Born with a severe case of clubfoot, Isaiah Cruz spent most of his life crawling around. The 13-year-old Honduran’s feet were so twisted he couldn’t stand without help. Although he is a great student, until recently he hated going to school because the other children made fun of him.

A local newspaper wrote about Isaiah's life-changing surgery. This is how he looked before he received help from the Christian hospital we support in Honduras.

Now Isaiah plays soccer with his friends, who cannot believe the miraculous change they’ve seen in their friend over the last six months.

Much like the lame man from the bible story in Acts 3 who receives the ability to walk for the first time, Isaiah experienced the healing touch of God — it came through a Christian hospital we support in Honduras that provides orthopedic care to children of poor families.

After two surgeries and just a few months recovery, Isaiah was “walking, leaping, and praising God” (Acts 3:8).

“I thank God, the hospital, the doctors who did the surgery, and the people who gave the money to make it possible,” Isaiah said. “I was so sad before, but now I am very happy. I can walk!”

Isaiah’s mother, Lenore, said that she and her husband never dreamed their son would walk. Poor subsistence farmers, the couple hardly earns enough to feed their six children and pay the rent each month. Like most of the families in their rural, mountain community, they could never have afforded a surgery like the one that enabled their son to walk.

Unable to walk since birth because of a crippling case of clubfoot, Isaiah now walks easily and plays soccer with his friends.

Overwhelmed by his new ability to walk, Isaiah wants to devote his life to helping others in his country.  “I want to be a doctor when I grow up so I can help people like me.”

The Christian hospital in Honduras that fixed Isaiah’s debilitating deformity has helped 382 other children in the past year, offering them life-changing surgeries that were hopelessly out of reach for their poor families.

And according to Ruth Castro, the hospital’s director, it is the support of American Catholics that enables them to continue.

“The need is overwhelming here. The people literally have nothing,” she said. “The support of Cross International Catholic Outreach and its donors is a vital blessing.”

This Christian hospital is one of several we support in places such as Kenya, Dominican Republic, and Afghanistan. Click here to learn how you can provide a life-changing surgery for a child like Isaiah.

Seven-year-old Grace Nachivula is blessed. She can walk, run, go to school, play with her friends, and get through the day without severe pain.

What’s so amazing about that, you ask?

After surgery for her bowed legs, Grace is now able to walk with little effort

Until recently, she could not do any of those things – at least not without extreme difficulty. Like many other children in Zambia and throughout the developing world, Grace suffered from bowed legs, a condition often caused by hunger and virtually permanent – not because it can’t be treated, but because the poor can’t afford surgery.

Bowed legs are normal at birth, and naturally correct themselves during early childhood. But dietary deficiencies of vitamin D and other nutrients can hijack the process, leaving the child deformed.

At home, Grace survives on a diet almost exclusively of maize meal. The average Zambian family consumes two $110 lb. bags of the starch-heavy food per month, but Grace’s family is so poor that they had only two bags for all of last year. Her father earns pennies doing odd jobs as a day laborer, while her mother stays at home raising Grace and her four siblings.

Most likely, Grace would have lived her whole life with bowed legs, if not for the intervention of Sr. Margaret and the compassionate sisters at Kabulonga Cheshire Home. Through this wonderful program, Grace has been provided with three surgeries and ongoing follow-up care, so she can go to school with her friends and live a normal, happy life. The kindness of the Cheshire Home staff has made such an impression on little Grace that she now says her dream is to become a nun and serve others.

Cross International Catholic Outreach provides critical operational support for Kabulonga Cheshire Home, so that physically disabled children like Grace can receive the medical care, nutritious food, and loving pastoral support they desperately need. Click here to learn more about this great ministry!

Sr. Irene Clare Duval

Sr. Irene Clare Duval knew she wanted to be a nun since she was 8 years old, but it wasn’t until she was 48 that she joined the Compassionate Franciscan Sisters of the Poor (formerly the Missionaries of the Poor – Sisters). During the four decades in between she served in the U.S. military, went to college, and worked for the New York City police department as a drug chemist.

Once she had finally paid off her college loans, Sr. Irene joined an order and two years later was sent to Haiti — her birthplace — to minister to a desperately poor community in the mountains of southern Haiti. The people of Viloux quite literally had nothing until she came.

Sr. Irene started a school feeding program that provides meals to 121 children, most of whom were going days without food before she arrived. She opened up the local government school to more children by hiring additional teachers and launched a dispensary, doling out medicine and care to families who had nowhere to turn when they got sick. With our help and support from generous Catholics, she has been able to keep these vital programs running.

“People are always coming to me with some need. I’m able to help because of the varied experiences I’ve had,” Sr. Irene said. “I think that was God’s plan, why he had me wait so long to become a nun.”

One thing Sr. Irene has learned over her life is the importance of prayer. She says it is especially helpful when she makes the trip from her home to Viloux each week to minister to the people. She takes the tap-tap — an overcrowded public bus — then walks the last hour-and-a-half through rocky roads winding up the mountains.

“Prayer is my lifeline,” she explained. “Over and over, I’ve seen how powerful prayer is.” Through her strong faith in God and rich life experiences Sr. Irene works diligently to help Haiti’s poor, despite the challenges.

Click here to read more about Sr. Irene and her life-saving work in Viloux, Haiti.

Jim Kline, our Africa projects officer, recently returned from a trip to Ethiopia. While visiting a Catholic ministry we support in the capital city that provides physical therapy and education to children with disabilities, he met a little girl named Hewett.

Hewett, a 6 year old with Down Syndrome, has made miraculous progress since she started going to physical therapy at a program sponsored by Cross International Catholic Outreach in Ethiopia.

The 6-year-old, born with Down Syndrome, had spent most of her life bedridden and mute. Her parents, poor and beside themselves with worry, had nowhere to turn for help.

In Ethiopia, as in many developing African countries, children with disabilities are considered cursed. These children are often kept at the fringes of society, held back from school and hidden away from people, and their parents face constant ridicule from friends and neighbors.

Hewett, however, did not become one of those “hidden children.” Instead, her parents heard about a Catholic ministry that helped children like Hewett get better. After a few years of physical therapy and one-on-one attention, Hewett can now stand on her own and she speaks. Her parents could not believe the miraculous change — Hewett couldn’t even hold up her head on her own before the help of the ministry.

“She is very engaged. She makes eye contact with you and wants to touch everything,” Jim said. “Her parents are overwhelmed with joy over the improvement their daughter has made. The ministry really made a difference in this child’s life.”

Stories like Hewett’s are a precious reminder of what can be accomplished when Catholics work together to help the poor. To read about more life-changing programs in Africa that we support, click here.

You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.
Psalm 77:14

A recent study by the World Health Organization uncovered an alarming fact: More than 10 million women and children, mostly in developing countries, still die each year from causes which are largely preventable and treatable — such as unattended childbirth.  In Haiti between 500 and 1,000 women in every 100,000 die each year giving birth. (To put that in perspective, in the U.S. only about eight women in 100,000 die during childbirth.)

Often these women die because there are no medical resources available if something goes wrong. Here is an example of how one ambulance we provided with the help of our donors is saving the lives of expectant mothers and newborns in the remote mountains of Haiti. Two hundred mothers were saved in the first year alone!

This ambulance provided by Cross International Catholic Outreach has saved the lives of hundreds of women living in rural Haiti.

Mirlande Joseph, 33, had lost her first baby during pregnancy and was having trouble again. With no money to afford the hours-long trip to the nearest hospital, she instead labored at home for three days under the care of a poorly-trained birth attendant. Nearly overcome by pain, Mirlande finally realized she and her unborn baby needed help — fast. Unfortunately, it was the middle of the night and Mirlande lived in the rural mountain
village of Moron in Haiti far from the government hospital in Jeremie, and the hospital didn’t have an ambulance that could come pick her up.

Her only options were to walk, something she could not do after three days of labor, or be carried six hours down a steep mountain in a “chair ambulance” — basically a small wicker chair with two poles stuck through either side.

Fortunately, one of our ministry partners, the Haitian Health Foundation (HHF), was able to send a nursing staff and vehicle, equipped as an ambulance, to Mirlande and take her to the hospital where she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. “If it wasn’t for the ambulance, I would not have lived,” Mirlande said. “I thank God every day for this miracle.”

This week, Cross Catholic was visited by Fr. Marc Boisvert from the Espwa orphanage in Haiti. One of his staff members, Nathalie Amyotte, shared a personal story that painted a vivid picture of Haitian poverty and the importance of Fr. Marc’s work.

Jamesley (center) and two of his brothers getting a physical at the Espwa orphanage.

One night, as Nathalie was getting something to eat, she saw children on the street begging for food. They were calling to her by name, because she often would help them. But this time, something was different.

“There was one child who was apart from them and he wasn’t begging and he wasn’t asking for anything,” Nathalie said. The boy was holding a plate of old chicken bones, and she realized he had collected them because he had nothing else to eat. Suddenly, another child bumped into the plate and knocked it over, scattering the bones across the ground. The boy raised his voice and cried as if grief-stricken.

“His cry will stay with me my whole lifetime. It haunts me. Because his little chicken bones had been thrown to the ground and that is the only meal he was going to have that day,” Nathalie said. “I went to see him because I heard this cry. He was trying to wipe the dirt off his little chicken bones. And I said, ‘No, no – let’s go eat.’”

After feeding the boy, whose name was Jamesley, Nathalie visited his home. She learned that his mother was pregnant with her eighth child and about to get kicked out of her home. Nathalie rushed to Fr. Marc and told him there was a family that needed help. Without a second thought, he responded, “Let’s go.”

Fr. Marc gave Jamesley’s family money for food, paid for a year’s rent so they wouldn’t be kicked out, and welcomed Jamesley and his brother into the orphanage.

Nathalie told us, “They’re going to school. They eat three times a day and he is thriving. I said to Fr. Marc, ‘I love that you didn’t even question it. You just said, let’s go.’ And he said, ‘But that’s why we’re here.’”

That’s also why Cross Catholic is there – to reach out to children like Jamesley and save them from despair. Click here to help us make a difference in the lives of impoverished Haitian children at the Espwa orphanage.

With the help of Cross Catholic, Christine has turned her life around after losing everything she had.

Last year, we met a Zambian woman named Christine who had gone from riches to rags because of AIDS. Once the owner of three houses, she sold all her properties in desperation and used the money to pay a medicine man to cure her. In the end, she was left with no money, no friends or family to support her, and a worsening illness.

At the time of our meeting, Cross Catholic was providing nutritional support and counseling for Christine through a local home-based care program. The support, in combination with antiretroviral (ARV) medication, had effected a dramatic change in her life and restored her declining health to where she was able to function.

Just last month, we met Christine again – this time at her brand new home that we provided through the help of the same local ministry. We were delighted to find that Christine was raising chickens on her new property and that she was utilizing all the available space outside to grow her own food. The chickens will provide a steady income that will enable her to support herself and her one child who is now living with her.

Christine’s new house.

Christine’s work ethic is setting a good example for her neighbors, all of whom have also received their homes from Cross Catholic. The temptation for these families to give in to despair is great, but Christine wasted no time in making the most of her situation. She is no longer a victim, but an overcomer. Instead of weeping over her past, she is looking toward the future with new hope, as she plans for her family’s welfare.

Christine represents exactly the kind of success the home-based care program aims to achieve in the lives of poor Zambian families traumatized by the AIDS pandemic.

Did you know that an estimated 1.1 billion people around the world rely on unsanitary water sources for drinking?

Clean water is a basic necessity that no one should have to do without.

That number got a lot of attention this week as the U.N. and other international groups observed World Water Day, a time for raising awareness about the plight of those who lack access to clean water. In some parts of the world, water is so scarce that parents must send their children long distances to fetch bucketfuls of water from rivers infested with bacteria, parasites, and even human waste. Clean water is a basic necessity that no one should have to do without. It is needed for drinking, bathing, farming, and for maintaining even a tolerable standard of living.

While some water-related problems are man-made, others are the result of weather patterns and natural disasters beyond human control. Cross Catholic Projects Officer Jim Kline recently visited Ethiopia, where a series of failed rains has been causing massive crop failures and food shortages. This is particularly bad news for animal herders and subsistence-level farmers who were already struggling to provide for their families before the latest drought struck. The loss of so many crops has resulted in spikes in food prices, hurting the poor even more.

Cross Catholic is currently sponsoring a number of great projects in Ethiopia, such as a center for street children in the city of Adigrat, and a health clinic for poor families in the rural, mountainside community of Minne. Please remember to keep our Ethiopian mission partners in your prayers as they cope with the effects of an extended drought. You can learn more about what Cross Catholic is doing to bring clean water to poor communities around the world by clicking here.

While traveling through Haiti, Cross Catholic Projects Officers Mike Wilson and Claudio Merisio visited the camps where our mission partners are continuing to provide medical care for earthquake victims. They got to see firsthand the incredible work that so many doctors, nurses, and volunteers are providing on a daily basis in tent facilities or even outside.

Cross Catholic Projects Officer Claudio Merisio visits a Project Medishare health clinic in Haiti.

Now that more than three weeks have passed since the quake, our partners are beginning to transition from trauma to general health care for the many displaced men, women, and children who are trying to rebuild their lives in the aftermath; and Cross Catholic is working alongside them to ensure success.

For instance, our Cross Catholic partner Arc en Ciel is providing care for about 4,000 people, including 1,600 children, in five refugee camps. They plan to send health workers to fifty additional camps to train their peers on general health issues such as hydration, nutrition, vaccination, and psycho-social support.

Another Cross Catholic partner, Project Medishare, is increasing the number of women and children receiving care, and plans to double the number of mobile clinics from one to two per week.

Gladys Thomas, who runs Hopital Espoir and Village Espoir, is shifting her focus to rehabilitative care for people needing physical and occupational therapy and post-traumatic support.

To help our mission partners provided the best possible health care under the strained conditions of disaster-stricken Haiti, Cross Catholic has given food, medicine, medical supplies, and in one case even a container to be converted into a clinic. To learn more about what Cross Catholic is doing in Haiti, check out our latest updates at www.crosscatholic.org/relief.

We received some good news from Mike Henry, our projects officer who has been coordinating relief in Haiti since the earthquake. He and one of our partner organizations were able to get medical supplies to a hospital we support near Port-au-Prince. Below is an excerpt from his field notes a few days ago:

With the road cleared, I was able to get further into the field to do some more work — work that will have a true positive impact on people’s lives.

The staff and volunteers at Hospital Espoir offer a prayer of thanks as the medical supplies from Cross International Catholic Outreach arrive.

I got started early by heading over to the office of a ministry we’ve partnered with during this crisis to pick up some medical supplies to deliver to Hospital Espoir, which is run by one of our long-time ministry partners.

As I drove through Delmas and down Rue Freres, I couldn’t believe how many down homes and buildings were out there. There were only a limited number of cars on the road, but people were walking in every direction, many carrying their belongings.

Dr. Antoine Fadoul, one of my contacts on Haiti, had agreed to provide us with enough supplies to keep Hospital Espoir functioning while we worked on getting supplies to them through the Dominican Republic. By 8:30 a.m., we were able to supply the hospital with a truck-load of items such as gloves, syringes, antibiotics, and pain killers.

Gladys Thomas, the director of the hospital Espoir, was on her way home from India, so her daughter, Natalie, had been left to coordinate activities. Natalie had been overwhelmed by emotions for the past couple of days. I could see it in her eyes. The hospital had all but shut down a few days after the earthquake as they had quickly run out of supplies needed to care for trauma patients.

I was happy to be able to deliver the supplies, and she was relieved to receive the help. Her eyes lit up a bit. Hospital Espoir would now have enough materials to open back up to the public. More importantly, Cross International Catholic Outreach had a lot more help on the way.

Cross Catholic has since provided Gladys with funds to buy more medicines and supplies from the Dominican Republic to keep Hospital Espoir up and running. Please continue to pray for them and all of our other ministry partners in Haiti as we continue to support them in this time of crisis.