Today was the last day for our FC VIMsters. The young people with whom our volunteers worked all week gathered in the chapel to adore the Child Jesus. After that, it was a long time of good-byes.
Visiting families and bringing New Year blessings and wishes for 2014!
During the Christmas season, we visited the families of our students; our Felician College volunteers joined us for these visits. Each family was very happy to welcome us into their home, even though there were about 20 of us since our kids all walked with us on these visits. Our visits to the homes teach us alot about our kids living conditions and family life.
January 1, Independence Day – Soup Jamou
Today we celebrate not only New Year’s Day, but Independence Day here in Haiti. When the French were in control, there was a law which stated that only the French were able to eat soup because they were in the upper class. The French used to have a custom that only they could eat soup on New Year’s Day. Blacks weren’t allowed.
Eventually when Haiti proclamed its independence, all Haitians started to eat soup. It was a way to demonstrate that everyone was equal. Since that time, the Haitian people keep this custom of eating pumpkin soup on Independence Day. The soup was a symbol that the French were no longer in control. People did not want to be treated like slaves and told what they could and could not do. Cooking and eating the soup on New Year’s Day is a way to celebrate freedom. We joined our Haitian brothers and sisters in eating pumpkin soup.
2013 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 28,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
VIM, Volunteers in Mission – Felician College students come to Jacmel
The day after Christmas, early in the morning, we traveled to the airport in Port au Prince to pick up Sister Mary Honorata, and three Felician College students–Kaitlin, Kristen and Shana. Today they began their mission work–teaching English.
We begin each day reflecting on the Word of God, and we focus on one of the Franciscan core values each day. At the end of the day, we have faith sharing and reflect how each core value is experienced.
In the afternoon we visited a family and showed our volunteers the city of Jacmel.
Felician Sisters of North America Mission: Haiti 