Dear Friends,
It is with great satisfaction and gratitude, that in the first days of 2012 we will celebrate a quarter century of faith based work in Haiti, and so begin enthusiastically our 26th year of dedication.
Anyone who visits us in Haiti can see how much has been achieved by our twin programs, Nos Petits Freres et Soeurs, and the S.t Luke Mission. We have created jobs (1,600 people work in our programs). All these jobs are aimed at benefiting the marginalized poor, especially women and children. All of the programs have Haitian leaders. We work both on front lines of poverty (front line clinics, relief work, and front line schools), and yet we have also developed important institutions in Haiti that introduce new possibilities in healthcare, rehabilitation and education, and new kinds of jobs (neurosurgery, digital radiology, cancer care, to name a few).
We have developed production and training centers, which bring increasingly more income to our mission. We do extensive community work, including neighborhood development, and extensive relief work. We continue our huge work with orphans and vulnerable children. We reach for the stars, offering computer based learning to very poor students, and superior high school and university education. We invest our blood, sweat and tears, moving forward on a wing and a prayer.
For these many years I have kept you updated on our progress with reflections that are very human and also gospel based. They have included thanks for sharing in our work with your donations and sacrifices.
Because our works are so important, because we have come so far in 25 years and can go much further, and because of the financial crises in the developed world, I have become more forward in suggesting ways you can help. I hope you understand that I do this without the slightest doubt in the goodness and the power of Providence, and without in any way wanting to commercialize our work. We just don’t want to lose the lifesaving ground we have gained over many years.
Of the past 25 years, both 2010 and 2011 have been singularly years of bridge building. Haiti has been laid low by earthquake and cholera, and the persistence of grueling poverty. Thanks to your generous help and our strong Haitian team, we’ve been working day in and day to build bridges of light and hope, of friendship and solidarity, traversing deep valleys of sorrow and hardship.
Many years ago, when I visited London, I was amused by a recorded message played whenever the subway door opened. In order to help you step safely into the train, the voice said, “Mind the gap!”
I remember thinking to myself: in fact, I do mind the gap. I mind the gap between homelessness and having a home, between sickness and healing, between ignorance and enlightenment, between humiliation and dignity. I mind the gap between doubt and faith, between apathy and action. I mind the many gaps that perpetuate suffering.
And so a motto emerged. “If not me, who? If not now, when?”
Better said, “if not us, who? If not now, when?”
The immense team of the St. Luke Foundation sets out daily to fill gaps between need and hope. We have built 50 houses for those left homeless by the earthquake. We set up a field hospital that has cared for the victims of cholera when that disease was brought into Haiti, and spread like wildfire. (We have cared for 20,000 people there to date, patients who came from near and far, in pickup trucks and in wheelbarrows, fighting a disease that kills in a matter of hours; up to 50% of whom would have died without help.)
Our school system includes 28 schools, including a school for special needs children and a fabulous secondary school. There are 8,000 children who are able to study every day thanks to these schools.
On several occasions throughout the year, because of labor disputes at some hospitals, and the lack of facilities never rebuilt since the earthquake, we were obliged to receive scores of people with traumatic injuries and other desperate emergencies. Unable to ignore this gaping suffering, we ramped up our services and created a state of the art ER and ICU, and two other field hospitals. We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on life saving surgeries. We built the St. Luke field hospital in Tabarre, to care for whole families.
Many of the people who come to us for help become fast friends. An example is Marie Ginie, a 16 year old girl who saved her brother’s life by protecting him as a cement wall was brought down by a storm. These walls were weak, hastily rebuilt after the earthquake destroyed their home. The resulting gap in Marie Ginie’s life was enormous. She was paralyzed below the waist and needed orthopedic surgery. No one in Haiti could perform the surgery. She had no house to go home to. The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, and our St. Luke crew stepped up to the plate and she had surgery and physical therapy at Mayo Clinic. With the help of some generous donors, we were also able to help build a house for her to return to.
And now, thanks to many donors, the St. Luke Team built a field hospital called St Mary, Star of the Sea. It is in Cite Soleil, infamous as being one of the worst “slums” on earth. However after working there for years, St. Luke’s has the trust of the community, and knows that together we can help close the gap of poverty there. St. Mary’s is almost finished and it’s needed now more than ever. The trauma services at a nearby hospital, which previously served the sprawling shantytowns of Cite Soleil, closed permanently on the 15th of December. The gap created by lack of access to healthcare was already enormous, now it’s grown even larger. Challenge after challenge, the St Luke team courageously steps up to the plate and tries to make a difference, working to close the gap.
And so as we open St Mary’s to serve the people of Cite Soleil, we write to ask for your help. A donation will help us reach yet another important milestone, together with the people of Haiti.
If you can, please help us close the gap. If you can’t, maybe you can pass this message on to a friend. This way of requesting help makes it possible for the St. Luke Foundation to have no paid staff in the USA, so that 100% of donations go directly to Haiti to the mission.
It’s a challenge, but not an impossible task. We go forward in confidence, and hope.
I send this with best wishes for a happy new year, and pray for strength and blessing for you and your families!
Fr. Rick and Fr. Robert Joerger, C.P. at Cholera distribution center in Haiti
Fr. Rick Frechette, CP, DO
Port au Prince
December 29, 2011
Please consider a donation to help Fr. Rick in his ministry to the people of Haiti: Please make checks payable to PASSIONIST MISSIONARIES.
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“Among the many Apostolates sanctioned by our Constitutions, the preaching of parish missions and spiritual exercises remains our special and central activity.” – Paragraph 70 of our Passionist Constitutions.
