Haiti Ministry
In the fall of 2003 Our Lady of Mount Carmel became a part of the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas.
Since then we have sent a mission team of around 8-12 parishioners every 6 months to the
small town of Petite Riviere de Nippes (Ti Rivierre for short) to visit our twin parish of St. Antoine de Padoue
and it's dynamic pastor, Pere Valery Rebecca. We have been blessed twice with a visit from Fr Rebecca and a
chance to hear him speak at OLMC's Sunday Masses. Through our shared experiences we have come to see that what
we share is far greater than our differences and what we bring back is far greater than what we leave behind.
Since our twinning efforts began the people of Our Lady of Mt Carmel, we...
- have brought children to Indiana for life-saving surgery. One of them attended school at OLMC for several months as he received necessary therapy.
- have sent school supplies and purchased books for children who were attending school with no books, paper, pens, etc.
- have paid the salaries for the teachers in an ever growing education system. Before we began to help, the few teachers had no supplies and were rarely, if ever, paid for their efforts.
- have improved communication in an area whose only method was word of mouth by providing Fr Rebecca with a radio station so he can broadcast news, Masses, teaching programs, etc. We have also given him a copier to provide a means of printing in an area with no newspapers and no books. An internet satelite hookup allows him to maintain contact with the outside world in an area where the phone system is highly unreliable.
- have built a trade school for young women to learn to sew and create items they can sell to help support their families. Some of these can be seen at our craft sales after Mass.
- are building a school, College Immaculate Conception, on the church grounds, and building or expanding several chapel schools in the surrounding hill country. In the year 2003, there were about 200 children in the parish schools of St Antoine's, by 2005 they were educating over 1,000 children in 7 schools (6 in the chapels in the surrounding hills). In 2006, with the opening of the new school, there should be close to double that number being given a quality education, many for the first time in their lives.
- are helping to improve the health of the people in small ways such as providing hygiene kits, in extremely important but occasional ways such as the medical mission trip in which skilled doctors and nurses treat as many patients as possible in a few days, and in long term ways such as supporting the efforts of the local clinic by providing them with basic first aid and non prescription medicines such as aspirin, vitamins, etc
- have fostered communication and brotherhood both within the 2 parishes and between them through exchange of letters, visits and mission teams, craft projects such as quilts, rosary making, and a cookbook and supporting their communal building projects through a Haitian DEPA program
- are planning many more projects that will improve the lives of the people of the area in water, sanitation, farming and agriculture, and other community development programs.
For more information, please email olmcHaiti@olmc1.org.