It was eight years ago that I first heard of Riviere Mancelle, surely one of the poorest communities on earth. Located roughly 70 miles inland and up the steep mountain terrain from Port au Prince, it is a community with no clean water, no electricity, and very little to eat.

   Our parish had learned of Riviere Mancelle as a result of a "twinning program" that matches churches in the United States with others in areas afflicted by overwhelming poverty and all the problems that go with it. And yet, nothing we had seen or heard could have prepared us for the impoverishment we encountered when we first visited Riviere Mancelle on a fact-finding mission in October 2000.

   Nothing had prepared us, either, for the graciousness, the jubilation, and the strong faith of its people, who opened their homes and shared their lives with us.

   "Our Gang" consisted of my husband and I, our pastor Father Jim Bretl, SDS, and three other lay women. Arriving in Port au Prince, we discovered that our journey would require another six hours by four-wheel drive to Gros Morne. From there we climbed the mountain on foot for another two hours or so until we reached our destination.

'Dirt Poor'

   Father Jadotte welcomed us to Riviere Mancelle. He is pastor to 15,000, and his parish hosts a church, four chapels, five outposts, five schools, and one medical dispensary, all staffed by four Sisters and himself. They were quite delighted to learn that we had brought with us ten suitcases with supplies for the parishioners. And yet, ten suitcases of provisions can only go so far!

   We found that most of the 500 children attending the main mission drank water from the river on their way to school. That was their breakfast. Most had nothing for lunch. Sister Jacqueline informed us that it only takes $60 a year to educate a child. That figure covers tuition, books, and uniforms. Sixty bucks might sound pretty reasonable, and yet we met schoolteachers who did not earn enough to enroll their own children.

   In Tennessee, we'd call that dirt poor! Somebody had to do something. And when we looked around, there weren't any "somebody's" there but us.

Education Equals Hope

   We returned from Riviere Mancelle convinced that education is the main hope for this community. Its kids deserve a future better than their present. We also came home with quite a shopping list of items that we knew we could buy and ship to the parish. Thus in the first year following our 2000 visit, our group sponsored 78 students and shipped to Riviere Mancelle 350 cubic feet of supplies. This inventory included plastic pipe to carry clean water to the church and school, a generator for electricity, a table saw, two pedal powered sewing machines, lumber and hardware for school benches, and many hand tools.

   The next year we sponsored 178 kids and shipped a solar collector, another sewing machine, more plastic pipe, window screening, and a lot of goods from Brother Regis' Salvatorian Mission Warehouse.

   In April of last year, we made our second expedition to Haiti. Once there, one of our group provided dental hygiene services, while another installed the solar collector and performed other maintenance jobs. I helped people start a garden and worked with them on some of their agricultural projects. We sponsored 160 students and began laying the plans for an ongoing medical mission.

   This year thus far, the Valspar Corporation has donated 8,000 pounds of paint. St. Catherine's has collected seeds, food items, storage containers, a heavy-duty grinder, garden tools, more window screening, solar dryers, and much more. In fact, support for our efforts now comes from four parishes in and around McMinnville: St. Catherine's, St. Gregory's in Smithville, St. Thomas in Cookeville, and St. Andrew's in Sparta.

An Ecumenical Venture

   We've also received generous help, both in terms of donations and prayer, from the Dowelltown Methodist Church. A local grocery store owned by a Baptist family has helped us get goods at cost. And we've been supported at every turn by Father Jim and the Salvatorians.

   What will the future hold for Riviere Mancelle? We're hoping to start a school lunch program, along with both a waste treatment project and a water purification plant. As St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, we feel we have nothing really to "boast" about; instead, we feel we're the ones who've been blessed by the opportunity to be of service to these wonderful Haitian people.

To help the Salvatorians in their work--
Click here to donate using a credit card,
or here to donate with a check.