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Team Members: Eileen Bransfield, Jeff Cantin, Nicholas
DeSorbo, Erin Ferrantino,
Peter Harding,
Debra Manzi, Patricia Ritz, Fr. Jim Shanley, June Sweeney,
Salvatore Uccello, Cindy Moeckel
Haiti Mission Trip 2002
Thanks to all who offered prayers during the recent
trip to Haiti. All 11 members of our community had an excellent experience
and like the blind man in the gospel, had their eyes opened. We were
fortunate enough to visit overnight at Sacred Heart Parish in Vialye where
we first went last year. We saw the result of the $23,000 sent to finish
the roof on the school. There are now additional covered classrooms where
many more children are able to receive an education. The kids there were
still doing a "hand trick" that Deacon Steve had taught them
last year. We were the first "white" people that they had seen
since last year so as usual we created quite a stir walking around the
village. We also had the blessing to stay the weekend at Saint Anne’s
parish in Saintgard, which is northeast of Port au Prince. We are hoping
to "twin" with this parish which is along the shore bordered by
banana/plantain groves. Catholics there are in the minority, with voodoo
practices very strong.
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We Come to Tell the Next Part of the Story
by Barbara Wysocki
Three years ago our faith community began the process
of establishing a relationship with a parish in Haiti. With the
endorsement of the Parish Council, the guidance of Fr. Jim and Lisa, and
the overwhelming support of our parishioners, twenty people from the
community have gone to Haiti looking for a parish we could embrace. After
discussion and discernment, Saint Anne's in the town of Santiard was
chosen. Only a few miles from the capital city of Port-au-Prince, Saint
Anne's families express their faith with vibrant liturgies that include
children and adults. Both parishes will be seeking ways to share their
time, talent and treasure. Here is a portion of our first letter from
Saint Anne's ….
Dear Benefactors,
I wanted first to thank you for you accepted our
friendship. All the Community greatly appreciated your visit and your stay
in the parish. Please, know that you and your faith family are already in
our prayers. I just have received from Father Jerry your cheque. I thank
you a lot for this gift, sign of your generosity and consideration. … a
friend helped me to find a small generator... So if you want, with your
gift, I would, to make the most of it, like to finish the new little house
and prepare the feast of the parish (Saint Anne-July 26th).
Thank you so much. May God bless you all & stay in
touch with us.
Sincerely yours, Father Jasmin
This fall we will have a formal ceremony to mark this
new chapter in our parish's life, but in the meantime please continue your
prayerful support of the people in this Haitian community.
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Thoughts on Not Returning from Haiti
by Eileen Bransfield
"Our theology is that we discover
God in the eyes of the poor. Period." These are the words of
Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest who is founder and director of the
Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Richard
suggests that we need experiences that are different from those of our
every day relatively comfortable American lives. We need to actually
place ourselves among the poor, the suffering and those who have been
relegated to the edges of society. By doing this we come to know who we
are, who God is and what it is that we need to do. It’s only in the
past several months that I’ve even begun to understand what Richard
was saying.
A few months ago I had the privilege of traveling with
10 members of our SES community on our Parish Mission to Haiti 2002.
Since my apparent return I’ve often been asked, "What was it
like? What did you do there?" I find answering these questions
difficult.
My experience in Haiti was unlike any other except,
perhaps, my visit to the colonia of Anapra in Juarez, Mexico. In both
places extreme poverty was prevalent, potable water was scarce, running
water and electricity were luxuries, life was difficult and the people
were a people of deep faith and amazing hope.
As in Juarez, I experienced in Haiti a profound
connection with those I met
and realized on a deeper level than before that we
are all members of one human family. We have the same
emotions, the same needs. We feel the same pain. Smiles, tears, laughter
and hugs are smiles, tears, laughter and hugs. The people I met in
Mexico and Haiti helped me to realize and appreciate differences and to
know that despite the differences we are very much the same.
What did I do in Haiti? Except for helping to clean
out a storeroom (actually a major task since it hadn’t been cleaned in
years), I really didn’t do all that much. Mission to Haiti 2002 was
more about "being" than about "doing." It was about
members of our group being present to one another and to the Mission
House staff and about being among and present to God’s poor –
"our poor," as Fr. Gerry suggested. The voices of our poor
surrounded us from early morning until late night during our time at the
Mission House in Port-au-Prince.
We walked among our poor in the Mission House
neighborhood and in the villages
of Vialye and St. Ard. We celebrated liturgy with
communities at Hospice St. Joseph and in the rural parishes of Sacred
Heart and St. Ann. Together we prayed the same prayers in
different languages to the same God who understood us all. At Foyer Des
Filles de Dieu, an orphanage for girls, we were entertained by beautiful
children. We participated in the dedication ceremony of an outreach
center for families of children affected by HIV/AIDS and spent time with
such children at La Maison L’Arc-en-Ciel. When we visited the
headquarters of the Lambi Fund directors proudly shared with us their
vision and their hopes for a reborn Haiti. We bargained with local
artists and merchants in the Mission House courtyard. In all these
circumstances we were present and open to each other, to Haitian people,
to God’s spirit and to change.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel has said, "The more people
we include when we say ‘we,’ the closer we are to God." I
believe he’s right and what I did in Haiti was to draw nearer to God
because being in Haiti certainly increased my "we." Having
been with members of our faith community among the Haitian people I
realize more fully that all of us on this awesome, fragile planet are,
in fact, sisters and brothers and that we are, in fact, our sisters’
and our brothers’ keepers. I believe more deeply that it’s simply
wrong for so few of us to have so much when so very many have so little
and not even enough. I know that as long as I fail to use my voice on
behalf of my oppressed brothers and sisters in Haiti and elsewhere in
the world, I’m part of the problem. I’m one of the oppressors.
Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa uses the example that if you see an
elephant about to step on a mouse and do nothing about it because you
don’t want to take sides, you have taken one. I’ve sided with the
elephant far too many times.
I went to Haiti in March and the "I" that
went hasn’t returned. I’ve seen and heard for myself the suffering
and the cries of the poor and, more importantly, I’ve seen and heard
with the eyes and ears of my heart. I’ve been changed and I know the
process has just begun. My experience in Haiti has led me to believe
that if each of us could realize our connection to one other, we could
hasten the coming of God’s just and peaceful reign.
What was it like? What did I do? It was like traveling
to the belly of the whale and coming out not only alive, but renewed,
refreshed and filled with hope. I emerged with a broadened image of God,
an increased capacity to love and a deeper commitment to working for
justice, for the liberation of the oppressed peoples of our world and,
in particular, for the rebirth of Haiti. The quote from Richard Rohr
makes more and more sense to me.
I went to Haiti in March and haven’t yet returned.
Please join me in my prayer that I never will.
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