By SIMON ROMERO, Published: March 6, 2010    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/world/americas/07schools.html

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Thousands of schools in and around this devastated capital could remain closed for months or never reopen, according to Haitian and United Nations education officials. That leaves vast numbers of children languishing in camps or working in menial jobs as they struggle to survive.

Even before the Jan. 12 earthquake, only about half of Haiti’s school-age children were enrolled in classes, a glaring symbol of the nation’s poverty.

Unicef, basing its estimates on talks with government officials, said that more than 3,000 school buildings in the earthquake zone had been destroyed or damaged. Hundreds of teachers and thousands of students were killed, and officials are questioning the safety of the remaining buildings after violent aftershocks in recent weeks, making the goal of Haitian education officials to reopen many schools by April 1 seem increasingly remote.

“We have six engineers in the Education Ministry to survey more than 10,000 schools to see if they’re safe,” said Charles Tardieu, a former education minister who is pushing for schools to reopen in tent camps. “Let’s face the reality that many schools are never going to be used again, and that we urgently need other ways to revive the system,” he said.

With their options limited, thousands of children are toiling on this city’s streets instead of going to school. Marckin Sainvalier, 10, helped his grandmother wash clothes one recent morning alongside the rubble of Rue Bonne-Foi in the central commercial district. As for school, “that was before the earthquake,” he said, explaining that his mother left him in his grandmother’s care in the chaotic days after the quake struck. “A lot has happened since then.”

On another street in the commercial district, Dieuvenson Semervil, 12, scavenged for padlocks in a collapsed hardware store. Before the quake, Dieuvenson said, he dreamed of becoming a mechanic. A body decomposed next to him to as he picked through the rubble. Near the ruins of the partly destroyed Lycée Alexandre Pétion, one of the city’s public schools, Samanta Louis, 11, swept the sidewalk, work she said helped support her nine siblings and parents who lived in the tent camp of Champs de Mars. A former student at the Lycée, Jean Pierre Lestin, 15, scavenged brick from a collapsed wall to sell. “I would like to be an engineer someday,” he said.

Children staying in the camps face trials beyond laboring in the streets. Health workers in the camps are reporting a rising number of young rape victims, including girls as young as 12. Alison Thompson, an Australian nurse and documentary director who volunteers at a tent clinic on the grounds of the Pétionville Club, said she had cared for a 14-year-old girl who was raped recently in the camp.

“The entire structure of the lives of these children has been upended, and now they’re dealing with the predators living next to them,” Ms. Thompson said.

The government here has recognized the urgency of reopening schools to provide some structure to those picking up the pieces of their lives. But its efforts to do so have faltered. Officials declared schools open in unaffected areas as of Feb. 1; some students have trickled into those schools, but many have not, say education specialists.

Here in the capital, symbols of the devastated education system lie scattered throughout the city. Metal scavengers are still picking through the wrecked Collège du Canapé-Vert, where as many as 300 students studying to become teachers died in the earthquake.

Foreign aid groups here say that Haiti differs from other poor nations recently struck by natural disasters, like Pakistan and Bangladesh, in that the quake gutted the education system of the capital in a highly centralized country. In New Orleans, more than half of the public schools remained shut a year after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, said Marcelo Cabral, an education specialist with the Inter-American Development Bank.

Haiti’s education system was already dysfunctional before the earthquake. Only about 20 percent of schools were public, with the rest highly expensive for the poor. Even in public schools, poor families struggled to pay for uniforms, textbooks and supplies. While other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean spend about 5 percent of their gross domestic product on education, Haiti was spending just 2 percent, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.

“The quality of education was very low, with about a third of teachers having nine years of education at best,” Mr. Cabral said in an interview here, after a recent meeting with Haitian officials in an attempt to come up with a plan to reopen schools. Mr. Cabral said the Inter-American Development Bank estimated that Haiti needed $2 billion over the next five years to rebuild its education system.

“The quality of education was very low, with about a third of teachers having nine years of education at best,” Mr. Cabral said in an interview here, after a recent meeting with Haitian officials in an attempt to come up with a plan to reopen schools. Mr. Cabral said the Inter-American Development Bank estimated that Haiti needed $2 billion over the next five years to rebuild its education system.

Children make up about 45 percent of Haiti’s population, and they are flooding the camps. Hundreds of children milled about the latrines of a camp at the prime minister’s office complex one day at the end of last month. “I have nothing to do,” said Belle-Fleur Merline, 11, who lives at the camp with her father and two siblings.

Placid Francoise, 17, said she had hoped to become a nurse before the earthquake destroyed her family’s home and forced them into a camp in front of the ruins of the presidential palace. Her mother, a street vendor, had used her meager savings to pay Ms. Francoise’s tuition at the Frères Monfort school.

Now Ms. Francoise lives in a one-room shack with more than a dozen relatives. She said she had no idea when she would return to school. “I work for my mother each day now, so that we may eat,” she said, pointing to the bags of charcoal they sell in front of their hovel.

Some educators and relief officials are not waiting for the government to act, deciding to open their own schools on a piecemeal basis in some camps.

Alzire Rocourt, a headmaster at a private school here before the earthquake, opened a school last month under tents donated by the Israeli Army in the sprawling Pétionville Club camp. She teaches reading, math and geography. The students play volleyball on the dirt outside during recess. And they sing, with vigor, Creole folk songs.

“Apran yonak lot,” the children sang, beaming. “Learning together.”

“Rinmen yonak lot,” they ended. “It means, ‘Loving each other,’ ” Ms. Rocourt said.

She smiled, too, until she recalled how much more needed to be done. Of the more than 25,000 children living in the Pétionville camp, just 260 are in her school.

I’m writing to share with you a link to some extraordinary photos.  They were taken by photojournalist René Merino during his recent trip to Port-au-Prince.  René visited the food program at St. Clare’s, so be sure to look for these pictures towards the bottom of the page.  Click here to go to his photo website.

It’s hard to believe the month of March has arrived and that seven weeks have passed since the January 12th earthquake in Haiti.

I am excited to let you know that our partners at St. Clare’s just launched a special education program for children that takes place every afternoon before the food program meals are served.  With schools closed in Port-au-Prince and no date set for their reopening, this two-hour gathering is treasured by the hundreds of kids who attend.  Members of the education staff are teaching the children songs, providing materials for arts and crafts, and leading group discussions.  Lavarice Gaudin, our earthquake relief coordinator, told me the teachers choose one subject a day to explore with the children.  Topics have included the earthquake and related fears, courage, service to others, life skills and values.  The history of the food program is also shared as Lavarice feels it’s important for the children to know where the meals come from and who is involved in making them happen.  That includes all of you who provide the funding through the What If? Foundation and the extraordinary cooks who work many hours/day in the rectory kitchen.

I continue to be inspired by the vision, resilience, and faith of our partners in Port-au-Prince.  With everything they’ve been through since the earthquake, they have doubled the size of the food program, created educational opportunities to keep students engaged, and have provided an environment of healing, hope, and progress.

Thank you for your continued support through our Tell-A-Friend campaign and all of the other creative ways you are sharing news about our work with others.  Your help with expanding our donor base makes such a difference and will help ensure that the programs we fund can continue into the future as the community of St. Clare’s rebuilds.

Piti piti na rive!  Little by little we will arrive,

Margaret Trost

The United Nations reported there are 1.2 million people living in “spontaneous settlements” or homeless camps around Port au Prince.  Three people living in the camps spoke with this author this week, before the hard rains hit.

Jean Dora, 71—
My name is Jean Dora.  I was born in 1939.  I live in a plaza in front of St. Pierre’s church in Petionville [outside of Port au Prince].  I am here with twelve members of my family.  We all lost our home. We have a sheet of green plastic to shade us from the sun.  We put up some bed sheets around our space.

I have many small grandchildren living here with me.  My son and daughters live with here too. My daughter will soon have a child.  She will go to the Red Cross tent when it is time for the baby to come.I worked for the Chinese Embassy for 36 years.  I cleaned their offices.  I retired in 2007.  Until the earthquake I lived in an apartment with my family.  The building was destroyed.

At night we put a piece of carpet down on the ground.  Then we lay covers down and try to sleep.  When it rains, the water comes in. We bring bottles to fill up with water.  But we have very little food.   There is no toilet in the park.  We must go behind the church.

My son used to work to support us.  He is a good chef.  He worked at a restaurant by the Hotel Montana.  The restaurant was destroyed.  He lost his job.  There is no work.During all my days, I have never seen anything like this.  I am not in a good position to say what will happen next.  I think things are not going to change.  I hope things will get better.  But I don’t think so. My son has no job and he cannot help our family.  If my son is working, we can all stand up.  If he is not working, we are down.  The future is not clear.  It looks dark for us.

Nadege Dora, 28—
My name is Nadege Dora.  I am 28.  I have three boys and one girl.  I am supposed to deliver my baby this month.

I now live in the plaza in Petionville with the rest of my family.  Our house was destroyed.  I used to sell bread on the street to make a little money.  The father of the children does not help us.  It is as if we are not alive to him. We are just trying to survive.  No one in our family is working.  There is no work. If you get a ticket you can go get a bag of rice.  But I am a pregnant woman.  I cannot fight the crowds for a ticket.  I tried.  But people were squashing me and I was afraid I would get knocked down and crushed.

My niece helped a woman bring rice back from Delmas [another neighborhood outside of Port au Prince].  She shared her rice with us.  Right now we still have some rice.  But we have no oil.  No meat, no milk, nothing but rice.  We have no money to buy other ingredients.  Since the earthquake I have never eaten a full meal. When my baby comes, I will go to the Red Cross tent to have the baby.  I went there to see a Doctor.  They gave me some pills.  Those pills made me sick.

The mayor came here and asked people if we had relatives in the countryside.  They would help us go there.  But we do not want to go to the countryside.  We don’t know anybody in the countryside.  We need to have a better life than this.

Garry Philippe, 47—
My name is Garry Philippe.  I am 47.  I live by the airport entrance.  I built my own tent.  I tied a sheet to a tree and I put up poles to hold up other sheets. I live here with my five children.  My wife was killed in our house in the incident.  We lived in Village Solidarity.  I owned our house.  I built our house over 4 years, step by step, as I got the money.  I was outside when it happened.  My girls were by the front door and ran out.  My wife ran back to help the boys and she died.

We had no funeral for my wife because we have no money for a funeral.  I buried her myself in a cemetery by Cite Soleil. The children cannot imagine that their mother is gone just like that.  They are always thinking about their mother.

We do not have beds.  When it is time to sleep we put bags on the ground.  Then we put our covers on the bags and sleep.  We wash ourselves by putting water in a bottle.  Then we stand in a pot and pour the water on our selves. When it rained we went to a place where they had a plastic tent.  We stayed there till the rain stopped.  More than 20 people were inside that tent. Before, I was a mechanic in a garage.  Where I worked was destroyed.  There is no work since the quake.

We heard other camps got bags of rice.  In our camp, nothing.  I ask friends for food.  Sometimes someone will give us something to eat.  We have no toilet in this camp.  When we have to make a toilet, we do it in a bag.  Then we bring the bag to the edge of the camp.  It is about a one minute walk away. We see the trucks going in and out of the airport.  Many trucks.  But the trucks never stop for us. It is not safe here.  But what can I do?  I accept it, it is God’s work.  We pray in the camp together.No one has come to talk to us to tell us what is going on.  We know nothing about tents or tarps.  There is no school for the
children.

I cannot tell you exactly what is going to happen next.  I am not the Lord.  I think it is going to get worse for us in
the camps.  We need tents and food.  We need water and school and jobs.  We need help to find a place to stay.  The rain is coming soon.  Water is going to come and our babies will lose their lives.

“This morning there was heavy rain in Port-au-Prince. About midnight until 3 am.  The situation has been really critical for us in Petite Place Cazeau and in all of the capital.  We send you some pictures and you’ll see.  Despite the tents, water has invaded the field of Petite Place Cazeau across the street from the rectory. Nobody could sleep.  They are  afraid.  Many mothers with babies, children, all could not sleep. We are a strong people, we continue to pray for Haiti.”

As the weeks pass and Haiti starts to fade from the news, the 1.2 million people who are homeless in Port-au-Prince continue to struggle to find food and water.

Wadner Pierre, a member of the St. Clare’s community who is on a full scholarship at Loyola University in New Orleans visited Haiti last week.  Here are some of his reflections: “People from all over the capital are looking for a meal.  Some of them walk miles to join the feeding program at the St. Clare’s rectory.  I could see their happiness when they received the meal.  I was not surprised to see the cooks continue to prepare the rice, vegetables, meat, and beans for the people with the same love.  The young people who have benefitted from What If? Foundation education scholarships are now the translators for the doctors working at the health clinic at the rectory.  The people are strong.  They want to move forward.  They help each other, and they really need help from citizens all over the world.”

Last week, the Haitian government declared a three-day national period of mourning for the more than 200,000 people who died in the January 12th earthquake.  Many people fasted and prayed Friday – Sunday.  This picture is from a prayer service at the St. Clare’s rectory.

On Monday, the food program resumed and over 3,000 hot meals were served to children and adults, paid for with your generous donations.  We continue to truck in food and water from the Dominican Republic and are working to collaborate with other nonprofits to expand the scope of our relief effort.  Being in partnership with the St. Clare’s community for ten years puts us in a unique position to respond to this crisis anddistribute supplies safely and effectively not only at the St. Clare’s rectory but also in other locations.

As we enter the 6th week since the earthquake, I want to share with you again what a powerful difference each of you has made in the lives of thousands of children and adults in Port-au-Prince.  Your support, shown in so many ways – through donations, prayers, fundraisers, emails, and participation in our Tell-a-Friend campaign – has made it possible to expand the food program, provide desperately needed relief to thousands of people every week, and create an oasis of hope for our beloved community in Haiti.

Piti piti na rive!  Little by little we will arrive,

Margaret Trost

Source: MR Zine

The U.S.-led international operation to distribute food, water, and medical supplies in Port-au-Prince after earthquake of January 12 has drawn a good deal of criticism. In contrast, for the past 10 years the Ste. Claire parish in the Petite Place Cazeau (Ti Plas Kazo) neighborhood at the city’s northern edge has operated a very successful food program, started by the late Father Gérard Jean-Juste. This week I asked Margaret Trost, founder and director of the California-based What If? Foundation, to describe by email her experiences with this program in the past and in the current crisis. — David Wilson (DLW)

DLW: Could you tell us how the Ste. Claire program started?

MT: I visited Haiti for the first time in January 2000 on a “mission of mutual exchange” with twelve other people. During my visit I met Father Jean-Juste, who spoke to our group about life in Haiti, the fight for democracy, and the historical, political, and economic reasons why there was so much material poverty in Haiti. When he was asked about hunger, he shared his vision for a food program that would feed the children in his community. When I heard this, something lit up inside me, and I thought that maybe I could help him make his vision a reality.

I couldn’t get his vision out of my mind after I returned home to California a few days later. I shared my experience in Haiti with family and friends. Seed money began to arrive. I sent it to Father Jean-Juste, and within three months the first meal was served

DLW: How does the program work?

MT: Members of the Ste. Claire community prepare the meal, which usually consists of rice, beans, vegetables, and lots of herbs and spices. Food was always purchased at the farmers’ market, helping support the local economy. Father Jean-Juste used to call the program “the great sharing.”

The meal started out just one day a week for 500 children, since that’s all the money I could raise. But then after the coup d’état in 2004, Father Jean-Juste and I took a leap of faith and expanded it to two days. Then it went to three, then four, and in 2006 we expanded to five days a week. The earthquake struck just as the cooks were wrapping up the Tuesday meal, having served about 1,200 children and 300 adults.

DLW: Why do you think the Ste. Claire program has been so successful?

MT: The key is our partnership. The programs are run beautifully by members of the Ste. Claire community, and I remain committed to doing all I can to fundraise on their behalf through the What If? Foundation. We’re a good team. Father Jean-Juste passed away last May, and I miss him beyond measure, but he chose incredible leaders to run the programs. Their integrity, courage, and commitment is what makes the programs continue to be so successful and is the reason why we’ve been able to provide such immediate relief after the earthquake.

DLW: Do you know of other programs like this in Port-au-Prince?

MT: There are many examples of strong partnerships with Haitian communities. That the programs are grassroots, community-led — that’s what’s most important.

DLW: How has the earthquake impacted the program and the Ste. Claire community?

Haiti ReliefMT: We were so fortunate that all of the program staff survived the earthquake and the food program kitchen building did not collapse. As soon as we were able to get the first truck of food and water in through the Dominican Republic on Sunday, January 17, the program staff began distributing relief to thousands of people. They started with passing out canned food and water, but as soon as the aftershocks stopped, the cooks reentered the kitchens. On Monday, January 25, the food program was back in full swing, serving rice and beans to as many as 4,000 people a day.

Children are served first and then adults. Canned food and water continues to be passed out to thousands more when it’s available.

DLW: How have you been able to get food distributed?

MT: The key initially was to figure out a way to get the relief to the parish. Teaming up with another nonprofit, we’ve been able to do this effectively by trucking in supplies from the Dominican Republic. Lavarice Gaudin is our program coordinator and is in charge of the relief efforts. He’s organized a team at the rectory that distributes food and water not only to the tent community of 1,000 people that’s formed across the street but also to thousands more who live in the area.

Right now, Lavarice is working on ways to bring food and water out to families who are not able to walk to the rectory each day for help. He’s also given rice and cooking oil to communities in Cité Soleil and elsewhere. The need is everywhere, so we’re trying to share what we have with as many people and communities as possible.

DLW: What difficulties have you had?

MT: There have been some challenges with distributing to large crowds, but they’ve figured out a way. There’s been no violence. Lavarice has told me that distribution is complicated, but when you treat people with respect and are smart about how you go about it, and communicate through a megaphone, it is certainly doable in large numbers. The key he feels is that Haitian communities need to be involved in the distribution.

DLW: The media here have talked a lot about the need for “security” in aid distribution. . . .

MT: When I read media reports emphasizing lawlessness, riots, looting, and other scenes that depict Haitians as violent, it infuriates me. I know this is grossly exaggerated. Although distribution is intense and challenging, there has been no violence at the St. Claire’s rectory. Phone calls and reports I receive daily from people on the ground working in the relief effort emphasize the extraordinary strength, cooperation, faith, patience, and community spirit of the Haitian people. This is what needs to be emphasized in the headlines.

DLW: What help have you gotten from the United Nations and other international groups?

MT: We received a tent from the UN, and one visit from Caritas with relief boxes, but that’s it so far. I continue to work to get the attention of USAID [the U.S. Agency for International Development] since we’re only four miles from the Port-au-Prince airport. No luck yet, but I keep trying. If we had support from them or other large international relief agencies, there’s so much more the team at Ste. Claire’s could do to help people not only in the immediate area but also in other communities.

DLW: How can people help from here?

MT: What we need right now are dollars — so we can continue to pay for food and water. Then down the road we’ll need more dollars for rebuilding. I’m committed for life to this partnership, so I’ll be working hard to support their vision for the future. I keep reminding myself and others of the wise Haitian saying, “Piti piti na rive” — “little by little we will arrive.” Every contribution, every act of compassion — it all matters. It all adds up.

Bill has visited Haiti numerous times working for human rights.  He is legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.  His email is quigley77@gmail.com

890 million. Amount of international debt that Haiti owes creditors.  Finance ministers from developing countries announced they will forgive $290 million.  Source: Wall Street Journal

644 million. Donations for Haiti to private organizations have exceed $644 million.  Over $200 million has gone to
the Red Cross, who had 15 people working on health projects in Haiti before the earthquake.  About $40 million has gone to Partners in Health, which had 5,000 people working on health in Haiti before the quake.  Source:  New York Times.

1 million. People still homeless or needing shelter in Haiti.  Source: MSNBC.

1 million. People who have been given food by the UN World Food Program in Port au Prince – another million in Port au Prince still need help.  Source: UN World Food Program.

300,000. People injured in the earthquake, reported by Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.  Source: CNN.

212,000. People reported killed by earthquake by Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.  Source: CNN.

63,000. There are 63,000 pregnant women among the people displaced by the earthquake.  7,000 women will deliver their children each month.  Source:  UN Populations Fund.

17,000.  Number of United States troops stationed on or off coast in Haiti, down from a high of 22,000.  AFP.

9,000. United Nations troops in Haiti.  Miami Herald.

7,000. Number of tents distributed by United Nations.  Miami Herald.  President Preval of Haiti has asked for 200,000 tents.  Reuters.

4,000. Number of amputations performed in Haiti since the earthquake.  AFP.

900. Number of latrines that have been dug for the people displaced from their homes.  Another 950,000 people still need sanitation. Source: New York Times.

75. An hourly wage of 75 cents per hour is paid by the United Nations Development Program to peoplein Haiti who have been hired to help in the clean up.  The UNDP is paying 30,000 people to help clean up Haiti, 180 Haitian Gourdes ($4.47) for six hours of work.  The program hopes to hire 100,000 people.  Source: United Nations News Briefing.

1.25. The U.S. is pledged to spend as much as $379 million in Haitian relief.  This is about $1.25 for each person in the
United States.  Canadian Press.

1. For every one dollar of U.S. aid to Haiti, 42 cents is for disaster assistance, 33 cents is for the U.S. military, 9 cents is for food, 9 cents is to transport the food, 5 cents to pay Haitians to help with recovery effort, 1 cent is for the Haitian government and ½ a cent is for the government of the Dominican Republic.  Source:  Associated Press.

One woman’s encounter with the Haitian people

When Margaret Trost was suddenly widowed at 34 and left with a young son, she never imagined how her grief would entwine her withthe people of Haiti and their suffering.

Trost’s search for meaning in the face of spiritual devastation led her from her comfortable American life to a Haitian mission trip in 2000. Trost established a charitable foundation that, prior to the earthquake, was feeding 7,500 meals a week to children in Port-au-Prince. It helped hundreds more to go to school.

Margaret Trost with children in HaitiThe journey Trost recounts in her memoir, On That Day, Everybody Ate is deeply personal. But never far from the center of her narrative is Haiti’s history, its complex politics, and one of the most dynamic recent figures in Haitian and Haitian-American politics — the late Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste.

When she met Jean-Juste during her first Haitian trip he was pastor of a Port-au-Prince church. A strong proponent of liberation theology, Jean-Juste was an advocate for the poor and a fighter for immigration rights in his adopted hometown of Miami. He was a rumored candidate for the Haitian presidency, a close friend of former Haitian president Jean Bertrand-Aristide, and once an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience designee.

It is not surprising he emerges as the second major character in Trost’s narrative.

“There was something about him that elicited trust and hope. I could sense his strong leadership and his ability to make things happen,” Trost writes. “He described how he ‘saw’ the roads paved, the people fed, employed, healthy, educated and housed. He believed in a future for Haiti’s children and was committed to help make it happen.” His already substantial reputation must surely have grown after he inspired Trost to marshal seed money for their feeding program.

Jean-Juste was ordained in New York City in 1971 — reportedly the first Haitian ordained in America — but, by the end of the 1970s, he had moved to Miami to work with the exploding Haitian immigrant population.

He served as the first executive director of Miami’s Haitian Refugee Center in 1978, and he remained affiliated with the center through the 1990s, as he continuously moved between America and Haiti, always fighting for a cause.

When Aristide’s 2000-2004 tenure as Haiti’s president ended with what he claimed was a U.S.-supported coup, Jean-Juste was thrown in prison by the interim government. Freed after seven weeks, he was imprisoned again in July 2005, accused of murdering a Haitian journalist. Many speculated that the real reason he was locked up was because wide public support called on him to run for president as head of Aristide’s leftist Lavalas Party.

Jean-Juste spent about six months in prison before he was released to the United States and allowed to seek medical treatment for cancer. The charges against him were eventually dropped.

When released from prison in 2005, Jean-Juste’s bishop suspended him from active ministry. Until his death in 2009 at 62, Jean-Juste often stood outside the institutional church, just as he often stood outside political establishments. Trost, so obviously influenced by him, paints Jean-Juste as a man who seemed more comfortable on the margins, close to the people and causes he championed.

Over her near-decade of involvement with Haiti, Trost watched the situation degenerate as violence and instability kept driving people onto rickety boats, and if they were lucky enough to reach the United States, their pleas for political amnesty were continuously disregarded — more so than any other foreign group. The island also endured a series of hurricanes. In 2008, food riots broke out after prices soared and the country’s ports were logjammed due to corruption and ineptitude.

Now there’s the earthquake.

As of this writing, Trost reports that the food program is still alive, but just barely. Volunteers have managed to truck in food from the Dominican Republic yet the situation remains very fragile and the need is greater than ever.

Still, thanks to what she learned from Jean-Juste, Trost is more committed, more attuned than ever to the spiritual. Jean-Juste told her, “God is the first and the last resource [in Haiti]. We feel God’s presence more and more, because there is nobody else some days who can sustain us to allow us to survive. So we live by miracles, and as we live by miracles, we need faith. Our faith sustains us.”

Trost has learned to live by that faith, the belief that miracles are routine and abundant. She learned how to show up, do her best in the face of staggering human limitations and to take joy in small victories.

Now, with Haiti facing its worse catastrophe yet, the miracles for Trost and her ministry are certain to be even more abundant.

[Bill Frogameni is a writer living in South Florida.]

Food and water continues to flow out of the St. Clare’s rectory in Port-au-Prince thanks to your donations.  Today, as I type this email, the cooking team is scooping hot rice, beans and vegetables onto plates that will be served to thousands of children and adults. In addition, Lavarice Gaudin, our earthquake relief coordinator, is sharing bags of rice and cooking oil with other communities in an effort to help set up satellite food programs.  Our goal is to expand the reach of your generous contributions to help as many people as possible.

Johanna Berrigan, a friend of the foundation and Physician Assistant, just returned from spending a week in the St. Clare’s neighborhood treating the wounded.  She worked with doctors and Nurse Practitioners from the U.S. and members of the St. Clare’s community who were trained as health agents over the last couple of years.  Here are some of her reflections:

“When I drove through the streets of Port-au-Prince, I couldn’t speak.  The devastation is beyond anything you could imagine.  But I gained strength by watching how gracefully and with such dignity the Haitians are coping.  They are taking care of each other, praying, singing, doing what they can to help one another survive.

“Everyone knows aid is available and that there’s been a huge outpouring of help from around the world, but the relief effort at the Port-au-Prince airport is uncoordinated, disorganized, and sporadic.  Most people have no idea where their next meal is coming from.  Many are starving.  But those who can walk to the St. Clare’s rectory are receiving a meal day after day and that’s making all the difference.

“Many people that we worked with at St. Clare’s are still in shock from the earthquake.  They still feel the ground moving.  But even with their stress and the sorrow they feel, they worked with us day and night to help as many people as possible.  As earthquake survivors they feel a calling to use their lives in service to  others.”

Thank you for being on this journey with us.  We’ve just begun.  I will continue to update you weekly with news of our work in Haiti and the impact your donations are having in the St. Clare’s neighborhood and beyond.  I know that every child, every parent, every grandparent in Port-au-Prince that you have fed through your donations joins me in saying “meci apil” – thank you so much – for your compassion, for taking action, for spreading the word with your family and friends, and for being part of this “great sharing” as Fr. Gerry Jean-Juste used to call it.

With love and hope,   Margaret Trost