This past Sunday, many of us took time to honor that special someone who taught us how to ride our first bicycle, change our first tire, catch our first baseball, and get through life without calling a plumber or asking for directions. Father’s Day was celebrated in 52 countries around the world, from Cuba to Greece to Afghanistan.

Reencontro is saving the lives of orphans and vulnerable children in Mozambique.

The Bible has some important things to say about the value of godly fathers. “A righteous man who walks in his integrity – How blessed are his sons after him.” (Prov. 20:7) Even the Trinity itself is described in terms of a Father-Son relationship.

Sadly, many children have never known a father’s love. Some are orphans, others abandoned, others imprisoned in a home life wrecked by drug and alcohol abuse. The absence of a father figure helps to perpetuate the cycle of poverty in countries where even healthy, intact families struggle to get by. That includes Mozambique, where Cross Catholic is working with a local ministry called Reencontro to provide shelter, food, clothing, health care, and emotional support for AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children.

Thirteen-year-old Alicia came to Reencontro after her father passed away and her family was thrown out on the street. The Catholic-led program gave Alicia’s family a place to stay, saved her little sister Lidia from severe and incapacitating malnutrition, and enrolled Alicia in a Catholic boarding school, where she has learned to trust in her heavenly father to supply all her needs.

“I used to think that I wanted to become a nurse, but now I feel that my vocation is to become a nun,” Alicia said. “So in the future, I want to dedicate my life to the service of the church and to those who suffer.”

Click here to learn more about how Cross Catholic is reaching out to fatherless and vulnerable children.

As I drive around town, it isn’t hard to find statues and buildings that have been erected to the affluent and famous.  One medical building’s pediatric wing is named for a philanthropist.  The same is true of the baseball stadium of a local university.  People have always found it satisfying to have their legacy “made permanent” by fashioning it in steel and stone.

We celebrate the life of Vic Gonsalves

And there’s no doubt that such monuments can do a lot of good.  They often provide a home for some useful service to the community.  Still, there is a legacy that, while less obvious, seems more profound to me.  It is the legacy of a life lived for others.

This week, Vic Gonsalves departed this world and left that kind of legacy behind.

Vic was one of the first employees of Cross International Catholic Outreach and he came out of retirement to accept that role.  He was responsible for seeing that shipments of food, medicines and other important materials were properly shipped overseas and effectively distributed to the poor.  It was a job he did well, because he did it for the Lord and because he cared about the poor families who relied on his help.

Those families are Vic’s legacy.  Some are children who will live out better lives thanks to his commitment and generosity.  Others, the elderly, passed on to heaven before Vic, and we are sure that they welcomed him into their midst.  They are the friends Christ describes in Luke 14…

Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.  Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

And again in Luke 16:

I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

Today, in glory, Vic is among those friends, celebrating and looking down on the children living out better lives, thanks to the role he has played at Cross.  We give thanks for Vic and for the legacy he has left us – a legacy in more than stone.

We’ve made the news in Rome, and the topic is Haiti disaster relief. Cross Catholic President Jim Cavnar was recently interviewed by a Vatican reporter for an inside perspective on Haiti’s humanitarian crisis. Jim’s comments were published in a story announcing Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to finance the rebuilding of a Port-au-Prince seminary destroyed by the quake.

Since the earthquake, Cross Catholic President Jim Cavnar (right) has traveled from the front lines of Haiti disaster relief to the Vatican to support ongoing aid efforts.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

“The Haitians have always been very religious, even though they are very poor, and their faith has remained remarkably strong in the face of such tragedy,” Cavnar said after meeting with Cardinal Paul Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.

Cavnar, who visited Haiti in February, said, “The church in Haiti was hit very hard” by the earthquake, which killed dozens of church workers and severely damaged churches, schools, hospitals and seminaries. Still, he said, even the day after the quake, walking through the streets of the city, one would come across groups of people praying and singing hymns.

Each year, the Pope chooses a specific cause to support with the collection from his Holy Thursday evening Mass. His decision to fund the seminary will be a huge encouragement to Catholics in disaster-stricken Haiti. When the Pope first made the announcement, Jim was in Rome meeting with Cardinal Paul Cordes, head of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the group responsible for distributing the Vatican’s humanitarian funds. Cross Catholic collaborates with Cor Unum, and thus with the Pope, by giving about $500,000 per year to specific projects in need of funding.

Cross International Catholic Outreach’s close relationship with Vatican officials and years of experience in Haiti have equipped us to speak to Catholics in a meaningful way about the ongoing recovery efforts. Jim has a great passion for the people of Haiti and is working overtime to ensure that the world does not forget the deep needs of this desperately poor country. Click here to get involved in Cross Catholic’s Haiti recovery efforts.

Though we evaluate our work in terms of the benefit to the poor, the fact is that our projects also have an incredible impact on the men and women who have dedicated their lives to charity and self-sacrifice. One person who comes to mind is Bobby Rodrigo. He is a resource general director with Gawad Kalinga, a project we support that provides housing for poor families in the Philippines.

Bobby experienced the best the world had to offer, and realized it wasn’t enough. The retired Filipino businessman was living in a 75,000 square-foot mansion with 12 bedrooms and a 10-car garage when he decided to get involved with the Gawad Kalinga project. His garage alone was a luxury resort compared to the dilapidated slums he soon found himself in. The small shanties, pieced together with salvaged scraps of cardboard, tin, tarpaulin, and discarded wood, were homes to entire families who could only dream of owning one car, let alone 10. The disparity touched him deeply.

Bobby Rodrigo (right) gave up a life of luxury so that he could serve the poor through the Gawad Kalinga housing project.

In the face of such need, Bobby felt he could no longer justify his lavish lifestyle. He sold his mansion and moved into a much more modest home, and focused his attention on alleviating the suffering of desperate families in the slum communities.

Later, Bobby developed a blocked artery and needed open-heart surgery. His doctor scheduled an angiogram in the morning – so Bobby could see the blockage for himself – and the surgery for the afternoon of the same day.

What happened next is best explained in Bobby’s own words. “The night before the procedures, I prayed, ‘Lord, please help me be well so I can finish all the Gawad Kalinga work we’ve got going for the poor.’ I prayed harder than I had in my whole life.

“The next day, they could find no blockage. The doctor said, ‘You must have strong connections upstairs, because there’s no explanation. It’s a miracle!’”

Bobby didn’t need the doctor, because God had already performed surgery on his heart, in more ways than one. He’s become a new man with a new calling and a new lease on life.

We are so thankful for the compassionate men and women who are helping us bring God’s love to the poorest of the poor. They are out in the field every day, providing the needy with shelter, food, medicine, clothing, education, and hope for a better future. And we want you to be a part of it.

To find out how you can get involved with our work in the slums of the Philippines, click here.

“It’s not her fault.  She’s not even a person yet.”

These words from a Haitian boy came as a shock to Fr. Marc. A little girl was misbehaving very badly that day, and Fr. Marc felt that she needed to be corrected. But now he was being told that he could not hold her responsible for her actions, because “a child doesn’t get a soul until they’re 2.”

Fr. Marc (center) has been rescuing orphaned and destitute children in Haiti for more than a decade.

After more than a decade of ministry at the Espwa Village orphanage that we support in Les Cayes, Haiti, this was the first time Fr. Marc heard the troubling superstition that a person is not a person until the age of 2. He worried that this false belief not only allowed parents to excuse their children’s bad behavior, but it also opened the door to child abuse.

It seems that Haiti’s most vulnerable poor – the children – are often the least protected. Wealthier families take in the children of the poor and treat them as virtual slaves, overworked and underfed. It was child abuse that inspired Fr. Marc to start his own school at Espwa, after one of his boys came home bleeding from a severe beating by a teacher with a rawhide whip.

With our ministry’s support, the 650 orphaned and destitute boys (and a few girls) under Fr. Marc’s care get more than food and shelter — they also learn that they are special in God’s eyes. They are introduced to Christ’s love through catechism training and open-air Mass on the orphanage campus, as well as by the example of Fr. Marc himself. His heart for the poor is infectious, and he always puts their needs above his own.

“I sometimes wonder how many children we are saving from a life of slavery,” Fr. Marc said. “I know in my heart that a good percentage of our kids would have no option but to go that route if we were not here.”

Click here to read more about our life-saving work at Espwa Village in Haiti.

In our work with the poor, we see so many dedicated men and women who have given up comfortable lives to help those in need — often moving to some of the most remote and dangerous places on the planet. The faith of these unsung heroes is a constant inspiration for us in the office. One of these heroes is Sr. Anna Trzepacz of the Medical Missionaries of Mary, who runs a clinic for remote mountain villagers in Ethiopia…

Sr. Anna Trzepacz of the Medical Missionaries of Mary provides life-saving care to remote mountain villagers in Minne, Ethiopia. Here she checks a child's weight during an annual physical.

Sr. Anna Trzepacz was interrupted from dinner by a knock at the door. There had been an accident. A large bus had crashed and rolled down a nearby mountain, badly injuring 20 passengers. The men, women, and children from the bus had broken bones, deep cuts, and burns from the gasoline that had ignited after the crash.

“One man came to me and his face was covered with blood,” Sr. Anna said. “When he laid down on the examination table the skin on his scalp slid off. All that was left was his skull bone.”

She was alone except for an Ethiopian woman who had just begun nurses’ training, but she was too nervous to help. “Good thing there was a wall nearby or I would have fainted,” Sr. Anna said. “But the man needed my help so I had to keep going.”

Sr. Anna worked until 3 a.m. stitching people up and dressing wounds. Her work saved the lives of all but one man that day.

This is just one of many dramatic stories Sr. Anna has to tell about her work at Minne Health Post, which we support, and the clinic at the Weragu Catholic mission. The community she serves lies in a remote mountain stretch of central Ethiopia. The nearest hospital is 93 miles away and the nearest clinic is a full day’s walk through the mountains. She and another sister, who are both certified nurses, treat about 10,000 a year between the two health facilities. Without Sr. Anna and this clinic the people would have nowhere to turn for medical care.

Want to learn more about the life-saving work of Minne Health Post? Read more here. Check back often for more stories of the unsung heroes we work with. We’ll be sharing more of them on this blog in the coming months. Our prayer is that their inspirational stories will move you to make a difference in your world.