Hello All...This is an article written by a teenager from our Parish who traveled with members of our Sister Parish Committee to Haiti this winter to visit our Immaculate Conception Sister Parish parishioners - Father Bill
 

I was really touched by the extreme amount of joy and devotion to the catholic faith that the young children and the rest of the congregation had shown us, both at Immaculate Conception and at Barbe.
 
These lovely people in such a depressed area have absolutely NOTHING, but they are still as happy as can possibly be and always have the “glass half full” perspective on life. The majority of our citizens in the first world country take the immense amount of luxury they have for granted, from a first car to clean water and food and even just a hot shower, America does not truly appreciate these aspects of life. For example, when we had handed out Smarties to all the kids, probably the cheapest candy out there, the children were so amazed and showed their extreme thankfulness to us.
 
The look on these wonderful children was priceless and many of them even tried to share the Smarties with us, even though that was probably going to be the first and last time they had tasted candy like that. The pride that the kids had shown us was also like no other. Many of the kids had such torn and tattered books that were falling apart but once you would go over to kids to say Bonjour or even to just sit down to take a break from the 5 laps you have just taken with the kids around the compound, they would come over with such pride and show you their workbook and show you what they have been working on from multiplication to the alphabet, everyone had something that they needed to present to you to show their hard work, like an athlete who just won a race and came over to show you their medal.
 
The people of Haiti are truly a model for the rest of the world to see how with nothing, happiness is not only possible to these people; it is the cornerstone of their society. Regardless of the 1,520 miles between us, or the language barrier that was present, the people of Haiti and us are all one family in Christ.