Florida Catholic | ‘Twin’ In Haiti Needs Access Road, School Support

Converting this rugged mountain path into an accessible road is one of the first projects that St. Petersburg’s Holy Family Parish and Haiti’s St. Gabriel Parish would like to work on together to accomplish.

Courtesy Photo
Converting this rugged mountain path into an accessible road is one of the first projects that St. Petersburg’s Holy Family Parish and Haiti’s St. Gabriel Parish would like to work on together to accomplish.

‘Twin’ in Haiti needs access road, school support

JANET SHELTON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC STAFF

Published: 07.28.08

ST. PETERSBURG | Karen Jensen understood the importance of her parish’s new ministry just a few short hours after arriving in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

She, Maureen Zientek and Holy Family pastor Father John Tapp had come to Haiti to meet the people of Leogane and discuss a new parish twinning relationship. Seeing how the people lived was shocking to the St. Petersburg woman.

“It looked to me like a war zone,” she said of Port au Prince. “There’s rubble and decay everywhere: open sewers, garbage strewn in the streets and no housing.”

Parish twinning is nothing new. Some parishes in the Diocese of St. Petersburg have had programs for years. But being first at something didn’t matter to Jenson. When she saw the people and the poverty, she knew it was time for her and her parish to be involved.

Ten mountains away from the capital city, Leogane and St. Gabriel Parish is cleaner, she said. However, there is no electric system or running water. The road that connects Leogane to Port-au-Prince is a mountain path that takes six hours by mule. People grow their own food on small plots

“It’s a very small, agricultural community (without) any modern conveniences whatsoever,” Jenson said. “It’s really set back in the 1800s.”

Holy Family members started discussing a parish-twinning relationship, where a parish here helps a parish in another country, about four years ago. They worked through Parish Twinning Programs of America in Tennessee, which has set up more than 300 sister programs between parishes in the United States and Canada and undeveloped countries in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Courtesy Photo
Father John Tapp, at right, concelebrates Mass with Father Ronal Fleurvil, pastor of St. Gabriel Parish in Haiti.

St. Gabriel has the characteristics Holy Family wanted in its sister: It is about the same size and has a school.

A first meeting between the parishes was arranged earlier this year. Father Ronal Flervil of St. Gabriel traveled to St. Petersburg to meet Father Tapp and Holy Family parishioners.

He also talked to students of Holy Family School about the Catholic schools in his parish. Like children here, they wore uniforms and had several weeks of summer vacation. But, the priest explained, attending Catholic school in Haiti is a real hardship for many families. One year’s tuition is roughly equal to the average annual income of a person in Haiti. Poor families buy material and make their children’s uniforms instead of buying them.

“Some children have to walk two hours to get to school and two hours home,” Father Flervil said during his visit. “If the parents are too poor, (the children) don’t go.”

When the Holy Family group members visited Haiti for two weeks in June, they learned that the most pressing needs at the parish were for a road that would give them access to Port-au-Prince and for school support.

A recent article by Catholic News Service indicates that there are 345 Catholic churches from the United States and Canada involved in twinning projects with churches in Haiti through the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas (PTPA).

In 1957, Harry Hosey of Old Hickory, Tennessee, embarked on a personal crusade to help improve the lot of the poor in Haiti. Twenty-one years later Theresa Patterson joined forces with Hosey and his wife to form the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas.

Read more about the history of PTPA here and more about conditions in Haiti here.

– Ed Foster Jr. | 07.28.08

“Father (Flervil) makes two trips a month to Port-au-Prince because there he can get food for the poor. The only way to get down the mountain is by mules,” Jenson said. “Believe me, we’re not talking about a paved road. … We’re talking about carving something out from the mountain, a dirt and rocky road in the mountain (that) they may be able to get a motorcycle through.”

In the coming weeks, the people of Holy Family will learn more about St. Gabriel and decide if the new ministry is one worth supporting. The twinning committee will discuss the needs it first hope to address. The road alone will cost about $160,000

“Right now we’re working on putting together a presentation Aug. 10 for our parish,” Jenson said. “Father (Tapp) sees the involvement at St. Gabriel’s as long term, and we will go slowly regarding any large commitments.”

What will Holy Family get out of the relationship? Parishes that twin say they are enriched because their community grows in awareness and compassion. For now, St. Gabriel’s greatest gift to the St. Petersburg parish is prayer.

“Right now, it’s just knowing we have their prayers,” Jenson said. “They are just a wonderful community. Just looking into their eyes – they were so loving.”

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