Dear friends of the Mission,
We express our very grateful feelings to the Brotherhood of Orthodox Foreign Mission for your special interest in our missionary work and for your recent valuable donation for the Orthodox ministry we are carrying out in Haiti.
Your help greatly strengthens our missionary work in Haiti, and is certainly an imperative contribution to our existence here, given that since the Duvalier regime the long-standing economic and socio-political crisis is causing serious problems in all areas of national life. Several products are not grown, the market is controlled by foreign products that devalue what little local production we have, our currency is losing value, almost replaced by the American dollar, villagers are slowly fleeing to the capital in search of a better life, our forests are disappearing, either because of anarchic building or to make coal for cooking, corruption is rampant, drugs among the young are rampant, violence in the neighbourhoods and immorality among the young are at an all-time high.
My brothers and sisters, I have mentioned all this so that you too can have an idea of how important our Mission’s presence in Haiti is both spiritually and socially. Our humble Holy Metropolis, under the responsibility of Mons. Metropolitan Athenagoras of Mexico and Central America, has been covering all expenses for years to operate our elementary school within the parish of St. John the Baptist in Petion-Ville, providing education to hundreds of poor children.
Our work is not easy, but we praise God for our bishop, who is always at our side. We love him and we are grateful to him, who with his initiative and blessing brought me to Greece and, after teaching me Orthodox theology, ordained me. The Ven. Metropolitan of Rethymnon expresses his paternal love for my unworthy person and our Mission. I love him very much as he loves me and I thank God for this great blessing and grace to be a fisher of people and to spread the message of the Holy Gospel and the Orthodox faith in my country of origin, Haiti.
This year he gave us the gift to continue a new project that I started in my home, where our parish of Saints George and Nektarios in the village of Pelerin is located. There we gather some people who are slowly converting to Orthodoxy. We have now prepared premises in the parish to start an orphanage and, with God’s blessing, we will be granted a public plot of land to build the building. We expect to receive 24 children by early summer at the latest and we need to arrange the rooms, kitchen and lounge to gather the children in order to care for them in a beautiful and spiritually secure place. This of course will be done with God’s help, after we have decided and taken the initiative and put it in our prayers.
We hope for your charity and your support and we pray that our Lord Jesus Christ will bless your life and your works, to give you strength and courage in your work, for the glory of God and Holy Orthodoxy.
With humble feelings,
π. Paul Petit-Homme
High Priestly Commissioner of Haiti
