Fr. Frechette has been writing regular updates from Haiti since the earthquake on August 14th. What follows are his two latest missives, starting with his most recent, which is marked by an undeniable urgency. His earlier update has an up ending that should give readers a genuine lift since Fr. Frechette’s good faith is the opposite of beamishness. His invocations of viridians in that first note made your editor think of Lorca’s Gypsy Ballad:
Green, how I want you green
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.
Maybe “Romance Sonámbulo” isn’t quite apt for a priest, but Fr. Frechette is large (and Lorca’s mountains and sea seem right for Haiti). Fr. Frechette may not be forever young but he is surely unwithered.
Sept 14, 2021
Dear family and friends,
The last weekly update I sent was a strong attempt on my part to find a silver lining in many dark clouds.
I had hardly pushed the “send” button when another thunderhead roared at us, and threw lightening in all directions.
Marie Ange was kidnapped from our NPFS home for children called St Anne, the community made up of both disabled children and very small fully abled children.
Gunmen came over the wall, made their way across the roof of the pigpen (where we raise the pre-Duvalier era Creole pig, to try to reintroduce it to the peasant farmers), and climbed down the ladder used for reaching the cisterns where we reuse water from our Tilapia farm to irrigate the fields.
It was 3 am.
They broke into the house with guns and “covid” masks (there eyes and upper faces were plainly visible), they terrorized the staff and children, and left with the pregnant Marie Ange–she also climbing up the same ladder at gunpoint, her feet like drumbeats on the roof over the heads of the pigs, and then down the wall.
This is how bad things have gotten. We sat together in the pre-dawn hours trying to bring some consolation to everyone who was reeling, especially the children who were witnesses, and our dialogue was a pouring over the questions of how this could happen, how was it planned, who was involved, how will we save Marie Ange, and what will we do next for these children.
Maybe you have had the experience that sometimes helping suffering people (like earthquake victims), is an excellent distraction from your own problems. Somehow the chemistry of what you are personally dealing with changes, when you lend a hand to someone else in need. This ancient practice of compassion for others from your own base of suffering brings both distance and healing.
And so we mobilized our next trip to the earthquake victims, staying tied together by phone and whatsapp, re-igniting our public protests and mobilizing again very high level actors to help Marie Ange.
We regrouped after every call from the kidnappers- but we did not forget the mountain people, who were spending miserable nights in cold rains.
As I have said before, numerous St Luke team are quite engaged daily in the south for the victims: the healthcare teams are expanded, and outreach is in progress to all affected families at the St Luke schools that we have along the fault line, with a lot of material help.
In the mountains above Petite Riviere de Nippes there are people who cannot be reached except on foot or mule.
We had a rendez-vous with a number of these people, and their mules, in Petite Riviere.
It was a long trip for them on mountain paths, and a long drive for us requiring, once again, the crossing of Martissant.
We had a number of tents for the people of the mountain. We have been avoiding tents and tarps, but it is not easy tying 12 foot aluminum sheets (which become guillotines if you lose control of them) onto mule backs, and harder still to tie 16 foot lengths of 2×4′ lumber.
Each tent is comprised of three large, heavy boxes.
We also had blankets, soap, and some clothing. Quite a load for a mule.
Our meeting point was the police station at Petite Riviere, to try to have a non-chaotic distribution, and the police were very nervous that bandits would appear at any moment and outnumber them.
It would have been easy to outnumber them: the police numbered two.
We had begun loading the mules, while at the same time we started our underground strategies to release Marie Ange (the public strategies were well in motion, including high level advice and important contacts from the US Embassy and good cooperation from the Haitian Judicial police.)
The ransom was very high at US $100,000. We are, of course, known to have international funding sources.
Without being free to reveal too much, the underground strategies included involving a local vodou hougan of high rank, where some of the gang members attend ceremonies and dances, and so were known to him. He offered to include in the dances that night (in honor of a vodou “loa”), an order for liberation. Most of the vodou feasts parallel Catholic feasts, in this case, the September 8 celebration of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary.
We have a number of staff, even key staff, who grew up in the ghettos but never adopted the criminal behavior young people are forced into. They know all the language, the mentality, and they have the tools of ghetto survival–so they can walk straight into it all, but with a different heart.
“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. So be as cunning as serpents and as innocent as doves.” (Mt 10:16)
Raphael is a total pro at this. He somehow managed to have a speaker phone meeting with the hierarchy of the kidnappers. They are a large, fierce, heavily armed gang called 400 Mawozo,
After a lot of twists and turns in the dialogue, (Kenson was introduced by Raphael into this unpleasant reality–so much so that Kenson later referred himself as the 401st mawozo, the one who would fight for the right among them), and by hooking what is left of their humanity, they agreed to release Marie Ange the next day, Feast of the Nativity of Mary, for no ransom. And they did.
Not only that, but Raphael and Kenson went into their territory to get her, as I waited on the dark and deserted road at the Tabarre bridge. Marie Ange was led out blind folded, and cried mightily when her mask was removed and she was in Kenson’s embrace. They gave Raphael the phones they had stolen from NPFS staff, and the guns and phones they had stolen from the NPFS security. They told Raphael they will give him the phone numbers of the contacts of the insiders who were the so called “antennas” that enabled this kidnapping. All of this highly unusual. These are important inroads for us.
Raphael handed them an envelope. Even though they asked no ransom, Raphael thought it was advisable to give them some money, a “gesture,” for reasons I can explain at a better and safer time. To avoid involving the two institutions in this (St Luke Foundation and NPH), I gave this money from earnings made by selling home made chocolate, hand roasted coffee, fresh milled sugar cane juice, tilapia, and honey from our hives.
Back for a moment to the distraction of being good neighbors.
When we loaded all the mules and they headed clumsily up the mountain, and we finished distributing to other people proposed by the local leaders, we went to Grande Ravine to see the Curé of the Catholic Parish, who I have known for many years since he was once the Curé of Kenscoff where our “St Helene” children’s home is located. He showed us his fallen school and cracked Church, and told us about the 18 who died, members of his mountain chapels, as rolling boulders and sliding earth swallowed them alive while hard at work in their gardens.
May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace.
One of our next planned tasks now is to try to set up a temporary parish school in Grande Ravine so the kids can get back to school by the end of September.
When Raphael, Kenson and Marie Ange reached the Tabarre bridge, and I embraced Marie Ange, I could feel the the contradiction inherent in a moment of “freedom.” The body is free but has rigidly encoded the experience of bondage, the heart and soul are not yet free, and this freedom will be hard won. The release is hardly the ‘happily ever after” part of the story. The tougher part is just beginning, for everyone involved.
These updates would be easier if I just reported that in the 4 weeks since the earthquake we invested over a quarter of a million dollars (of your money!) to help our suffering neighbors, through attention to their medical needs, provisions for daily living, and in getting a roof over their heads. This is all thanks to you.
But I see a lot of importance in sharing with you these life lessons also, and not just presenting power point summaries.
It is important to witness to the power of faith, and to share the strategies that both free those in literal human bondage, as well as to lift up those who have been crushed by tragedy yet again.
The field of neuroscience is crossing a whole new threshold of fascinating discoveries, altering tremendously our understanding of the brain, the mind, and thereby offering new cures for the traumatized brain.
We had been taught forever that the brain is fully developed at the end of puberty and could not change, except for a downward degeneration (accident, illness, age).
Now it is very evident that the brain changes often. Very often. Science can show this. And you and I show it. Reactions to life events, both agonies and ecstasies, provoke first chemical changes, then structural changes, then functional changes in the brain that tremendously impact our thinking, feeling and behavior.
The bad news is that the brain is physically, negatively changed by trauma and tragedy, by substance abuse, by physical abuse, verbal abuse, abuse of authority and bullying.
The “mind” is changed as well.
Continual stress (even from watching the news) causes real changes of “your mind.” The area of your brain that induces a healthy fear becomes hyper stimulated first chemically, then physically, then functionally until you live with dread.
At the same time, that part of your brain that analyzes what provokes your fear, that keeps you focused, judges correctly, and helps you learn how to adapt, becomes dulled, atrophied–to the detriment of your rational capacities. Over time, your brain may literally shrink.
Like yourselves who must confront so many personal, national and global issues, people here in Haiti–including our leaders–are brought low by the constant threats to life, and the enormous stress of each blow.
Fear becomes highly energized, takes on its own life, feeds on your dreams, and has its untoward affects on the brain, the mind.
As if it weren’t bad enough to be confronting bad things during waking hours, more and more staff are reporting nightmares: the daily reality breaks into their nightly imaginings and disturbs any hope for a good rest.
I mentioned that neuroscience is proposing new therapies.
But let’s not forget the old ones.
There is ancient human wisdom to draw on at these times, from religious and secular realms.
What helps?
Prayer, fasting, caring for your neighbor by sacrificing something of yourself (like half your sandwich).
What helps?
Seeking out beauty every day- in children, in nature, in music, in treasured friends, in creating something from nothing.
Do this deliberately.
What helps?
Thinking good things, speaking good things, doing good things even to your enemy, even to yourself (for most of us, we are our own worst enemies).
What helps?
Seeking silence, breathing deeply, cultivating gratitude, cultivating grateful, mindful awareness of everything within you and around you.
What helps believers?
Doing all these while staying centered in God, in whom we live and move and have our being.
Stress will not be going away soon, if at all. There are ways to offset it.
St Paul calls the way “metanoia,” literally meaning, “change your mind.”
With right living, right thinking, right praying, here is the promise from the Psalms:
“He (she) is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
And all that he (she) does shall prosper.” (Ps 1:1-6)
Thanks for you continued support, and continued prayers. Count on ours for you, too, in the face of your many challenges.
September 7, 2021
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who bring good tidings.” (Is 52:7)
Dear family and friends,
For one or two weeks more I will write out these updates.
The St Luke team is doing huge work, and there are updates on the stlukehaiti.org website.
These particular messages are the work of my own team. The work is tough and requires a lot of rough driving, loading, carrying, walking, visiting people, listening to their challenges, and practical help.
I am sorry there are always errors in my text, but it shows I don’t have a ghostwriter! There is jut not a lot of time to write carefully.
I wrote last week about “Stainess,” who was riddled with seven bullets. Thankfully, they are all flesh injuries–no bones, vessels or organs–and most of then in his legs.
He is home from the hospital, and we sent him a good pair of crutches that just came in a container–and he is starting to walk again
Also from last week’s message, I am glad to report that Benicia was released unharmed by her kidnappers. She came to tell me about the ordeal.
A story about how she was suddenly taken from the street, becoming an object for barter, her personhood counting for nothing, and being totally dependent on criminals she could not see with her banded eyes, or feel with her bound hands, and whose voices were unknown to her.
Alone, unless they came to her briefly to offer water or rice (she always refused strongly to accept anything from their hands), at one point they said to her, “Your brother (he was the negotiator) told us you mean nothing to the family, and that we should just kill you and throw your corpse on a heap of rotting garbage.”
Benicia did not believe this, but acting fast she responded, “So, that means I have no family. Maybe you need to be my family, and show that you care for me by letting me go.”
They came again then next day and said, “Who are you, anyway? All radios are demanding your release, all social media are bursting about you, you have closed two hospitals, even the employees and sick kids are demonstrating on the street for your release. You are a hot potato in our hands, we might have to let you go for free. Who are you?”
Benecia said, “I don’t believe you about my brother, but I do believe you about the media. Who am I? I am someone who belongs to the two families of Nos Petits Freres et Soeurs, and St Luke Foundation. We care about each other, we are not just employees. We are all important to each other and we will stand up for each other.”
She said they were astounded. She was released the next day, but after she spoke she was offered juice and rice.
“Please eat this. Please drink this. We want you to return your family and friends strong.”
There is an Irish prayer I heard once a long time ago:
“May those who love us, love us;
And for those who don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts;
And if He doesn’t turn their hearts,
May He turn their ankles,
So we will know them by their limping.”
+++++++
Here is more good news.
After a week of working out details of lengths, widths, and weights of materials, and longitudes, latitudes, and weather patterns, and thanks to US Ambassador to Haiti and USAID, we were able to finally get the 500 aluminum roofing sheets, along with hammers, saws, and nails helicoptered to the people living in the shadow of Peak Makaya, in Pourcine, which I wrote about last time. USAID and Haitian Civil Protection doubled our load by adding equivalent weight in food, blankets, and other kits full of necessary personal items.
Dr Adrienne, who was the one who advocated to us for the community, was on the helicopter flight for the great homecoming. It turns out that taking a helicopter ride was also on her “bucket list”, so that was an element of fun for her. We will sure return to that mountain community when the mudslides are dug through, especially trying to restock their animals and replant the farms.
As last week galloped along, by Thursday we had loaded a caravan of 5 vehicles to head to the south again. We were delayed because of total bedlam in Martissant again, and barricades made of containers on the main roads through the markets on Grand Rue and at Croix des Bossales. We finally made it through, and we made a number of stops, including delivering the medicines for our various clinics in the south for the month of September, and restocking our various teams working in communities hit hard by the earthquake.
We also brought supplies to Dr Rivette in the hills beyond Cavaillon, and tons of iron and aluminum (and all of our welding equipment), and in two days built a huge area for her to hold her clinics (including 30 simple beds, which we also brought in the caravan.). Dr Rivette is an Emergency Medicine physician, native of Cavaillon, and has been attending the people in her hometown as she has best been able, considering her low level of supplies, and the fact that she was mourning one of her children killed in the quake. It will be an important structure for the community, and I hope the video is posted on the St Luke site of the jubilant community when the last blinding sparks of the welder turned cold.
We went on to Les Cayes and we slept at our favorite Inn–the courtyard of the Missionaries of Charity, again under the stars. This time we all had mosquito nets. The Sisters had brought their many patients back inside after three weeks of everyone sleeping in the courtyard. The reason was sickness seemed to be increasing among the disabled children, a few had symptoms of fever and mucous buildup, and one had died.
We went with the Sisters to check on Marie, the one they were currently worried about. Marie was laying on her side, her spine sharply arched backwards from previous meningitis, her head abnormally large from hydrocephalus.
Bhavesh and I did what doctors do: looked in her throat, checked her oxygen saturation, checked her temperature, listened to her chest, and hypothesize about the probable causes (Covid in the immuno-depressed was on the list of possibilities). That’s what doctors do.
One of the Sisters did what mothers do. She bent low to her ear, called her name, started singing to her a song about another Marie (Jesus’ mother). Sister said she would not stop singing until Marie smiled again, as she always done when this song is sung to her with such love. I saw half of her mouth curl upwards and thought this is amazing. Sister said, “it’s not her full smile” and kept going until there appeared a warm, wide grin.
St Hildegard of Bingen, a mystic physician and Doctor of the Church, would say that Sister elicited the most important of the vital signs, called viridans. “Greenness.” How much life force is still evident.
This isn’t solicited by a gadget in the ear or clipped onto the fingertips or held against the back while you are ordered to breathe.
You have to cross an abyss to elicit viridans. Hearts and souls have to meet across the divide of the sickness.
Having done what doctors do and what mothers do, we now turned to what priests do: we offered our prayers of blessing and intercession fo Marie.
We went on from there to purchase and load more roofing materials in Les Cayes, enough for another 20 families, which we delivered within Les Cayes, then in Picot and in Maniche.
We went to Picot to fulfill my promise to the student there from our Academy for Peace and Justice. Like Benicia, he gets it. We really care.
He beamed as we delivered the materials, and his small community helped us unload.
The funeral of those who died in the peristil (as I mentioned last week) was being celebrated just over the hill.
As we left, I said to Pierre Louis, “Here is a little out-of-school lesson. You see I came back, as I said I would? Let your yes always be yes, and if you can’t say yes, have the courage and humility to say no. You will always be respected for your golden word.”
Finally, when we went to Maniche to deliver other promised roofing. We were treated royally to mountain coffee, fresh pineapples, spaghetti with sardines, and “tomtom” offered by people who were still up to their ankles in rubble. We started plans with the Curé (Pastor of the fallen Catholic church) gor doing at the church what we did in Cavaillon, making enough of a solid shelter to be able to resume the sacramental life of the parish. Even alb, stole, chalice and linens are needed–all is lost.
There is a Spanish Passionist priest visiting us at the moment for three months, Fr Juliano. He has been a missionary in Honduras, Peru and Chile. He asked to come on this caravan trip, and he later confided to me that we we returned he was only able to sleep from exhaustion, otherwise sadness would have kept him from sleeping.
His view was that all these small helps to individual people and communities is so little. It is evident that the destruction is so very vast. He is surprised and shocked there is not a huge international effort to to help all these poor people, especially the ones in the rural mountains.
He is totally right. In fact, Cardinal Chibly of Les Cayes said practically the same thing today in an interview with Agenzia Fides.
The problems are massive. What any of us do does not even make a dent.
But individual efforts can make human consciousness rise, in the same way leaven raises bread.
Then there is a chance for both “more” and “better.”
I think of Benicia and the effects of our public resistance to her kidnapping, both on her and her kidnappers.
I think of the Sisters singing into the ear of Marie.
I think of Pierre Louis as a young student, learning that there are people who really care.
I think of what 5 loaves and two fish did, in the right hands.
Lastly, I think of one of the young men we raised in our NPFS home and schools here in Haiti, Anous, who is now an architect.
He came to see me today, to offer his help in the roofing designs, on learning that we want to avoid tarps and tents.
Our conversations went on to the poverty of the country, the deplorable bandit presence taking over all areas, the vastness of the earthquake destruction in the mountains.
He said, “in twenty years we will solve all of this.”
I asked him how- just starting with the bandits.
He said he doesn’t know how yet, but we will solve it.
I persisted, how do you solve it with no plan?
He said, “it’s enough that the numbers of us who want change are growing and growing. It’s enough for now. If we keep this desire alive, the way to do it will become evident.”
He smiled a big toothy grin and put his hand on my shoulder, thg me for my own work.
I thought, is he foolish? Is he young? Is he naive?
The answer is yes.
But in my heart I know he is also right.
We should all live with his optimism, and keep alive in our minds eye, the world we want to see tomorrow.
May God bless our foolishness, and make it fruitful in a lasting way.