What I do every day.....February 7, 202

Dear Friends,

Sorry for the delay in keeping these notes current.

Helping solve the kidnapping of a 7 year old girl who is our neighbor, plus evaluating and planning for the new gang attacks in Kenscoff over the past 10 days (we are worried about our home for orphan and vulnerable children), plus working on the dialogues to request a waiver from the 90 day freeze on USAID funds pending evaluation (this for our many TB and HIV patients), and many other things have kept us more than occupied.

Jeannine finally had her surgery for hydrocephalus. To help you understand our dilemma, her mother is so very devoted to her, and if we did not act to put in a shunt (a tube to move excess fluid from her brain to her intestine), our experience is that the head will grow and grow until it starts leaking.

We want to spare the mother this, even though the surgery will not make the head normal size, and the shunt will be prone to infections, and if Jeannine lives long, more surgeries will be needed to lengthen the shunt as she grows. We are trying to help Jeannine in a failing healthcare system, with families (including hers) often on the run because of bandit attacks.

This will help you understand how often we decide things to avoid a worse outcome, especially for a devoted mother. Please pray for Jeannine and her mom. The photo below shows the two incision sites for the shunt, in the head and in the belly. We will support Jeannine as best we can.

We had many discussion about possibly moving the children out of Kenscoff, the children from St Helen’s Orphanage (Fr Wasson’s 1987 NPH program), but for a lot of reasons we have concluded our home is a low risk for gang attack and in fact Tabarre where our hospitals are and where I live would be much higher risk.

I won’t say much more about it accept that as shown already, the gangs care nothing about nuns, priests, Catholics, Protestants, ministers, orphans, or benevolence. The recent history to the contrary is very chilling. We haven been quite involved in rescue efforts.

So none of us take this lightly, and we really analyze and weigh our decisions to protect the vulnerable in a lawless country.

Speaking of Fr Wasson’s NPH programs, this morning I celebrated the funeral of yet one more graduate of Nos Petits Freres et Soeurs (NPH Haiti) who died too young.

His name is Richard Jecoy. It is heartening to see how many other graduates came to remember him in prayers and support his wife in her grief.

When i had left the funeral, I received a surprise gift from yet another graduate of NPFS, Madogah Joseph. He is among many graduates who are abroad because Haiti is “unlivable,” as many rightly claim. Madogah is brave to be in Dominican Republic where Haitians are often rounded up and deported.

Aside from being a talented musician, Madogga like his father is a painter. He sent me a painting as a gift: a wounded Christ. You will see the face is incomplete, because the image represents many faceless suffering people around the world. I attach two other photos of his paintings. Maybe you would like to congratulate him, or even order an original Haitian painting (MadogahJoseph@gmail.com). We are very proud of his example, and creativity to make a living. I thank him publicly for his gift.

When we rescued the young Sister from the mountains around Coupeau not long ago, we promised the two mountain chapels (Our Lady and Lourdes and St Michel) some food for distribution for the poor rural farmers, and also supplies for their first level clinics. We were able to make good on the food delivery yesterday.

I may have mentioned that in saving the Sister some weeks ago, my team and I were assaulted by fugitives from the penitentiary living in those mountains. They intended to kidnap me, Fr David (French), and thee nuns (Indian).

My team (Junior, Altes, Fanfan and Andre) did a lot of fast foot work to get us out of that.

No small part of our release to freedom was the fact the the gang leader, known as Djowl (Big Mouth) said he though he knew me from somewhere, and he soon realized I had saved his life in 2009 when he was a gunshot victim in Cite Soleil.

“What goes around comes around.”

When the food was delivered yesterday, the team discover that Djwol is already dead. Apparently he was part of the bandit attack against areas of Kenscoff close to Bonga and Coupeau.

I say again, “what goes around comes around.”

Sooner or later life catches up with us, for good or for bad.

See below the paintings of Magodah!