Chuck Kolesar's Report From Layaye

Dear friends of the Haiti ministry:

I would like to provide some good news concerning developments in our sister parish of Layaye. On December 31st, I spent a long night with the good people of Layaye praying, adoring, singing, dancing, and asking for forgiveness and peace for the new year. Layaye has been transformed by the gift of our own Dixie Brown. There is a light in Layaye, which is composed of both physical and spiritual properties. The generator provided by Dixie provides light well into the night which has drawn many new parishioners to church and many children back home from Hinche to study. Soon it will also provide light for the peasant farmers in the community to learn how to read. No other village or city in the area has light. This light has truly sparked a new pride and joy in the people of our sister parish. It will also make the work of the physicians from Partners in Health easier and provide opportunities to provide a level of care that would otherwise be impossible. May God bless you Dixie.

With all of these thoughts in mind, however, please allow me to also draw your attention to the fact that we as a sister community simply are not doing enough. There is still not enough money to pay all of the teachers, the children in the schools have no books, pencils, or paper and are still hungry (we have not fed a single soul), there is no clean water to drink (I failed in my efforts to get a system installed), and young and old alike are dying needless deaths. Some of you may remember Magalie, the beautiful young teacher in Layaye who spent time with us. When I asked how her Christmas was, she replied that they did not celebrate Christmas because her sister died the day before. Her sister was a 26 year old woman who died of something I am sure she should not have died from. She developed stomach pains, went to the doctor, received some sort of inadequate care, went home, and died. She left two small children 2 and 4 years old who clung to Magalie and cried for their mother during my entire visit with the family.

Why are these people so easily forgotten? Why are they living in wooden huts with no water to drink and constant hunger? A child was brought to me with a large hole in her head. She fell on some rocks some days earlier and had a large uncovered wound with a very slight chance that she will ever receive care. What is going to happen to her and to the hundreds and thousands of other children in the parish who live equally precarious lives? These are our children, they always have been, but now we know their names.

Our names have all been written in these mountains by the hand of God. We as a faith community must answer His call and provide these people with our purest hearts and finest efforts.

Thank you,

Chuck Kolesar