For some Americans, post-Labor Day means “back to school,” which can be exciting or stressful or both. Kids or no, the holiday marks the time to get back to business. Turn over a new leaf. Make a fresh start. Take the next level.

To families in developing countries, however, back to school might as well mean a trip to the moon—it’s just as far fetched. Even tuition-free government schools charge enrollment fees, and most require students to

“Back to school” doesn’t’ apply to kids in developing countries who can’t even afford the shoes to walk there. Thanks to supporters of Cross International Catholic Outreach, though, impoverished kids like these in Kenya are getting a quality Catholic education.

wear uniforms and shoes—costs that are out of reach to poor parents who don’t have two pennies to rub together.

It’s a sad “Catch 22.” People who lack education, especially literacy, can’t get a job. So they can’t afford to send their kids to school. Those kids grow up illiterate and unemployed, and the cycle continues. Education breaks that cycle. (Click here to read more about how knowledge combats poverty.)

A family trapped in poverty for generations can lift itself out in one. But they usually need a boost.

What that means in dollars depends on whether a child goes to primary school or college, whether tuition includes room and board, and what country the student lives in. Costs can range anywhere from $16.50 to help an Ethiopian child go to primary school, to $5,500 to put a Haitian student through a year of medical school.

In today’s economy, any amount is nothing to sneeze at, but it’s small when measured against the good it can do.

What a great way to turn over that new leaf—take the next level: Sponsor education for impoverished kids who would otherwise look forward to more of the same. Help break their cycle of poverty for generations to come.

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!

Nothing is more uplifting than seeing the smiling face of a hungry child receiving a nutritious meal, or a mother with tears of joy in her eyes because she knows she’ll be able to feed her family with the bag of food staples she just received.

During a recent trip to Guatemala and Honduras, a couple of our staff members were able to capture some moments like these with photos. Below are a few of the many grateful faces they saw while visiting feeding programs we support in Central America.

We are able to feed needy people such as these because of the continuing support of American Catholics. Click here to learn more about the feeding programs we support around the world and how you can help.

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.

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!

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.

After more than two years of waiting and praying, Ana Briceño’s dreams came true. Her family was one of 50 to receive a sturdy home through a housing project we support in Nicaragua.

“This is such a blessing from God,” Ana said. “Before our family was suffering because we were constantly moving from place to place. We did not have a place to live.”

The shanty where Ana and her family used to live was literally falling apart.

Ana and her husband, Erwin, and their five young children had been nomads for several years. The $2.50 a day Erwin made working on a shrimp farm was hardly adequate for food and basic living necessities, let alone enough to secure a safe place for them to live. So they moved — a lot.

One of the places they lived was a small shack in El Limonal, the community next to the Chinandega city garbage dump. The people call the area the Triangle of Death because it is surrounded by the 20-acre dump, an overflowing cemetery, and a contaminated river. The nickname is hardly an exaggeration. Disease runs rampant in the community because of the filthy living and working conditions.

Ana’s children were always sick from the dirty conditions — they lived in a dilapidated shack made from rusted tin, dirty plastic tarps, and rotting wood — and she feared something would happen to them while she was gone during the day working as a maid.

Now Ana's family can sleep in peace knowing that their sturdy house built by Cross Catholic will protect them from the weather.

Ana prayed daily that her family would be able to escape the harsh conditions of the dump. Just when she was about to lose hope, Ana’s family was selected to receive a house in a clean community miles from the dump through a Cross Catholic housing program.

“I was so happy when I heard the news,” Ana said. “I didn’t know what to say.”

Ana and her family are now settling into their new house, and her three oldest children are attending the primary school in their new community — the other two will also once they are old enough.

“The environment here is much better than in the dump,” Ana said. “I am so thankful to have a place where my children can grow up in safety.”

Of all the things you can do to help a poor family nothing is as transformative as building them a house. Not only does it provide them with a safe place to live, but it gives families who have nothing hope for a better future while showing them the love of Christ in the process. Cross Catholic provides sturdy homes to destitute families like Ana’s who don’t have a safe place to call home. Click here to learn more about the housing projects we support around the world.

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!