Father David’s February 2024 Newsletter

Wednesday afternoon, some parishioners came with me to visit sick people at their homes. One of them, a man in his forties, was particularly weak. He was lying on a blanket on the ground and there was not a single piece of furniture in the damp room that serves him as a house.  He confided in me that he has tuberculosis and is living alone and without family. For several weeks he no longer takes his treatment because he has not had enough to eat. After praying together, giving the sacrament of the Sick, and making an appointment to take him to the sisters of Mother Teresa, I returned to the Chapel.

Yesterday Thursday at 8 a.m., the man arrived on a motorcycle accompanied by a neighbor so that we would go together. The lady tells me that she has forgotten something, leaves quickly, and never comes back, leaving me alone to "manage" the poor gentleman with tuberculous, who was in great respiratory distress. Time to find a parishioner with a good heart who knows this gentleman, we leave on 2 motorcycles to cross Brooklyn and its trash to reach the car parked to “Doctors without Borders".  While there I met another French priest like me.  His name is Fr. Xavier and he is here to visit Haiti for a few weeks.  I was surprised he chose to come to Cite Soleil with its deep-seated unrest.  Is it because he is French, perhaps a little crazy, or saint, or all of these!

This day will be his Baptism by fire... The heavy rains of the previous days which flooded part of Brooklyn left mud on the paved road. Arrived at the crossroads "Konbit", which delimits the two gangs, my driver slides on the mud, and we made a beautiful fall by sliding on the macadam which leaves me some blessed memories on the arm and the leg. Nothing broken. We go up quickly on the motorcycle, the patient is on the other motorcycle fortunately, and we leave because this crossroads is "fragile", the shots can happen anytime. We pass the other penalty zones without incident, and we reach the car, then the patient is taken to the missionaries of charity who will take care of him.

After that, I will find the children of a school and a house of Sister Paesie who celebrate their patroness Saint Josephine Bakhita. Around 200 children participate in joy and a real atmosphere of prayer. Saint Bakhita, who was an African slave who became a nun, gives us a powerful testimony about Confidence, Humility, and forgiveness.

As the calm apparently continues, I take this opportunity to go to the market and make other purchases in Port-au-Prince, where the streets are quite empty and certain stores cautiously open. Around 1 a.m., I come back to Doctors Without Borders and learned that Sister Paësie, her sisters and Fr Xavier are blocked in Ste Bakhita school because the roads are barred because of violent clashes between Gangs on “Terre-Noire”. Doctors without borders hospital is found in the middle of two fire zones, Terre-Noire on the left, Brooklyn on the right. The sisters are stuck but in relative security., I received a call from Brooklyn to say that there are 3 injured, including a serious one, a 17 -year -old girl with a ball in the head. Furthermore, the dispensary, near the chapel, who welcomes emergencies no longer has drugs. I tried to confirm with the doctor there, but no one answered the phone.  Deciding to go to the most urgent, I let the sisters and Fr Xavier "manage" themselves on the left (“Terre-Noire”) to go and give the drugs to the right (Brooklyn) and evacuate the girl.

Arrived by car in Bois-Neuf, the shots start again, and I must shelter the car between two barracks while waiting for the injured. After 30 minutes, calm returns and a motorcycle arrives from the dispensary to take the drugs for the dispensary but without the injured ... The doctor was able to remove the ball and the wound was superficial.

I turned back to Doctors without Borders to park the car there, and when I arrived there, the shots started again on both sides. After more than an hour of waiting, Sr Paësie passed through the barricades and “gave” me Fr Xavier.  We decide to go back to “home sweet home” in Brooklyn on foot, in a relative calm by reciting the rosary for all the people raped or murdered on this road these past years... Arrived 20 meters from "Carrefour Lanmo", the shots resume, very violently, we are forced to pass in the thickets by raising our hands and shouting : "It’s me, Fr David, we are friends ..." A few meters further, a motorcycle driver stops, and we leave with him. He goes too fast, wants to take a more dangerous road, and seems drunk, the scent of alcohol arrives to my nostrils while he rides without brake. He admits to me ingenuously "it's true Father, I drank but I am not drunk!". A good boy, victim of the madness of men who make him live in hell. I have time to bless him and change motorcycles for safety to finally arrive at the chapel, fifteen small children are running to eat, as usual for a few weeks.

Civil war is here now, you can see the evidence. Anger and frustration are in the hearts of the people and in the streets. One sentence of Saint Josephine Bakhita came to mind yesterday for mass, a piercing sentence about forgiveness who is the painful but liberating light for Haiti today and tomorrow:

“If I was to meet those slave raiders that abducted me and those who tortured me, I’d kneel down to them to kiss their hands, because, if it had not have been for them, I would not have become a Christian and religious woman”.