Author Archives: Felician Mission: Haiti

After reading SM Colette’s reflection printed in our Update, on this vigil of the 20th Anniversary of the Beatification of Blessed Mary Angela, we cannot help but think about the poor children Blessed Mary Angela met on the streets of Warsaw. We truly feel her presence here in Jacmel. Many of our kids who come to us do not have shoes, or there is hardly any sole left on the ones they have. They do not know any prayers…not even how to make the sign of the cross.

Today we had to move our class to a bigger room because we are growing. We are using one of the classrooms in the pre-school on the first floor. It is not easy to lead a class with students between the ages of 10-19. Our students love to come and be involved in all the activities we plan for them. They are truly eager to learn. We cannot wait until we will have more computers. The few minutes that each of our students can use the computer to learn from the Rosetta Stone Program is a great reward for them. They are also learning how to use the computer. We, in turn, are benefitting from our students and learning more and more Creole.

This is our fourth day of English classes, and we keep growing. We never announced this anywhere. Now we have nine students: Gabrielle, Alberto, Jean-Philip, Jerry, Stevenson, Stanley, Sangado, Rosemary and Meeka.

During our evening Mass, we celebrated the birthday of our little friend, Kassandra. At the end of Mass, Fr. Kontan gave Kassandra his blessing. After the Celebration of the Eucharist, we had a little party for Kassandra; Clara and Gael joined us.

Today for dinner, we had two guests from the Polish-Haitian Foundation. Peter and Christopher are representatives of the foundation, and they are here from Poland to meet with engineers and building contractors about the new school which will be built for the Diocese of Jacmel. They will be building on the property next to what will be our future convent.

We began our day with prayer and time with the Word of God. Then it was the usual Saturday morning cleaning, spraying the rooms with bug spray, clearing the spider webs, and cleaning the dirt that accumulates. Normally on Saturday we do our laundry, but we have learned that there is not enough water on Saturdays. At 10 a.m. we got a ride to the Pastoral Center where our container is located. Our friends Klara and Gael joined us, along with Fritz, our driver. Fritz brought along his young little friend, Paschal, who has no parents and is very poor.

Today we worked in the container, going through all the boxes with medications and medical supplies. We organized these items in order to deliver them to clinics that we will be visiting when we get our car. We also found many other treasures stowed away in boxes–school supplies, games, more new sneakers, and liturgical items. We spent about 3 1/2 hours in the container, which was really hot. We were soaked. Our helpers received some nice gifts, especially Paschal, who needed new shoes and some new clothes.

When we finished, we went to the Bishop’s garden. Daniel, his groundskeeper who knows us, gathered a box of mangos for us. Tomorrow, our friends, Yvon and Gracias, may come to visit us; and Yvon loves mangos.

Finally, we went to the outdoor open machè (market) to get some fruits and vegetables that we need for the next few days. Klara and Gael went with us to help us to bargain. They convinced us to buy a bunch of leaves, which they said you cook like spinach with beregen (egg plant). We bought, as always, oranges and grapefruits to make our juice; and to make our juice you need a lot of them. We know more and more people at the outdoor market.

We got home and cooked a quick dinner of leftovers and then began to do some cooking for Sunday. We don’t worry when we cook for ourselves, but cooking for guests is a big challenge. We decided to make stuffed cabbage. We had a lot of rice leftover, so we made our first attempt at homemade rice pudding. Then we called Klara to ask her how to cook the leaves. She told us to just boil them. That is what we did, and tomorrow we will use them when we cook our beregen. After all this, we were tired but grateful to God for his many blessings of the day.

After yesterday’s blog about learning English on computer, someone responded who wants to donate another lap top. Mesi Bondye Mesi. Thank you, God. To all of our benefactors, we say “thank you” and ask God to keep blessing you with abundant life.

Since the day we moved into our home, there have been a group of young boys who come to our door everyday. At first they would come late in the evening, asking for some food, sweets, a rosary, a cross. Then we asked them to come by earlier, before dark. Some days they listened, and other days they came at anytime. We asked them if they would like to learn English and the computer; and, of course, they said “yes.”

Our class begins with the reading of the day’s Gospel in Creole. Then we all share what we heard from the Word of God. We are trying to evangelize through whatever we do and say during our hour-long class.

Jesus I trust in you! Today at 3 p.m. we had a holy hour celebrating this special feast of mercy. After prayer, we had a visit from the Missionaries of Charity to see our new home. Since the day we arrived in Jacmel, these Sisters have become our friends. We showed them our house and spent three hours sharing together.

In the evening, Klara, a nursing student, is helping our little Cassandra with her homework.

It was a beautiful day, sharing in the Lord’s Divine Mercy.

During these days in Haiti, it is the rainy season. It usually rains during the night; during the day, there is no sign of rain. However, today was a different story. In the morning, we hung our laundry on the line on the roof; dark clouds rolled in and the winds became powerful. Our line and the sheets that we had hung up went flying into the mud. As you can see from the pictures, some of the clothes are not ours. They belong to our neighbors. They lay their laundry on the ground and, when they dry in a few days, they will come for them. They don’t seem to worry that their clothes will blow away. But we rinsed our sheets in the washing machine as best we could and hung a line for our clothes in our home. Usually the rains come from one direction; today they came from everywhere, and we had a flooded hallway as well. Yes, we are learning to live in the rainy season in Haiti!

After Easter, the Diocese of Jacmel had a youth gathering in Sacred Heart Parish, using the theme from the Gospel of Luke: “Go to Galilee.” The day was filled with talks from scripture, music, food and fun. We were asked to support the day with our presence, and we donated the chicken for the dinner that was served at the end of the day. We are always fascinated to see how they cook all their food outside.