Author Archives: Felician Mission: Haiti

On Friday, September 8, we had a lot of rain and some high winds. As a result, many of the kids did not come to the Mother Angela Kitchen. The day before, Fernando had told Sr. Marilyn that his birthday was on Friday. With all the rain and high winds, we did not think much about it. Sr. Inga was in the kitchen and saw Fernando looking sad. She asked him why, and he said he had no friends. No one had wished him a Happy Birthday. Well, we changed that when we came to him singing “Happy Birthday.”  We gave him some chocolates for him and also some chocolates to share with everyone!

On Thursday, September 7, Sisters Danat and Anna Maria met with our Bishop Launay Saturne.

Last week, with the threat of Hurricane Irma and her devastation in the Caribbean, as well as the projected impact on Florida, Sisters Danat and Anna Maria needed to stay with us longer than had been planned. So, even though our visitation ended on Friday, we are blessed to have them share community and mission with us even longer.
Sr. Anna Maria spent 30 years in Kenya and, during that time, she had worked with babies, so she has fallen right in with all the babies we have here in the mission.

Sr. Anna Maria is also sharing her gourmet cooking skills with us.

Sr. Danat continues her work for the Congregation. Thank God we have electricity and the internet is working!

On Wednesday, September 6. Sr. Danat Marie and Sr. Anna Maria spent the day in Kap Wouj with the Mother Angela Clinic at St. Rock. They met with patients all day together with the Mother Angela Clinic Team.

Sr. Danat, Dr. Yves and Sr. Anna Maria

Sr. Danat assists Dr. Yves.

Sr. Anna Maria works in the pharmacy.

On Saturday, September 2, S Danat Marie, Vicar General, and S Anna Maria, General Councilor, arrived in Jacmel for our first General Visitation. They were welcomed by our teens and children at Mass. They immediately entered the ministry of presence here in Haiti. 

Our first visit was to our new construction site. 😊

They right away joined us in the cooking and baking. 😊

Then we went to the market to buy material for uniforms, as well as school books and shoes for the kids, since school began this week. 😊

They joined us in our ministry of presence, visiting our families and the homes of some of our children. Since both sisters have nursing skills, they were taking blood pressures and checking the babies. Our kids love them and want to be around them all the time. 😊

James, a seminarian that has been working with us the past few years with our Faith Formation program, always comes in the summer to offer his help. Before he went to the seminary, he prepared our kids and teens for the sacraments. Now some of those teens are ready to be Catechists, and James is helping us prepare them for the new school year. We are happy to have Alex, Gail and Jasmir join our team.

What does it mean to get ready for school here in Jacmel, Haiti, with our kids?  These days of August are spent preparing our kids for school. Everyday we go to the market to buy material for their uniforms that need to be made by hand. Each school has their own colors. We hired Maria, a seamstress, to sew the shirts and jumpers for the girls and Jacques who sees to the boys pants and shorts. The kids all come to be measured.

Some books also need to be bought at the market. The books that a child uses during the year are returned at the end of the school year. 

We have been helping for a few years most of the kids who are coming to us now. This year we also have a few new ones. One such child is Geraldine, who is 13 years old and never had the opportunity to go to school. All she can do is write her name. She is so excited to be going to school this year. 

We may be helping them go to school, but this comes with the obligation that they must do something in return. Each child or teen that we assist in going to school has a specific job to do here on the mission complex. This is so important for them to learn discipline, work ethic and, most of all, responsibility.

Thank you for helping us give a child “the world.”

You may remember Sts. James and Phillip Cathedral was badly damaged from the earthquake in 2010. It was not safe to worship in the space. For the past seven years, there was a discussion about what could be done to restore it. It would take millions of dollars to restore the historic site, so it was decided to demolish the building and save the holy altar.

On July 2, the Cathedral faith community held a beautiful concert prayer ritual followed by Mass at 5 p.m.

About a week later, the demolition began…and now, on this rock, a new Cathedral will be built for the Diocese of Jacmel, in God’s time.

On July 13, we started to get our suitcases ready for our return to the States. We noticed something brown growing on one of them. As we looked closer, we saw tiny worm-like bugs. 

We washed the suitcase immediately and did some research on the internet. We noticed in the closet where we keep the suitcases that there were lines that looked like dirt in different places.

Then we learned that we have termites. So we decided to clean everything and asked for help from Fritz (our Mother Angela Clinic driver). We began looking for the nest, and, when we saw it, we realized that we needed to get rid of the closet.


But then we saw another nest of them in the other closet and realized the whole thing had to be taken down. The termites were everywhere–in the doors, in the side panels. They were literally everywhere.

After everything was taken down and out of the room, the toilet pipe burst; and we had water everywhere. Thanks be to God, we had help! We called our plumber, and he came immediately.
Well, hours later, after everything was cleaned, we put things back in the room, only to find out that now we didn’t have any water.

The week of June 27-30, our dear friend, Eric Moyner from Florida, was with us a few days to work with the Mother Angela Clinic and to share another surprise. 

Eric had created a program and placed all our medical records for our patients in a database using iPads. He worked with our doctors, nurse and pharmacist in updating the program and covering other questions and problems they may have had. Eric’s parish in Florida twins with St. Yves, a parish in Jacmel; and they have built a clinic for the people of St. Yves. Their nurse, Annette, also participated in the meeting in order to learn the program. We thank Eric for being a part of the Felician Haiti Mission, working with Haitians and empowering them to help themselves.

Eric also shared with us a wonderful learning program for our kids called, Kahn Academy Program. It offers online classes, in French, for different levels of learning for children through high school. We already did a workshop shop with our teens who will be working with our smaller kids. This is another marvelous blessing from the Lord! Thank you, Eric, for walking with us here in Jacmel.