ROGERS — After Christmas Father Shaun Wesley, associate pastor at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Rogers, hopes to begin planning his spring visit to St. Francis of Assisi Church in Bombardopolis, Haiti. It will be his second trip to this town of 30,000 on the northwest corner of the island to assess the needs of the parish there.
The predominantly Catholic island (80 percent) is considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
In April 2007 then-Deacon Rick Nagel, who studied at St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana with Father Wesley, spoke at St. Vincent de Paul Church on behalf of the Church in Haiti and its people and their needs. Nagel’s own parish in Indiana had recently adopted a Catholic church in Bassin-Bleu, Haiti. It was at this time that St. Vincent de Paul Parish adopted St. Francis of Assisi Church in Bombardopolis as a sister parish.
What began as the dream of a Haitian priest, Father Rodolfe Balthasar, former pastor at St. Francis of Assisi Church, two churches in Haiti and their schools are now receiving aid for their parishes through the efforts of these two young priests and their American churches.
This April, Father Wesley took his first trip with Father Nagel, who was ordained in June 2007, to meet the people of St. Francis of Assisi Church and their pastor, Father Cholet Augustin. Accompanying them on the trip was Father Augustin’s brother, Nesslin Augustin, who lives in Miami, Fla.
Describing the situation in Haiti, Father Wesley said, “There is one main parish school, St. Francis of Assisi, that has about 350 students, which is about the same size as our school here. It is kindergarten through eighth grade. But Father Augustin is also pastor of 29 mission chapels and 12 of those chapels have schools. So the total number of students range from 500 to 700. It is hard to tell because the numbers go up and down. It differs just on whether the family is able to get the child there, if there is money, whether there is food.”
Transportation and distance can be a problem in Haiti.
“The further out they get, the harder it is,” Father Wesley said. “One of those chapels actually has a school that is a nine-hour hike from the main church. It is mountainous. It is only 17 miles to Port-de-Paix, the closest city, but it took three hours to drive there in a Land Rover. It is another world completely.”
Father Wesley and Father Augustin try to communicate by e-mail. But in order to do this, Father Augustin must go to Port-de-Paix to have access to e-mail.
“When I was down there, his need was for school supplies and he could use some construction materials too. We have had a large diesel generator donated that is in the process of being shipped down there,” Father Wesley said.
However, with the recent hurricanes, Father Augustin was unable to e-mail.
“Right after the hurricanes, I was sending e-mails down there to see what was happening and find out what they might need,” Father Wesley said. “Finally in one of the e-mails I got last week, he started talking about the hurricanes. He said that there was some damage or destruction of people’s homes. So things might have changed.”
In fact, recent e-mail messages indicate that things have changed. In Father Augustin’s latest e-mail, he said, “I count on you because the situation is worse for the people after the hurricane. They come to see me for everything to fix their houses, for scholarships for the children in school and for food.”
Donations from parishioners at St. Vincent de Paul over the past 18 months are already making a difference.
The main aid for St. Francis of Assisi Church and School is used to provide food — a meal of rice and beans — for the school children. These supplies are carried by donkeys to the different schools.
“We need to send between $2,000 and $3,000 a month for this food as well as to provide salary support for their teachers. There are some special projects like the school construction that had to be stopped because of a lack of funds. Through our gifts that construction has been completed,” Father Wesley said.
“Many of the schools didn’t have desks, benches or chairs for the students,” he said. “Now at this point all the schools have chairs and benches that they need for the school children. In addition, Father Augustin was able to buy the basic level of the government-mandated textbooks for all of the schools.”
In his trip to Haiti last spring, Father Wesley experienced the reality of very little available water in that country.
“There is no running water in Bombardopolis. There is no organized water system. To bathe, they would heat up hot water from collected rain water in concrete reservoirs on the roofs. They had actually gone several months without significant rain before we got there,” he said.
Electricity is not widely available either. Lighting for evening Mass and other services runs off of a diesel generator.
Another reality is that there seems to be little organized efforts on the part of international charities to provide aid to the country.
Father Wesley said, “There was not much evidence of anything other than individual churches doing missionary work. The hospital in Bombardopolis is run by American missionaries — a married couple from Missouri. The wife is a doctor, but the hospital is not well-equipped. They are hoping to increase their ability to do surgery and other necessary procedures.”
In the face of this harsh existence for the people of Haiti, Father Wesley spoke on the importance of the teachings of the Catholic Church on social issues.
“As Catholics, we are supposed to have a preferential option for the poor. That is one of the things that is always good for us to realize — that there are people who are less fortunate than we are. Especially here in northwest Arkansas, we are very fortunate in the lives that we live and the resources that we have. It is good for us to be aware of those places in the world that we can help with really next to nothing. Very little effort on our part can make a huge difference in their lives.”
Although St. Vincent de Paul Society operates a food pantry in the parish for the Rogers community, Father Wesley believes that it is also important to be in touch with those in other parts of the world.
“Many of our Hispanic parishioners come from poorer countries as well; however, we can see the need that the people in Haiti have that is even greater than what any of us as parishioners would ever have,” he said.
When faced with the sister parish project, both Father Wesley and Father Nagel have discussed the severe need in Haiti and how they can contribute more on a personal level.
“When you go there, it almost makes you question whether you need to come back and sell everything you have and go down there and work to do what you can. At first that may be your gut reaction. Do I need to spend my whole life here devoted to that? But then we have to step back and say that God put us here; God gave us the vocation that we have. He put us in the place where we are. I am called to bring awareness to parishioners, to people that I meet, so that we can all help,” he said.
So far parishioners have donated $31,000 for this work.
“That is really our task — to help in whatever way we can to increase the quality of life, the dignity of life, even if it is that one little corner of Haiti,” Father Wesley said.