, hospices, meal programs, as well as daily
morning and evening prayer services. We were far removed from familiar
surroundings and immersed in a completely different society and
culture, in many ways a thoroughly failed society at the bottom of the
heap and still declining. We felt close to God at all times. Part of
the great gift of our visit was a deep spiritual feeling: Here people
have nothing, all the structures of man have failed, so they rely on
God, and God responds.
A related point: Some Haitian problems, like the
almost-complete and continuing deforestation and the resultant vast
soil erosion, seem utterly beyond man's capacity to fix, and prayer
seems to be the most pragmatic approach.
Excerpts from my journal:
"Today we met 4 extraordinary people making a huge difference to many
hundreds of children. They give their lives to them and trust God to
provide. In this country man has screwed everything up - greed,
cruelty, venality, negligence, inhumanity, the corrupting effect of
power and wealth, ignorance, prejudice, materialism &
selfishness in far-off countries, etc.
"What works? God.
"When nothing else works, all man's scheming, planning, grand
ideas, structures, all fail, God calls a person. That person submits to
God's will, and has faith that God will provide, that God called him or
her for a purpose and that God will carry out His plan through that
person. And great good is the result."
"We came here thinking that these many religious &
other NGOs [non-governmental organizations] could do more if they would
just link up. No. That is our desire for coherence as we see it, for
planning, control, structure. Would the result not be bureaucracy,
bickering over control, stagnation, hesitation, caution, reliance on
man's abilities, and hesitation when these resources don't insure
success? In this place reliance on man's limitations has brought
disaster, and reliance on God's plan & providence has brought
success & good."
- Dave Goelzer
Our group was very concerned that we find a suitable parish in
Haiti
with which the people of Gesu could initiate a successful twinning
program. We are so pleased to have connected with St. Jude Parish,
which is located about 45 minutes outside of Port-au-Prince. The
location allows us to stay at Norwich House and participate in the
hospitality and spiritual richness of Father Gerry's activities while
we also visit and work with St. Jude's.
The drive to St. Jude's took us through a very poor area of
the city but as we climbed the mountain and approached the parish, the
area became more rural, picturesque and sparsely populated. It is
located high on a hill, Mon Opital, with a beautiful view of the
capitol and its ocean harbor.
The church at St Jude's is constructed light and airily to
take advantage of any ocean breeze.
It can accommodate about 400 people. There is a school with eight
classes for about 430 children. There is also a small medical
dispensary and a makeshift rectory. We met four Haitian nuns, one of
whom serves as school principal and one as a nurse in the dispensary.
For people of the parish who live high in the mountains, there
are five chapels, served by six catechists. The chapels are only
accessible by four-wheel drive vehicles.
There was no pastor at St. Jude's for 18 years prior to Father
Deliscar Bichara, Pastor, who has been there a little over a year.
Father Bichara is a bright, hospitable bundle of energy, full of hope
and vision for the future of his parish.
St. Jude's offers the people of Gesu a wonderful opportunity
for twinning. It is a hospitable environment with people of mutual
concerns. There is an open attitude to share ideas and to learn from
each other. And, there are opportunities for people with various
talents to share their personal gifts with one another.
- Ron Pruhs
"While staying at Norwich House in Port au Prince, the Gesu
team was
provided with
opportunities to witness "ordinary" people who had seen the tremendous
needs and had responded to
God's call by doing their part in building the Kingdom of God there. We
were privileged to meet
these people and the people they serve, mostly the poor, the hungry,
the dying and the children.
Ruth founded a home for children with special needs after she
discovered they were being
"warehoused" in a hospital.
Paula, a Haitian-born woman who lived in the U.S., returned to
open an orphanage for girls
and then added a school and medical services.
Madam Sonson could not stand by and watch hungry children in
her area, so she is now feeding
50-80 children five days a week out of her home.
Daniell and Robert founded "Rainbow in the Sky", a home in the
mountains for children with
HIV and Aids.
Witnessing the trust, hope and faithfulness of these people
(and others) in carrying out the
gospel message of "loving one another" inspired and challenged us to
see our opportunity in building a twinning relationship with the parish
of St. Jude".
- Maureen Coffey
"Twinning is another version of the building of Church that
has been
going on
for over 2000 years. Gesu's parish twin, St. Jude's, on Hospital
Mountain overlooking Haiti's Port-au Prince, is very much its own
place. Along with
a modest school and an extremely basic medical "clinic" (both operated
by an Haitian order of nuns), it is at the center of the communal life
and social order of the mountain.
Hospital Mountain is sapped of physical resources, e.g., when
the rain
cisterns are dry, people walk two hours to the nearest well and refill
five-gallon buckets to be dragged back up the mountain. Yet, St. Jude's
as a parish welcomed us strangers; it extended generous hospitality. We
were welcomed not only with food and beds, but also included at places
of honor at the first Palm Sunday Mass on the mountain in 18 years.
(Instead of being seated on low, flat benches, we sat
in the sanctuary on chairs with backs during that universally lengthy
service). St. Jude's also welcomed twinning with Gesu, even though the
parishioners met only nine of us.
For the past 18 years, St. Jude's has been without priest. The
recently-posted
pastor has brought new energy and inspiration. But he has brought these
gifts to a
preexisting faithful community, with religious practice self-sustained
and vibrant despite the absence of pastor or pastoral team. We were
told that, prior to
the arrival of Pere Bichara, people showed up at St. Jude's church on
Sundays,
whether or not a Mass was scheduled. The practices of the laity and
ordained,
their sacramental and spiritual lives, the building of Church are
carried out
differently from our praxes.
Twinning with a parish in Haiti offers us new means of
experiencing and
expressing the catholicity of our Church. Twinning with Haiti affords
the
Jesuit-sponsored Gesu its own opportunity to reflect the Ignation
tradition
and charism of a mission undertaking.
The labyrinth of visa and immigration law and limitations, in
the short and
long hauls, prevent St. Jude's parishioners from being welcomed
personally at
Gesu. Carrying out the mutuality of twinning will take a bit more
creativity
than parishes which can "exchange" parishioners, but we will be
enriched by
the effort."
- Hannah Dugan
"As the weeks since our visit to Haiti turn in to months, I am
struck by
how deeply so many of our experiences affected me and by how vividly I
can recall particular images, places and persons. As we begin to
prepare for future visits, one of the primary agenda items concerns how
to best help future Gesu parishioners prepare for all they will
encounter in Haiti. I hope the stories, journal excerpts and pictures
we have been able to share have aided in this and have been able to
help all the members of Gesu to get a glimpse into Haiti and St. Jude's
Parish.
Poverty in Haiti has many forms and many faces: parents unable
to take care of all their children, making the desperate choice to give
their youngest sons and daughters to relatives or acquaintances in the
hope that they will have access to regular meals; shoeless children
forced to stay home, as they are enrolled in schools that require
students to wear shoes to attend classes; people on the streets selling
used t-shirts and hats emblazoned with the names of US athletic teams
and designers, forming a maze of unlimited wares for a very limited
number of customers. During our visit, each of us saw many images that
will no doubt haunt us for a long time.
What is fascinating, as I think back to our time in Haiti and
read my journal entries from our visit, is that for each facet of
poverty we saw, we seemed also to see some great sign of optimism and
strength. My journal reads "We keep landing in pockets of hope, peopled
by smiling faces, children singing to us-run often by 'living saints."
Every person we meet has not just done these amazing things here but
has had this incredible life to boot-Sr. Marte having lived through
Nazi oppression, people having lost children, spouses-the reserves of
hope are overwhelming and the commitment to continuing to be a leaven
for good-to slug it out everyday in the face of never-ending challenge
is amazing." As I struggle to make sense of all we saw and experienced,
I believe that we saw Christ in the faces of the poor and in the faces
of those who work among them.
I am grateful for the opportunity to have been part of this
experience and look forward to the continued joys and struggles of our
new relationship with our sister parish and the people of Haiti."
- Stephanie L. Quade
As many of us enjoy air conditioned workplaces and homes and
an air
conditioned Gesu Church (and it hasn't been that hot yet!) , I am
thinking about our sisters and brothers of St. Jude Parish, Mon Opital,
Haiti.
I am recalling one story in particular from our Gesu Haiti
Mission Team. During the first Mission trip in March, for the Sunday
Liturgy on Palm/Passion Sunday, our Gesu Haiti Team were the guests of
St. Jude Parish. For the first time, Gesu and St. Jude parishioners
celebrated the Sunday Liturgy of the Eucharist together. Gesu was given
seats of honor in the sanctuary. All from St. Jude were in their Sunday
best. Pastor Bishara was in his vestments. But even in March, Haiti
temperatures are hot and humid-just plain steamy! Not a worry for the
Gesu Mission Team from snow country. St. Jude parishioners ran a
special generator so there would be a power supply for the one lone fan
that was blowing directly on the Gesu parishioners in the sanctuary.
Such special treatment and hospitality from our hosts!
So every time I remember how comfortable I am in my air
conditioned work and church environment, I think about and say a prayer
for our Haitian brothers and sisters of St. Jude Parish who live each
steamy day without relief and with water that is only available in jugs
brought by a 2-1/2 hour walk up the mountain! May the Lord find ways to
bring them His comfort and consolation.
- Eileen Ciezki
