March 11, 2004

Faith overcomes darkness amid atrocities in Haiti

By Terry McGuire

Though he prayed last month over the bodies of families murdered as they attempted to flee their strife-torn homeland, Father Rick Frechette said he sees hope among the unspeakable violence in Haiti.

“I see the Internet news keeps referring to Haiti as sliding into anarchy,” the Passionist priest told friends and supporters in his latest e-mail last Saturday. “But daily life goes on because the vast majority of people know their jobs and do them, even though for multitudes this results in an earning of less than a dollar a day.

“Yes there are SERIOUS problems,” he wrote. “Certain areas are politically hot and dangerous, demonstrations draw attack, certain areas are notorious for looting and shooting, but these are localized and predictable.”

As the national director of a Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos (Our Little Brothers and Sisters) orphanage about 25 miles outside the Haitian capital of Port Au Prince, Father Frechette is well known by the Bellevue-based Friends of the Orphans Northwest, which supports NPH orphanages in Haiti and other Spanish-speaking countries. Also a physician, the 50-year-old, Connecticut-born priest began serving in Haiti in 1984.

Friends’ Executive Director Karen Langenwalter said Tuesday they are concerned for the safety of the people at the orphanage. She asked for prayers. But she said the priest’s e-mails have also conveyed to her the “strength and courage” with which the Haitian people seem to be facing this current crisis, which started with a rebel uprising that forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to resign last month and flee into exile.

“I’m inspired by their faith,” Langenwalter said.

By his e-mails, Father Frechette said he has relied on his faith to get him through the darkness that has befallen Haiti. Even when things look bleak, God’s light shines through, if one knows how to look for it, he said.

“It is never absent,” he wrote, “but it takes an eye trained in God’s school (prayer) to recognize its shape and intensity.”

So far, the priest’s worst moment came on Ash Wednesday when he was called to “Wharf Jeremy” in a slum area where his organization operates a school, a medical clinic and a program for disabled children.

He was asked to pray over the bodies of 18 men, women and children who had attempted to flee the violence by paying for passage on a rickety boat supposedly headed for Miami.

They had given their life savings, only to be “deceived, betrayed and murdered” by the man who had booked them passage, Father Frechette wrote, “their rotting bodies were washed up on the shore of a fetid slum.

“It was a very dark moment,” he said. “My only thought, as I stood aghast, was how to bring some dignity into this nightmare. Focusing the attention of all present on a prayer for the dead, and for a better future, was all I could do.”

But as he was leaving, a stranger came up and thanked him for coming to pray, telling him “how important it is that goodness not perish.

“Suddenly, in that darkness, there was an amazing light, just like in the Transfiguration of Jesus. Lord, it is good for us to be here,” the priest wrote. “Yes, it was absolutely good to be there, and to see this man’s faith and hope shine brightly.”

Later in his e-mail, Father Frechette recalled the oasis of safety that the children at the orphanage enjoy. He stressed the importance of trying to help the children of the slums experience a similar safe harbor, so they can “cling to their childhood, even in the face of brutish realities and hellish images.”

He recalled the advice of a Canadian Sister of St. Joseph who has worked in Haiti for years: “If it’s old and ugly, paint it a bright color. If it’s barren, plant a flower. If it’s broken, glue it together (or make something new) with the pieces. If it’s garbage, make compost. If they’re fighting, sing a song. If they’re sick, sit with them on the bed. If they are hungry, make soup.

“Guess who is parading into Wharf Jeremy with paints, plants, glue, guitars, medicine, food and books,” Father Frechette asked in his e-mail. “We are. And we will do our best to give these children a childhood.”

For more information on the Friends of the Orphans Northwest, call (425) 646-3935.