In early December, I volunteered for a week as an Urban Zen Integrative Therapists (UZIT) at St. Damien’s Pediatric Hospital in Haiti. Gillian Cilibrasi, Mitten Wainwright, Liz Lattuga, and I taught yoga to the staff and a handful of the sick children.
On our first day, Father Rick Frechette walked into the conference room we had just converted into our yoga studio for the week. We had moved the big tables and many chairs to the side, and conveniently organized our mats, blocks, blankets and chairs for our classes and private sessions. He and two helpers straightened the plastic Christmas tree that flashed its bright lights on the balcony overlooking the hospital entrance. He was American—from Connecticut, in his 50s, tall, fit, and very handsome, with neatly trimmed hair. He was wearing khaki pants, sneakers, a snugly fitting t-shirt, and a leather string tied around his neck, from which a wooden cross dangled. He was polite when we were introduced, but his eyes darted away as we shook hands. He was a busy man.
A medical doctor as well as a priest, Father Rick’s career as a humanitarian has taken him to Mexico and Honduras. He has been in Haiti for the past 25 years, working for Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos (NPH), an international Christian mission that shelters orphaned, abandoned, and other at-risk children.
Saint Damien's Pediatric Hospital
St. Damien’s was built brick by brick with manual labor 11 years ago. Spanning two floors, around two courtyards, with convenient ramps making each floor accessible from many different angles, it solidly withstood the earthquake. Sustained with funding from American and Italian donors, it now serves the poorest of the poor.
The next time I saw Father Rick, he wore full priestly purple and was solemnly singing a hymn to begin Mass. As he entered the hospital’s small stone chapel with its stain glass windows, he swung an incense holder. The heavy scent carried me straight back to the Masses I attended as a child in Curaçao. I was, once again, struck by the consistency in ceremonies of the Catholic Church across geographies.
Every morning at 7am, a small group made up mostly of international volunteers congregates for Mass. And every morning, the ceremony becomes a memorial service for at least one child. The little bodies lie wrapped in a plastic body bag on the floor in the center of the church on a stretcher, covered by a holy shroud. On my first morning we mourned a young boy, Emmanuel, and a newborn baby, Alexander. The second time I attended, we commemorated a man and four babies. My final Mass found us praying for a nine-year old boy.
There are too many dead and dying in Haiti for Father Rick to restrict himself to St. Damien’s. Every Thursday he and his team visit the general morgue in Port-au-Prince to collect the latest nameless and abandoned bodies and grant them a decent burial in the foothills. On the Thursday of our visit, they buried 50 people. I learned that some other times the count is 80.
Father Rick presides over the funerals with dignity and compassion. In his ceremony he speaks of the souls of the deceased returning to the kingdom of God. He does not question why they died, and he thanks the Lord for their brief lives. How does one not lose hope, amid this staggering number of premature deaths, and the piles of bodies abandoned by families too poor to bury them? How does one keep seeing the value of each individual?
In one of his sermons, he reminded us that joy, hope, and a sense of justice may not be physically measurable but are all too apparent for their glaring absence in some people. It is easy to become cynical and negative, to be filled with doubt and give up. But a clear structure of virtues and principles, are guiding forces in the face of adversity and confusion.
After Mass, the bodies are carried to the back of a pick-up truck. Father Rick, sings as he climbs aboard beside them, and the truck drives off toward the morgue, or to a cremation center. To watch once was enough to break anyone’s heart. We had only to endure a week of the pain. He, and his team, manage this every day.
On our last night, Gillian and I brought Father Rick a bottle of whisky to thank him for St. Damien’s hospitality. He was sitting on a folding chair in a halogen-lit room, typing at his laptop. At his feet stood a crystal chalice half full of amber fluid. He invited us to pull up a chair and help ourselves to some of his stash. He asked me to turn off the light, and the three of us sat in the dark, contemplating the blue lights flashing in a plastic Christmas tree.
Father Rick didn’t always know he wanted to become a priest. But, he told us, as with a marriage, you make a decision. The road inevitably becomes rocky, and if you commit to the relationship again, it transforms and opens up new possibilities. He struck me as a principled man who lives free of doubt. But because he knows his own principles, he can respond in the face of danger and disease. In his book “The God of Tough Places, The Lord of Burnt Men” Father Rick tells astounding stories of living and working in Haiti.
He shared the story of a recent rice distribution crisis that had culminated in a near-riot in front of the hospital. The police got wind of the tensions and sent a message that they were making their way to the hospital to arrest the trouble-makers. Father Rick hoped they wouldn’t show up, because he had invited the people to gather at the hospital to discuss the challenges facing the rice distribution. It would hardly have been fair if they were arrested. So he prayed for help, and 10 minutes later the heavens responded. It started pouring. Haitian police do not come out when it rains, and everyone quickly dispersed.
We joked that he has a direct line to God.
He keeps his hope strong, he said, by drawing inspiration from Haiti’s orphaned children. Of 400 children who have grown up in the orphanage system in Haiti, 70% do relatively well, trudge through life, without complaining, doing their best. He calls them the true heroes. Of the rest, 10% excel and end up giving back to the system, 10% are sad cases without the emotional or spiritual means to emerge from their rut, and 10% become pathological. This last group gives him the most headaches. But it’s for the 70%— the ones who may not have had a chance to survive without the system— that he keeps going.
Faced with the enormity of the work in Haiti, I thought of The Starfish Story*:
One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”
The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”
“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish. You can’t make a difference!”
After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said: “I made a difference for that one.”
If I learned anything, it is that commitment and a strong set of values give us the means and capacity to act when times are difficult. We cannot give up in the face of adversity, and we must not lose hope. Individual acts of kindness matter, and can make a difference in someone’s life. A child’s smile is all the gratification you’ll ever need.
* Original Story by: Loren Eisley
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