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We share this newsletter written by Fr. Medard Laz with you, because you have supported our efforts in reaching out to the needy in Haiti. Thank you! Fr. Laz has been working with Odette Morency,OSSM and her daughter, Carole, to do some fund-raising in support of Infant Jesus School. Please read the information that he writes about the present conditions of Haiti. Let us remember to pray always for the continual uplifting and renewal of our sisters and brothers in Haiti.
I confess that I like to channel surf all the TV stations during the evening national news programs. Tonight the top four stories that made all the channels were: The Gulf oil spill, the bombings in Uganda, the need to now check the cholesterol levels of our children due to child obesity, and the six-month anniversary of the January 12th earthquake in Haiti. The last two stories struck me as a dichotomy – Our children in the States are suffering from high cholesterol while the children in Haiti are lucky to find a mud cookie like I have sitting here next to my computer keyboard. The mud cookie sits here to remind me how good I really have it every day and how others struggle to put any kind of food in their mouths.
With today being the six-month anniversary of the 6.2 earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12th where 300,000 people died in 35 seconds, the newspapers and the media have run stories about what has happened since then. The stories uniformly admit that one and a half million people are living in tent cities or more especially – cities of bed sheets, tarps, and sticks. All report that the temperature under the tents, tarps, and sheets is 140 sweltering degrees. We are shown the strings of shacks built right down the center of a major road in Port au Prince.
Security is a major issue. There have been many rapes. Taking care of basic bodily functions is an ongoing concern. Although there have not been any widespread outbrakes of illness, there are still a lot of very sick people, young and old. But thanks to dedicated medical personnel from around the world, people who are really sick or who have lost limbs are mostly being cared for.
We learn that the government is still in disarray and has not come up with a comprehensive plan. A major problem is the rubble that is everywhere, rubble that is 100 times the amount of the Twin Towers collapse. Yet two million people are trying to survive in the midst of all the rubble.
When the heavy rains come as they so often do, the city takes on dimensions of biblical proportions. A million and a half people become helpless to the mud, the garbage, the insects, the odors, the diseases, and the rubble all around them. There is no escape. They are prisoners.
In my channel surfing with today’s evening news, I found a number of Haitians who touched a nerve. They said that it is only their faith that has kept them going. They are in a living hell with no one but God to go to and to lean on. Several commentators were amazed at how people had not lost hope, even though the cameras have been turned off for five months and most of the money pledged by the nations of the world has not arrived.
The people of Haiti are a remarkable people. As life gets tougher and tougher they turn more and more to God, not to escape reality, but to go beyond the harshness of life in front of them in order to reach Ultimate Reality.
I will never forget my first trip to Haiti. I was at the airport in Port au Prince standing next to a young couple from West Palm Beach. As we were about to walk to board the plane back to Florida, the husband blurted out: “Before I came here, I thought I had so much. But after my week here, I’ve discovered that these people who have next to nothing materially, have so much more than I will ever have.”
Father Med Laz |
Haiti:"...people who have much more than I..."posted Jul 14, 2010 5:15 PM by secular servite |
