update from Parish Twiining Program

Dear All,

I just have a few brief messages today.

Sr. Mary Finnick at Matthew 25 House has made a request particularly for dentists and for ophthalmologists. Also, she needs two people to help out at Matthew 25 House for the month of April and for two weeks in May. She not only will be celebrating her 60th Jubilee in April, but she is also long overdue for a rest from six exhausting weeks in providing care for so many earthquake victims. It would be best if a commitment could be made for at least a month rather than having a lot of folks coming and going for only a week. If you want to contact Sr. Mary directly at matthew25house@yahoo.com, could you please copy me on your e-mail. Thanks.

Also, if you are sending your parish funds to Haiti through Fonkoze, you may send your letter and check two to one of the following addresses:

City National Bank OR City National Bank
382 West 125th Street 900 Broad Street
New York, New York 10027 Newark, New Jersey 07102
Attn: Sabrina Brice Attn: Juanita Fields

Smith Thompson and Raymond Lochard have been the two primary representatives in the Fonkoze Haiti office that you have been sending your e-mail's to, however, Smith Thompson is no longer at Fonkoze and Raymond Lochard, unfortunately, was killed in the earthquake. You may now address your e-mail's to either Anancaona Adamson or Natacha Blanc. The e-mail address is still the same (fundnotice@fonkoze.org) and the number to call is (800) 293-0308.

I continue to be overwhelmed at how generous you have been to PTPA and Matthew 25 House. Know that we are deeply grateful for your generosity and that you have been in our prayers.

The sea container information will be mailed out late next week. The collection periods are still April 19-30.

Blessings,

Theresa
Parish Twinning Program

Gros Morne Update

Gros Morne, February 22, 2010
The national day—weekend—of mourning was over a week ago but families continue to mourn their loved ones and the injured, among the 21,000 plus who have returned from PAP, continue to heal slowly. And we continue to live in fear of aftershocks or the more forceful earthquake that we have heard is possible. That possibility is what makes the cracks in buildings here appear so threatening. A week ago some of the religious in the parish met to exchange information on the damage we have seen. As Fr. Wilner noted, we have been slow to register the extant of the damage.
Here is a partial list of the Catholic buildings that need to be evaluated for safety:
In Town
St. Gabriel’s School and the sisters’ residence on the 2nd floor. The government inspector would not go upstairs. The sisters are living on the first floor and will move to a box tent in the yard. Most schools reopened Feb. 8 but St. Gabriel is only opening today with tarps in the yard.
The Gros Morne rectory has cracks. Fr. Nesly is living at the Jean Marie Vincent formation center in Grepin.
Notre Dame de la Chandeleur church, which was being enlarged, has new cracks.
Pendus
Fr. Wilner has told Ma Marcel that he doesn’t want her working inside the dispensary. It has cracks in all the rooms and across the floor.
The visitors’ house has cracks as does the church.
Pewou (parish of Decostiere—7th communal section of Gros Morne)
The church in Pewou (chapel of Fr. Nesly’s parish of Decostiere) which houses two classes has many cracks and so do both school buildings. Some cracks go down one side (inside and out) across the floor and up the wall on the other side.
Kalabat (Parish of Riviere Mancelle—1st and 2nd communal sections of Gros Morne)
The 2 story rectory/guest house is damaged. Fr. Jadotte is sleeping in an adjacent one-story room.
Last Thursday we expected an engineer to evaluate the damage but his plans were changed.

Synopsis of effects of earthquake at Rivere Mancelle

When the earthquake struck Port au Prince on January 12th, Fr Jadotte was at a retreat along with other priest and seminarians. When the earthquake struck he was able to escape along with everyone except one other priest and 9 seminarians.
We have very sketchy communications, but we do know that our main school was damaged beyond repair. This school serves between 300 and 500 students.The children are still attending class outside in makeshift shelter. We are very proud of their perseverance. Most other schools in the area cancelled classes.
The rectory at Rivere Mancell, and the one in Gros Morne, were damaged moderatly. They are not presently safe to occupy.
We have had an influx of people from Port au Prince of excess of 3,000 people. This is creating even more shortages of food and basic needs.
Our first response to the earthquake was to do something immediately. After the shock wore off, we realized that our mission was to carry on and step up our support of the people in our rural area. Even more now is their need to develop their own resources for sustainable living.

Perspective

We of the human race have the unique ability to not only experience perspective, but to willingly change it. First withen ourselves, by seeking, and then in others by planting seeds.
Our weekness is when we think our current one is the only true one.

Our fight, our struggle, is not with men and women or their institutions.
It is with the darkness that seeks to cover the heart.
And that fight begins with our own heart.

Faith, Hope, and Love. The greatest of these is Love.

We have seen with our own eyes, that love planting the seeds of hope, bears bountiful fruit.Do not despair, Have Faith.

follow link to story about northern Haiti

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1000572.htm

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION A last chance to make things right for Haiti By: Dan Lett

The view from the air was both startling and sad.

Startling because so many buildings remained standing in Port-au-Prince. Media coverage suggested the city had been razed. But as our Canadian Forces Griffon helicopter floated over the city, the flat-topped houses and seamless shanty towns seemed remarkably intact. It looked more like someone had thrown a shovel of gravel on top of the city. At ground level, a closer examination revealed the sadness: cracks, crumbling walls, twisted rebar. Many larger structures -- hospitals and schools in particular -- had totally disintegrated.

Also visible from the air were the enormous tent cities that had been established to give the homeless somewhere to escape evening rains. These stood out as brilliant blue patches against the light grey of the demolished city. The blue was emergency tarps provided by the United Nations.

It was a surreal site. With the naked eye, we could see clearly the throngs of prospective refugees crammed outside the gates of the Canadian Embassy. Nearby, a dozen soldiers, their nationality a mystery, toss food aid off the back of a military truck into a group of Haitians.

Outside Port-au-Prince, where the population isn't nearly as dense, the destruction was no less startling. Small clusters of homes with lush green yards and small stone walls seemed, at first examination, to be largely intact. In fact, only the roofs were mostly intact, but they lay on the ground, the walls underneath having simply evaporated.

My visit to Haiti was brief and hastily arranged. The Free Press had been invited to accompany Maj.-Gen. Yvan Blondin, commander of Canada's air force, to witness first-hand a remarkable "air bridge" established to supply Haiti with humanitarian aid. Against the odds, Blondin found a way of getting C-130 Hercules planes in and out of a tiny airstrip in Jacmel, on Haiti's southern coast, doubling the number of Canadian aircraft landing each day. It was not my first experience in this troubled country. I visited Haiti in 1996, when Canada was leading a United Nations mission to bring stability to the chronically unstable nation.

Despite the better efforts of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide, there was little hope among Haitians. The police were in shambles. Unable to get their weekly wages with any regularity, those few police officers who did show up for work often communicated their anger by arriving in civilian clothes. They would go out on patrol in rusty Suburbans, with a dozen or so of them packed into the lumbering truck, the barrels of their sidearms pointed out the windows.
After nearly two weeks of patrols and visits to aid projects, it was hard not to feel despondent. The country was barely functioning. There was no reliable provision of water or electricity. Garbage had been left unattended for so long in Port-au-Prince streets, it was not unusual to find entire streets blocked off by metres-high mounds of rotting waste. I was with Canadian peacekeepers when they swept inner-city parks for preying pedophiles, or patrolling the cemeteries where the more desperate among the homeless sometimes moved into crypts that had been emptied by grave robbers.
I have often replayed those images as Haiti moved from one political and economic crisis to another. And while there have been some improvements in health care, education and the economy, the pace of progress seems out of step with the magnitude of the investment by foreign nations.

It is mostly true Haiti has been hurt as much as it has been helped by our best efforts to fix it. From the indiscriminate kindness of countries like Canada, to the more self-interested meddling of the United States, Haiti is a product of all that is good and bad about humanitarian aid.

If there is hope to be found in this horrible disaster, it is the suggestion an event like this is an opportunity to rebuild the country from the ground up. The big question facing the world is what authority will oversee this reconstruction. Haitian President Rene Preval's administration seems woefully unprepared to undertake a campaign of this magnitude. In Washington, there is talk of "a receivership" that might put the reconstruction efforts in the hand of an as-yet unidentified international organization, or coalition of organizations. Canadians familiar with the concept of "co-management" of First Nations know stripping an afflicted people of self-determination is a desperate measure that has no immediate prospect for lasting success.

There will be money, and there will be good intentions. Two trips to Haiti, 14 years apart, suggest to one observer this is the best, but perhaps last, chance for the world to make it right.

dan.lett@shaw.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 8, 2010 A

From Parish Twinning Program

Dear All,

First of all, I want to impart to you a thought to promote in the media or any avenue you might have that would impact the rebuilding of Haiti.

As I'm sure you agree this tragedy has just defied all comprehension. I pray that out of the destruction and suffering some good will come to Haiti -- and that with the exodus of people from PAP, the world will focus on rebuilding the heart of Haiti -- the rural areas. Just think of the possibilities if roads, water, electricity, schools and medical facilities could be brought to those who have suffered the most (for centuries) in Haiti. With the infrastructure in place, the businesses and jobs will come. Give the government a temporary space to operate while funneling funds to all the exterior outreaches of Haiti. Give even more Haitians a reason to stay in their original homes instead of migrating to the big city. We need to demand that the people in the rural areas not be forgotten.

Secondly, I would like to encourage all of you to make an effort to approach a neighboring parish, a parish of a family member in another state, or a parish that you think would be receptive to reaching out to Haiti in order to twin with a parish in Haiti. If you have anyone interested, please contact me and I will send them information. I'm receiving a lot of requests from priests as many families and individuals from Port-au-Prince return to their former communities and are in need of food, water and shelter.

SEA CONTAINER: We are still planning the April Sea container with the collection times from Monday, April 19 to Friday, April 30. We will soon be mailing out the information with a notice that if we run into complications with the port, customs or government offices, we will notify you. Domond, our Coordinator in Haiti, says that his does not currently don't know the status of the Ministry of Planification, however, the military is presently reconstructing the Ministry of Finance and customs has established offices at the airport.

FONKOZE: Fonkoze in PAP is now operating and you can safely send your checks to City National Bank, c/o Sabrina Brice, 382 125th Street, New York, NY 10027. They are temporarily waiving the $10.00 deposit fee. If you are sending a large amount to your sister parish, the pastor may not be able to withdraw all of the funds at once. However, he can eventually obtain all of the funds with a second or third trip to the bank.

MATTHEW 25 HOUSE: For those of you who may not have received a recent announcement from Pat Tortora at Matthew 25 House, he has forwarded some
information regarding your questions and concerns about your parish or medical visits to Haiti, the status of the house and accommodating guests.

Many of you have been so generous in supporting the post-earthquake work at Matthew 25 and in your offer to help us renovate, rebuild or move Matthew 25 if necessary. We thank you for that and ask that you keep us in mind as you share your donations. Matthew 25 House accommodated over 2200 people last year and in order for us to continue to offer hospitality and many other services to you, we may need you help. We attempting to locate the owner so that we can make a decision as soon as possible on the future of Matthew 25. When we do have more information, we will share it with you.

Our deep gratitude to all of you for your concern and generous gifts to PTPA & Matthew 25 House.

Blessings,

Theresa Patterson
Executive Director
Parish Twinning Program

Haitian Proverb

Little by little, the bird builds its nest.
Piti, piti,wazo fe niche li.

Recently ran across the report on CARE's project in the Gros Morne area at:

http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACN808.pdf