Our project officers must travel to incredibly remote places to reach some of the projects we support—but they’re well worth the effort. For instance, Claudio, who covers Latin American projects, describes his recent journey to a boarding school in the mountains of Arequipa, Peru. After a long flight, he rode a crowded bus for 12 hours until it literally reached the end of the road.

A happy student at Home of the Incarnate Word boarding school in the remote mountains of Peru, enjoys a hearty meal sponsored by Cross International Catholic Outreach.

Even though the trip to get there was exhausting, Claudio says Home of the Incarnate Word is one of his most favorite projects to visit. The children there exude the joy of the Lord. Besides, their families live even farther away. The children must walk anywhere from several hours to several days to get home. If it weren’t for this boarding school, they would not have an education, and the chance to better their lives.

Likewise, if it weren’t for an aqueduct construction project deep in the forest of rural Dominican Republic, nearly 900 people would not get the chance to have water. For a long time, they couldn’t find anyone to fund the project because it’s too remote. But Cross Catholic did. So Claudio drives several hours across the country to even get to the region. Then the trip to the water project begins—first by 4WD truck, then by mule, then finally on foot.

The trek is daunting. But just think…women and children must make a similar journey every day, sometimes several times a day, just to fetch water for their families—and even then, it’s not always drinkable. This remote project is worth the trip because it will eventually bring clean, safe water directly to their villages instead.

It can be humiliating to be treated as a charity case—the object of someone else’s pity and justification for their pride. Not being able to feed your family can be enough of a blow to your self esteem; but having food (or a house, or other basic need) provided in the wrong spirit can be almost as crushing.

Poor Filipino families participate in the solution to their housing problem by helping construct the homes provided to them.

That is why Cross International Catholic Outreach takes care to maintain the dignity of the poor. Rather than take a “Santa Claus” approach, we lend behind-the-scenes support to local churches and ministries already serving poor communities. A needy family is helped by their own parish priest, for example. This not only builds up a family’s self worth and sense of community, it builds up the local church as well.

Whenever possible, we also require the poor to be part of their own solution. For instance:

• Side-by-side with local Filipino Catholics, poor families in Manila help build and paint the homes they receive through Gawad Kalinga.
• Villagers in the Dominican Republic dig the trenches to make way for a clean-water aqueduct provided through their diocesan charity, FUNDASEP.
• And families who can are asked to contribute a token 20 cents a month for their child’s education at Mine Hara Catholic School.

As Catholics, we are instructed to treat others—including the very poor—as we would want to be treated (Luke 6:31). More than that, in humility we are to consider them better than ourselves. (Philippians 2:3). It is with such humility that Cross International Catholic Outreach strives to honor the poor by helping them in Jesus’ name, and with his love.

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.

Reports have been trickling in all day from our staff and mission partners in Haiti. The devastation from yesterday’s 7.2-scale earthquake has been profound.

Photo courtesy of AP

“It looks like Dante’s Inferno. There are dead bodies everywhere,” said Mike Henry, our Haiti projects officer who is on the ground in Port-au-Prince today, working with our partners to bring aid to the people.

The most immediate needs are medical aid, food and water, and shelter. We’ve created a disaster relief fund to help provide urgent aid to Haiti’s desperate earthquake victims. The money we raise will help provide cash grants to our ministry partners to meet their most immediate needs.

You can donate by visiting our disaster relief page, sending a check to Cross International Catholic Outreach at 600 SW 3rd Street, Suite 2201, Pompano Beach, Florida 33060, or calling in a donation by phone at 800-391-8545.

The earthquake is the worst Haiti has seen in two centuries. The major quake sent 33 aftershocks ranging in magnitude from 4.2 to 5.9. Officials are estimating that about 3 million people — a third of Haiti’s population — were affected by the quake. Haiti’s prime minister announced today that he believes more than 100,000 have died in the disaster. Among those reported dead was Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot of Port-au-Prince.

One of our project officers received an email from a friend doing relief work in Port-au-Prince today who said, “Much of the capital is in ruins. Having spent the last 12 hours in the streets, I assure you — you won’t have a hard time finding someone to help.”

Even our mission partners in Jacmel, a city three hours away from the quake’s epicenter in Port-au-Prince, felt the shock. Below is an excerpt from their email:

“Though it felt like hours, I think the earthquake lasted for about one minute. After it stopped, we went outside and heard people everywhere yelling and screaming and running all over the place. I was thankful to the Lord that we were safe. We went out to the people in the neighborhood to find out if anybody was hurt or needed help. We were told of several people whose homes had collapsed….All that we can do in this moment is pray. We thank the Lord who holds our lives in His hands. And we pray that lives are preserved all throughout Haiti during this time of crisis.”

Please continue to pray for the people of Haiti and for protection over our staff and other aid workers in the country, and join us in helping the disaster victims. We need your support!