A Visit With Joan

Thanks to the hospitality of George and Jo James, we were once again honored with a visit from Joan Martin on December 17 and 18. At dinner Wednesday evening, she shared many stories and told of current happenings in Gaspard. She met with the school children on Thursday morning, told them about Haiti and answered many questions -- about herself, Haiti, Jesus -- and listened to the children's stories, as well.

Joan's hometown is Rockport, IN, a small town on the Ohio River in Spencer County. In the Evansville Diocese, St. Bernard in Rockport also supports St. Therese. Joan spends much of her time in the US visiting parishes which supoort Haitian parishes in the Diocese of Port-de-Paix. Joan's parish in Tuscon, Arizona, Our Mother of Sorrows (where she lived and taught for many years) twins with St. François of Assisi Parish in Bombardopolis. They have a beautiful Haiti page on their website, which can be found here; the following is from that site:

Joan lives in Port-de-Paix with an order of Haitian nuns, the Daughters of Wisdom. The Daughters of Wisdom is an order devoted to hospital work and the poor, founded by St. Louis de Montfort in 1703.

Joan’s first connections with Haiti were through The Haiti Parish Twinning Program. This program is the largest citizen-to-citizen network linking Haiti and the United States and Canada. It facilitates and supports linkages, or twinning of parishes, mostly but not entirely Catholic parishes, in North America with parishes in Haiti. The program today includes more than 290 twinnings. Twinned parishes provide experience that raises the consciousness of both North American and Haitian participants, and provides for direct relationships and avenues of aid without bureaucracy or middlemen or deductions for salaries or overhead. The contact for the Haiti Parish Twinning Program is Theresa Patterson, 208 Leake Avenue, Nashville, Tennessee 37205, phone: (615) 356-5999.

Peace.

Change Haiti

Bring in your change this weekend, December 6 and 7.

Peace

3rd Picture set

This is the third (and last) set.

1. By Monday, it had been raining for 7 days straight. Since Gaspard doesn't have much other entertainment, Titise and Rodrigue, the two helpers, spent a lot of time playing cards. The clothes pins on Titise's ears mean that he is losing.

2. When Fr. Phechner went to visit his father in early October, he visited a local family. The mother had just died of cancer, leaving 10 children---and the father is dying also. It was decided that the children would have to find someone else to live with. Jean Ronel, age 14, ended up going to Gaspard with Fr. Phechner.

3. Fr. Phechner is trying to renovate the parish hall. It serves as the government school in the morning; as the classroom for the St. Therese Parish 7th and 8th grade classes; and as the meeting hall for the church on the weekends. He has enough money to finish the walls, but not the roof or the floor. All building materials (cement, sand, rebar, nails, wood) have come up the mountain on someone's head or on a mule.

4. The upper classroom of the parish hall. No one comes to school when it rains; but nothing can be left in the open room, because it will be destroyed by the water or stolen by the hungry.

What courage, hope, faith, community.......

More pictures from Joan

Set 2 of photos:
1. Madame Antonio and her oldest and youngest daughters (she has 5 girls) inside their house. Baby Nika, 6 months old, was born about a month after her father died of typhoid/malaria. Madame Antonio's mother and father, who are both unable to walk, also live with them. There was absolutely nothing but the tub to bathe the baby in the big entry room. But the dirt floor was well-swept.

2. Madame Antonio outside their house.

3. The local bakery, severely damaged by the September hurricanes, is no longer functioning; so Gaspard no longer has bread.

4. Fr. Phechner and the adult literacy program group--a project of Bishop Paulo. The 5 Gaspard centers had 79 participants; 78 received a passing final grade.

A Recent Note from Joan Martin

These are some photos from my recent visit to St. Therese parish in the mountain village of Gaspard. We were supposed to go up on Wed. Nov. 19, but Fr. Phechner had gone to visit his father who is sick, and the heavy rains caused Trois Rivieres to flood (again). Fr. Phechner was stranded on the other side for 2 days. He was able to cross on Friday, and we finally set off for Gaspard about noon. The road was very muddy and slippery, but we made it to TiQuoin, the drop-off point, about 2 PM. Mr. and Mrs Adlee and their new baby, Max Allen, had come with us from PdPaix. Our concern was that the threatening rain would start again as we were making the 2 hour hike to Gaspard. We arrived in front of St. Therese Church at 4 PM, and two minutes later, the rain began----and continued for 4 days, almost non-stop.

A visit to Gaspard always generates feelings of amazement and awe in my heart---to see what the priest and the people can do when they work together in such very difficult circumstances. Fr Kerny began the work, and Fr. Phechner is continuing.

1. Fr. Phechner standing by his pick-up after reaching TiQuoin. Baby Max and his mother are waiting patiently.
2. Loading the mule for the 2 hour hike.
3. Fr. Phechner standing by the newly-stuccoed church wall.
4. Fr. Phechner celebrating the Mass of Christ the King. Even with the heavy rain and mud, there were about 200 people who came to the Mass

Beginnings

This blog has been established to help keep the St. Ambrose/Our Lady of Providence parish communities updated on our sister parish, St. Therese of the Little Flower, Gaspard, Haiti.

Peace