St. Mark’s in Mystic partnered with St. Luc’s Church and School in Mercery, Haiti, in 2003 through our contact with the priest in charge there, the Rev. Kerwin Delicat. Two moments from our trip to Haiti in 2009 provide touchstones for the joy, pain and hope of partnership in Christ.
We spent some time one morning at a hospital for children. Our task was just to hold babies, to give them with some cuddle time the nursing staff was too harried to provide. I started by picking up Kimberlee, a skinny 18-month-old with big, brown eyes you could drown in. We strolled the hall for a while, until I thought it was time to move on to another child.
Kimberlee, however, thought differently and cried mightily when I put her down. So I picked her up again and began the pattern of holding, trying to put her down, her crying, and me picking her up again that went on until the nurses told us our time was up.
I put Kimberlee into her crib and walked away from the tear-filled eyes and throaty crying. But even in the next room I could hear her cry: even in the parking lot, even on the plane ride home, and even today.
The other moment was the celebration of the Feast of St. Luke at our partner parish in Mercery, near Leogane. Th e small church was filled, not only with people, but with music and joy and a fullness of Spirit that was close to palpable. We were given places of honor among the community, and our feeble attempt at a Kreyòl greeting was met with thunderous applause. In the Eucharist and at the feast that followed, we knew that even though we did not speak the language, even though we were seriously underdressed, and even though we had a long plane ride ahead of us, we were truly home.
Like Connecticut, Haiti is a Diocese of the Episcopal Church. It is our most populous diocese, with about 80,000 people, and it is our poorest.
Its Cathedral in Port-au-Prince was a cultural center for the nation, a place of pride and beauty for all Haitians.
In 35 seconds on Jan. 12, 2010, it fell.
People still flocked to its grounds and its ruins for food and shelter. Absent a working government, the church has always been a place to find schools, clinics, and other social services we take for granted. And thanks to Episcopal Relief and Development, as well as many other agencies and churches, the Bishop, school staff, and sisters of St. Margaret, were able to off er short-term employment, provisional homes, and sanitation systems in addition to other community-focus recovery programs.
Even in the midst of the deep human need and suffering in Haiti, the people seek to worship God together. And while there are agencies who will rebuild schools and clinics, only the church will rebuild a church. Please join in supporting the rebuilding of the Cathedral complex in Port-au-Prince by making a donation this Lent.
“Rebuilding Trinity Cathedral will do more than raise up bricks and cement. It will raise the hopes of a people who have lost so much of their earthly habitation. It will raise the Spirit of a community made weary, ...inspire the minds and hearts of the young men and women who knew Trinity as their intellectual and artistic home [and] serve as a beacon and shelter for literally thousands who are rebuilding their lives with little more than hope and prayers.
--Bishop Duracin, Bishop of Haiti
Nou ave’ou! - We’re with you!
This appeal in the Diocese of Connecticut is part of an Episcopal Church-wide appeal this Lent coordinated by the Episcopal Church Foundation. In Connecticut organizers are asking that donations be made to the local parish, which will then forward them. For more information see the “Rebuild our Church in Haiti” page on the diocesan website, www.ctepiscopal.org. The Rev. Rachel Thomas is the coordinator of the appeal for the Diocese of Connecticut. Contact her at rwthomas55@att.net.
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