When a single project can house the homeless, create jobs for the jobless, protect the planet, and be self sustaining—all at the same time—Cross International Catholic Outreach would consider it to be just about the perfect project!

That’s why we’re so excited about a special enterprise being launched in Haiti. It’s an all-in-one housing program, vocational training program,

Boys of working age at Espwa Village are learning how to assemble pre-fab houses that will go to families who lost their homes in Haiti’s earthquake. This will be a steady livelihood for them for years to come.

construction company, and livelihood for orphans.

Now for the details.

The houses are designed by Shelter2Home. They resist earthquakes, hurricanes, fire, termites, and 96 percent of the sun’s heat. They’re made of environmentally-friendly materials, yet you can’t tell them apart from traditional cement homes in Haiti. Through Cross Catholic’s support, these homes will go to families who lost theirs in the earthquake.

Right now, orphaned and vulnerable kids of working age at Espwa Village are getting trained to put these pre-fab homes together. They’ll be able to make a living for years to come while rebuilding Haiti, through the construction company they’re forming. Those are good job prospects considering Haiti had 80 percent unemployment before the earthquake!

Click here to watch a video and learn more about this ideal project!

On the day of the monthly food distribution at the Haiti Kobonal Mission, you’ll likely see Hermance St. Preux riding up on his donkey. This good-natured 80-something man can’t walk very far on his own—he lost a leg and relies on crutches or his donkey—but he says there are two things he never misses: Mass and food day at the Haiti Kobonal Mission.

St. Preux is thankful for the food he gets each month from the Haiti Kobonal Mission and the house he received last year.

Both places, church and the mission, are three kilometers from his house. Speaking of his house, Hermance says he was blessed to receive a new home from the mission last fall. Before he moved in with one of his sons and two grandchildren, he waited for Father Glenn Meaux, founder of the Haiti Kobonal Mission, to bless it, and it’s been a wonderful experience ever since. Like anyone Hermance’s age, he says he loves his new home because he can sit on the porch and take in the view, and watch the people come and go on the road to town.

Hermance also takes part in the elderly and destitute feeding program Fr. Meaux runs at the mission. Cross Catholic provides funds for 318 elderly and/or destitute people to receive food staples like cornmeal, black beans, cooking oil, and soap once a month from the mission. With his disability, Hermance isn’t able to work, so the food he receives from Fr. Meaux really helps out. The food distribution day is like a social event for these elderly people—they visit, laugh, and sing. Everyone knows everyone, and it’s a time of happiness and hope.

“The way we are working, we have a lot of people and they respect each other—no pushing, no talking bad about each other,” says Philo-Jacques Bernard, the mission’s director. “You can see also in their face they still have hope.”

Click here to read about the work Cross Catholic is doing in Haiti with the help of our donors and how you can join us. You’re one click away from making a big difference!

Claudner Pierre, 37, is a man who works with his hands. As a mason, he knows exactly how much hard labor goes into building the foundation, walls, and ceiling of a proper house. But even with that knowledge, he still didn’t have the resources or money to build a house for his own family. He instead earned a living building houses for others through the Haiti Kobonal Mission housing project in the rural areas of Kobonal, Haiti.

Claudner and Valcin Pierre and their family stand outside their now home, built for them thanks to Cross Catholic.

Though Claudner, his wife, and their four children lived in a shoddy house of sticks with mud walls, he quietly prayed that someday he, too, would receive a house from the mission. He says his prayers were rewarded: after five years of building homes for others (86 to be exact), Claudner and his family finally were given a home to call their own.

His wife, Valcin, says their new house is much sturdier and solid than the old one, which she constantly feared would wash away in storms. She says it’s a safe place to raise their children. “I like the new house because I hear the rain, I don’t feel the rain,” she says.

Today, the Pierre family is enjoying a sturdy cement home on a half-acre plot of land they can use for farming to feed themselves and generate income. Cross Catholic is proud to support the Haiti Kobonal Mission and its founder, Father Glenn Meaux. At a cost of only $5,500 per house, the mission has saved many families like the Pierres from abject poverty and helped them become responsible homeowners living in dignity.

Claudner says that if he could thank the people who made it possible for him to have a home, he’d tell them God will surely bless them just as He has blessed the Pierre family. “And I would ask them to pray for me and my family that God would continue to bless us, and my family would pray for them and ask them to continue to do for others what they’ve done for us,” he says.

Click here to read about how you can help Cross Catholic build houses in Haiti!

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.

Right now, people in Haiti are busy clearing away rubble from the January earthquake in trucks and wheelbarrows. There’s much work to be done, but Port-au-Prince and the surrounding towns are slowly putting buildings, shops, and homes back together. Yet underneath the surface lies things that are still broken and will take years to heal, like the hearts of the survivors who’ve lost so much.

Caline Brevil and her 7-month-old daughter, Ronese, are just a few of the many earthquake survivors in Haiti who need our help.

The stories of loss coming from Haiti are heartbreaking and almost too much to bear. People like Caline Brevil, 23, are struggling to deal with the emotional scars left by the disaster. Caline, who was nine months pregnant at the time of the earthquake, spoke of her horrifying walk back to her house immediately after the quake. She said that the closer she got to her house, the more bodies there were in the streets. Caline had to step over and on top of bodies on that walk. She would turn around and say “Excuse me” to the people she stepped on, only to realize they were dead.

When she arrived at what was once her house, all she could see was the roof—that was the new floor. The damage was so severe in her neighborhood that there was no one left alive to ask where her husband and twin 5-year-old daughters were. Caline never found them that day.

Three days after the earthquake, Caline gave birth to a baby girl, who she named Ronese. She begged a ride to Kobonal, Haiti, a remote mountain village where she grew up, and she now lives with her grandmother in a crowded mud-walled home. Caline has nightmares often and she can’t sleep at night—she will jolt awake and feel as if the bed is shaking. She also has a recurring dream that she and her husband are together and the earthquake hits. In the dream, he carries their twin daughters and they all begin running. They come to the fork in the road, and Caline goes one way and her husband and children another.

Earthquake victims like Caline will never forget January 12, 2010. But there is something we as Christians can do—we can help them rebuild their lives. Cross International Catholic Outreach has programs in place throughout Haiti to help earthquake victims like Caline. With help from American Catholics, we can work to replace what has been lost.

Click here to find out how Cross Catholic is reaching out to earthquake survivors like Caline—and how you can make a difference!

If you look at Haiti solely in terms of statistics, the picture looks bleak: barely half of Haitians over 15 can read and write, more than two-thirds of the workforce is unemployed, and about 15 percent of Haiti’s children are orphaned. And after the devastating earthquake in January, poverty and homelessness are on the rise.

Judex Mondesir, 18, wants to use his education to help Haiti recover from the earthquake.

But if you look at Haiti at the “people level,” you’ll see a different picture altogether, one of hope that comes from the young people of Haiti.

Take the example of Judex Mondesir, an 18-year-old young man whose life changed forever after meeting Father Marc Boisvert and coming to live at Pwoje Espwa (Project Hope) in Les Cayes, Haiti. Judex comes from hard circumstances: his father passed away years ago and his mother could barely provide for him and his siblings. Life was tough, Judex said. When he heard of Pwoje Espwa, a place supported by Cross International Catholic Outreach where about 750 children live, are fed, go to school, and learn about Christ from a kind priest named Fr. Marc, he went straight there.

Judex has lived at Pwoje Espwa for two-and-a-half years now. He speaks fluent English, teaches Bible school on Sundays for the children, and works as an interpreter at Pwoje Espwa as needed, such as for dentists and doctors when they visit. Judex also teaches English at Pwoje Espwa during the summer in the mornings for ages 3-6 and in the afternoon for ages 11-15.

Judex says Father Marc has helped him greatly, and he plans to go to a university to become a teacher or a computer programmer. More importantly, Judex wants to help Haiti—he says he wants to stay in Haiti after finishing school and give back to his country. “I just want to share what I have with the others,” he said.

Young people like Judex are all over Haiti—and thanks to caring Catholics like Fr. Marc, their talent and desire to help Haiti is nurtured. Places like Pwoje Espwa offer education, a place to live, and the wonderful message to Christ to the next generation of Haitians. Cross Catholic has a long relationship with Pwoje Espwa, and we know that thanks to Fr. Marc’s dedication to the Lord and the children of Haiti, young men and women like Judex are ready to help Haiti recover from the earthquake.

Click here to learn more about how Cross Catholic makes a difference in the lives of children at Pwoje Espwa—and how you can help!

In the midst of despair people around the world have been touched by the faith and resilience of the Haitian people in the months following the devastating earthquake that leveled Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, killing thousands and leaving more than 1 million people homeless.

Cross Catholic staff members working in the field in the days and months after the earthquake saw this display of faith first hand. Our Haiti projects officer, Mike Henry, described this scene just a week after the earthquake:

“While walking amid the ruins of Port-au-Prince, I came across a spontaneous outdoor gathering of Haitian believers who had just watched their whole world crumble, now joined together in prayer and worship. The earthquake could take their homes and churches, but it could not take their faith! I was amazed by the joy, gratefulness, and prayerful resolve these Haitians were showing in the face of such devastation.”

And this wasn’t an isolated incident. NPR did a piece last week in honor of the six-month anniversary of the earthquake that touched on that very subject. A group of doctors shared an inspiring moment they experienced in the midst of tragedy and pain, at a makeshift tent hospital in Port-au-Prince. This happened to be there very same tent hospital that Cross Catholic supported with tents, medicines, and other aid after the quake.

In the piece, the doctors explain what happened: “…a man begins to play a guitar in the corner of the tent, and patients begin to sing.  Soon every Haitian in the tent is singing or clapping or dancing.  The song: “Jesus, thank you for loving us.” (Click here to listen to the full audio segment.)

These doctors were overwhelmed by the experience. As one put it: “It’s extremely humbling to be around a people that, in the worst time of their life, have it in their hearts to give gratitude for what they have left…”

This is reminiscent of the story of Paul and Silas praising and singing hymns to God despite being chained and in prison (Acts 16:25-31). And if you recall, through their worship the jailer came to Christ. Like this story, the Haitian people’s hopeful attitude despite the devastation caused by the quake is an amazing testament to the awesome power of God to overcome any circumstance.

Click here to learn more about what Cross Catholic has been doing in the last six months to help earthquake victims in Haiti.

More than 1 million people were left homeless after the earthquake. The survivors fled Port-au-Prince in search of temporary shelter and food.

This week marks the six-month anniversary of the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti on Jan. 12, killing more than 200,000 men, women, and children and reducing the capital city of Port-au-Prince to a field of rubble. Droves of traumatized survivors fled to the countryside in search of food, water, and shelter, and at least 1.5 million were left homeless.

As photos from Haiti published by the media this week show, the people are still in great need and it will take years for the country to recover. However, we at Cross Catholic are thankful for the progress that has been made with the help of compassionate Catholics who have selflessly given to help Haiti.

Already, with their support we have been able to provide more than $73 million in cash grants and shipped goods to help those hurting in Haiti. This first helped us provide emergency relief — food, medicine, and other supplies — to victims in the days after the quake. It then enabled us to work with our ministry partners in the months after the disaster to provide recovery and relief to thousands of displaced earthquake victims living in refugee camps.

In addition to the food we continue to ship to earthquake victims, Cross Catholic has turned its efforts to recovery with a plan to build hundreds of earthquake-resistant homes.

Now, six months since the earthquake, we have been able to turn our efforts to long-term recovery — clearing debris to make room for new structures and rebuilding schools and homes. Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, we’ve also began a plan to build hundreds of earthquake resistant houses in Port-au-Prince and three other regions for families whose homes were destroyed.

Please keep the people of Haiti in your prayers as we continue to work with our ministry partners to rebuild the lives of the earthquake victims.

Click here to read a full report of what Cross has been able to do to help Haiti in the last six months thanks to the generosity of American Christians.

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.