Praying for Haiti
Episcopal News Service. February 19, 2010 [021910-02]
Nicole Janelle, Vicar and Chaplain at St. Michael's University Chapel in Isla Vista, California
The devastating earthquake in Haiti destroyed the tools of many empowering Episcopal ministries in the Diocese of Haiti. Episcopal churches, primary and secondary schools, universities and vocational schools, hospitals and clinics no longer are able to serve the countless Haitians who depend on these institutions for their spiritual, educational and medical needs. One of the many ministries in the diocese that will need to be rebuilt in the future is the Episcopal Peace Fellowship nonviolence library at the Bishop Tutu Center.
In 2008, EPF initiated a partnership with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti focused on providing nonviolence training to young adults and professionals in the diocese. That summer, before the hurricanes struck, EPF held its first nonviolence training in Port-au-Prince. Approximately 70 young adults from around the country attended, spending several days studying nonviolence theory and practice at College St. Pierre, one of the diocese's many primary schools that was destroyed in the earthquake.
EPF board member Will Wauters and I made the journey to Haiti to attend that training, eager to make connections with the participants and to support the workshop facilitator.
Three months later, back in Haiti to attend the annual Haiti Connection conference and accompany the Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on her first pastoral visit to the diocese, I met with some of the same young adults who participated in the nonviolence training to talk about ideas for subsequent trainings. The young adults were keen on receiving more instruction and didactic tools that would allow them to train their peers in their schools and churches. They especially spoke of the need to receive training to deal with domestic, gang and political violence.
During that visit, I gifted on behalf of EPF several books on nonviolence written in French. These books found a home at the Bishop Tutu Center based in the diocesan cathedral complex. As books are scarce in Haiti, the nonviolence library at the Tutu Center enabled groups and individuals within the diocese to read and discuss important texts. In fact, shortly thereafter, a group began to meet weekly at the Tutu Library to engage in this sort of conversation.
Though the Diocese of Haiti is still in an emergency-response mode, plans to rebuild the diocese will soon emerge. EPF stands ready to engage in that process of rebuilding as directed by the bishop and people of the Diocese of Haiti. Ongoing sales of the EPF nonviolence organic tee shirts are being donated to Episcopal Relief & Development for immediate relief work. Donations to EPF earmarked to rebuild the nonviolence lending library will allow EPF to replace the books and nonviolence manuals lost in the rubble of the quake.
During her recent pastoral visit to Haiti, our presiding bishop remarked to Bishop Duracin: "You should skip Lent this year; you have already had your Good Friday." This Lenten season I hold in my prayers the faces and names of the young adults I was privileged to meet in Haiti. As I flip through the many pictures on my computer of our training, I realize that I do not know who in that group is still alive.
Along with Bishop Duracin, I pray that we will soon be able to sing our Alleluias with Episcopalians in Haiti. Until then, I wait in solidarity with my Haitian brothers and sisters in the Lenten desert, praying that they will find the strength to emerge from the unimaginable destruction of this tragedy.