Help for Haiti – $5,861 donated to date

January 13th, 2010

To help the needy in Haiti, we recommend you donate directly on the Episcopal Relief and Development website: www.er-d.org/donate-select.php

Please respond generously to help our brothers and sisters in Haiti as they recover from the disastrous earthquake that has struck that impoverished nation.

HAITI UPDATE

Dear Friends in Christ,

I want to thank everyone who has given so generously to help the people of Haiti through Episcopal Relief and Development – $5,861 to date! Additional contributions to the Haiti fund can be made through St. Paul’s by writing a check to St. Paul’s and indicating Haiti in the memo line. Contributions can also be made directly on line by going to the St. Paul’s website (www.stpaulspgh.org) and clicking on the "Help for Haiti" article.

The following interesting and very sad information about the Church in Haiti comes to us via Grace Episcopal Church in Chattanooga, TN, and its former Rector, the Rev. Dr. James D. Curtis. (Grace Episcopal is the former parish of St. Paul’s parishioner Michele Baum.)

We will not learn from the national news the significance of the Episcopal Church and especially our now-destroyed Cathedral of Holy Trinity in Port au Prince. The Cathedral’s demise involves so much more than just a building. In the mid-1940’s, an American, Dewitt Peters, discovered the surprising, colorful and spiritual art of a number of painters in Haiti. He had the vision of their painting murals of the life of Christ inside a grand building. The Haitian government said, "Not in our buildings." The Roman Catholic Archbishop said, "Not in our Cathedral." The Episcopal Bishop, when approached by Peters, said "Yes, in our Cathedral." When completed, the murals were magnificent; there was nothing else in Haiti like them. Now they are destroyed and the artists are dead; they cannot be replaced.

Furthermore, located at the Cathedral before the earthquake were an elementary school for 400 children, a trade school for 700 adults, the finest music school in Haiti, the country’s only Boy’s Choir, who sang movingly in 4 languages, the gift shop/gallery from which we got all the items we have had for sale at St. Bartholomew’s and St. Paul’s, and an Episcopal Convent, The Sisters of St. Margaret, consisting of American and Haitian sisters. Near the Cathedral was the College St. Pierre, our secondary school; across the street was the Musee d’Art, containing paintings by Haiti’s "old masters," owned and preserved by the Episcopal Church.

With the destruction of the Cathedral has come the destruction of ALL these facilities that offered so much to Haiti’s people and to others who have been blessed by them. The Episcopal Church of Haiti has truly been the "Conservator of Haiti’s great art." Nothing is left of that great legacy; and now, it lives only in the hearts and minds of the survivors of the earthquake.

For up-to-date information about Haiti, I suggest checking the website of the Rev. Lauren Stanley, one of the Episcopal missionaries to Haiti, and the Episcopal News Service website. Lauren was home in the United States when the earthquake struck, and is staying in close communication with Diocesan leaders and has interesting information on her website. Episcopal News Service is posting articles on a daily basis about Haiti.

For Lauren’s website, go to http://web.me.com/merelaurens/GoIntoTheWorld/Go_Into_The_World/Go_Into_The_World.html

For the Episcopal News Service website, go to http://www.episcopalchurch.org/episcopal_life.htm

Please continue to keep the people of Haiti, the members and partners of the Diocese of Haiti, and Episcopal Relief and Development in your prayers.

In Christ’s love,

Lou+

Posted in Archive

St. Paul's Episcopal Church

Help for Haiti – $5,861 donated to date