August 29, 2021 - "Our Sister Parish in Haiti"

Haiti is struggling to recover from the earthquake followed by Tropical Storm Grace.  This has aggravated the devastation and long-standing civil unrest in the country.  The people of Haiti will no doubt see ongoing hardship in the weeks ahead as they begin recovery and rebuilding efforts.  On August 20, 2022, Archbishop José H. Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has sent a letter to all bishops in the United States to ask them to consider taking up a voluntary special collection in their dioceses for the Bishops Emergency Fund.
 
I want to provide an update on our sister parish, Conversion of Saint Paul.  Global Health Teams, which has partnered with St. Francis of Assisi Parish for more than two decades in assisting the people of our sister parish, is working on a program of distributing food (bagged beans/rice) to people in the greater Leon area.
 
We have also recently received a report from Bishop Decoste about the status of all fifty-five parishes in the Jeremie Diocese.   The report covered the churches, schools, clinics, rectories, and villages themselves in the diocese.  Here is what the diocesan report says about our sister parish.  There are no observable damages to the parish church which is undergoing full reconstruction.  The school received serious damage from the earthquake and will need to be repaired.  The clinic also received serious damage and will also need to be repaired.  Finally, the rectory also received serious damage and will need to be repaired.  In the village of Leon proper many people lost their houses because of the earthquake.  These houses will need to be rebuilt.  The houses of other people were damaged in the earthquake and will need to be repaired.  Global Health Teams is planning on undertaking an inspection of the clinic as soon as this is feasible.  From their own initial investigation, the damage to the clinic did not appear to be grave.
 
This week we have envelopes in the pew pockets and by the doors of the church that you will be able to use if you want to make a donation toward disaster relief in Haiti.  If you wish to use one of the envelopes that we will provide this weekend, please make out any checks to St. Francis of Assisi Church with the notation Haiti Earthquake Disaster Relief on the memo line of the check.  We continue to keep the people of Haiti, particularly the people of the Diocese of Jeremie, in our prayers.
 
Until next week,
Fr. John