Dear Friends,

Sorry for the silence on my end. Every night I sit down to reflect on the incredible happenings of the day but before I can write them down I'm asleep...

Let me attempt a quick rundown. When I arrived back in Haiti on Feb 6 we were dealing with the issue of getting a young girl in critical condition to the U.S. on a "humanitarian parole" issued by the Department of Homeland Security. I have an incredible respect for these people. They get a great deal of negative press but the people on the ground here continue to be very helpful. Here we are trying to get a mother and her daughter, who have no identification whatsoever, into the U.S. No birth certificates, no passports, not even a Haitian ID card. Nothing! And yet, Homeland Security allowed them to travel to the U.S. for care. The mother and daughter can only be described as the poorest of the poor. And as I told Mary Sue (who issues visas and so is always concerned about people who might decide not to return) this mother and her daughter would have no idea where to run or where to hide in the U.S.

On that first day back, Father Rick celebrated Mass on the rubble of the old hospital which collapsed and where two Americans died – one was a volunteer and the other was a brother visiting his sister who also was a volunteer – she was pulled from the rubble many, many hours later and was in critical condition. We built an altar out of that rubble and the Mass was attended by many, many people, including passersby as the streets are full of people. Then we walked three blocks to the rubble of another building where Joseph Ferdinand's brothers and sister died in the earthquake and Fr. Rick celebrated a second Mass. Joseph is an employee of Fr. Rick and spent a few years in the NPH home with his siblings as his mother died when he was 13 and his father died when he was 15.

The next two days were spent desperately trying to get the little girl and her mother to Children's Hospital Los Angeles. The first airplane we attempted to use did not work out as we could not get the stretcher in the door. That was incredibly disappointing as we had to take her back to the hospital on a bumpy road – and every bump made her wince, if not cry. Then began the scramble to work on a real air ambulance – which we were able to get the next day. They landed in Ft. Lauderdale to clear immigration and customs and the nurse correctly decided to admit her to the Joe Dimaggio hospital there for observation – and to determine if she was strong enough to fly across the U.S. to LA. The decision was that she was not – so she is still there. Thankfully she is improving and recovering from her very serious condition. A nurse who was volunteering from Ireland and who helped us all the way with keeping the mother and child calm has since returned to Ireland and daily calls the mother to make sure things are okay. A real angel!

The side story on this was that when we were at the airport on day #2 the mother told us about her husband – and their other seven children! – who were living on the street as their house was badly damaged. The next day the nurse organized us all to receive the father and some of the children who were then seen at the clinic, and give him much needed supplies and food.

The latest thing has been the number of bodies still being pulled from the ruins of buildings. Fr. Rick has an enormous respect for ensuring that any bodies “presented” to him are given a proper funeral (even though he rarely knows their names) and are buried.

At one funeral Mass he told the story of Cain and Abel and how the Lord told Cain that this brother's blood was crying out from the ground – and how Cain said in effect, “how should I know, am I my brother's keeper?”. Well the same thing happened here with the local government denying they had mass graveyards where bodies were dumped like cord wood and bulldozed. Fr. Rick took a large group of us to where those poor people were crudely buried and again we had a Mass for them. One of the Haitian Bishops joined us for that service. This is incredibly powerful stuff! Hopefully you have read Fr. Rick's reflections – I really can't do those reflections justice with my weak words but suffice to say we all were emotionally drained by the time Mass was over. But our day was just beginning.

To jump ahead, we are in the process of getting our third child a humanitarian parole. Hopefully he will fly out soon. He has TB of the spine – it's called Pott's Disease. If untreated he will probably be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. His medical condition is not related to the earthquake and is not considered life-threatening so his request for "parole" went to Washington, D.C. We expect to hear soon. Please keep him in your prayers. His first name is Metis – he's 17.

Joseph is with us in Santo Domingo. He was able to finally recover the bodies of his brothers and sister and now they have been given a proper burial. He will stay here for a few days just to relax and pray and reflect on what happens to him next. He has completed three years of college but his school lies in ruins. We are looking at options for him. Please keep him in your prayers as well.

Father Rick has a new book out. It’s called Haiti – The God of Tough Places, the Lord of Burnt Men and is available, thanks to Dave and Jamie Dittmeier, at The Christian Shoppe. This book is a series of reflections written by Fr. Rick before the earthquake. Please, please, please get a copy of this book! (Katie's editorial ~ go to www.thechristianshoppe.com/ to find them ~ the book is amazing!)

The really big news over the last few days is that USAID has just given Fr. Rick an Operating Room complete with a tent to house it. The only item missing was an anesthesia machine and a doctor in LA who is returning to Haiti in a week will bring us a new one! Then USAID announced that they were giving Fr. Rick what in effect is a field hospital. What this means is that we will be able to establish an adult "tent" hospital to complement the St. Damien’s Pediatric Hospital which Fr. Rick dedicated in December 2006. He has had the vision to have an adult hospital for years. This donation is a giant step towards the realization of that dream. The new hospital will be named St. Luke's. And as if that donation was not enough, they then offered Fr. Rick $100,000 to help him make the new hospital a reality which is really good as what they were donating to us did not include tents or a generator. When I asked how they determined to provide us with these donations they just said ‘there is no hidden agenda with Fr. Rick” and added that they knew that the equipment and supplies and drugs they were providing would be used in the best interests of the poor of Haiti – and they are right! And so, thanks to USAID, and in particular the USAID DART Team, your tax dollars are also helping in our effort.

My promise to you all is to send more frequent updates and what I am going to attempt to do is summarize Fr. Rick's sermons. We have Mass at 7:00AM every day and his sermons are amazing. I wish I could figure out how to record them and send them to you.

We continue to need your prayers. We see miracles every day, in fact we are surrounded by miracles. I just cannot stress strongly enough that we know we are being supported by people like you with your prayers and we want you to know that your prayers are being answered.

God bless you all.