By emma bajardi | project coordinator
A letter from Fr Rick Frechette.
Dear family and friends,
I know that news of Haiti is rare.
It is probably just as well, or you would be even more saturated by bad news than you already are.
In recent years, many people live with a heaviness from pandemics, public shootings, global warming, wars, nuclear arms proliferation, hostile nationalism, fragile world economies, and other threats to existence.
It is not easy to imagine a hopeful future.
This also generates anxiety about what the future holds for our children and grandchildren. They deserve a better world than the one we are giving them.
The situation in Haiti unravels at a cruel and unrelenting pace.
In just the last few weeks we witnessed widespread gang wars, a massacre in Cite Soliel, the burning of the Cathedral, the burning of the Judicial Court, the closing of a major bank, the kidnapping of four of our staff, thousands more internal refugees.
Civilization and it's symbols- community, cohesion, transcendence, justice, economy-are being wiped out.
My work puts me daily in direct contact with the physical, emotional and spiritual wounds of those who have been torn to shreds by these tragedies.
It is not easy to imagine a future full of hope. This also generates anxiety about what the future holds for our children and grandchildren. They deserve a better world than what we are giving them.
We can't get used to bad news, be addicted to bad news.
It sounds strange to say, but the same giddy feeling can turn a deadly blizzard into the joy of a snowy day, or it can turn a hideous murder movie into satisfying entertainment.
Instead, we need to create our own hope and seek out other hopeful people. Rather than being overwhelmed, we must be the protagonists of hope. When hope is not in the air, you find it underground, deeply rooted. Like a treasure.
Despite our wounds, when we continue to do what is right regardless of the cost, hope flourishes within us and opens the way to good. It is totally in our power to say a good word at all times, to do a good deed.
Violence cannot force any of us to stop our work.
Thank you as always for your support for our work in Haiti, which allows hope to act.
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