Haiti Outreach Ministry

Jim Taneyhill, Chair

Haiti Outreach Committee

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The Origin of our Haiti Outreach Ministry

In the spring of 2002, Dr. Jim Taneyhill, DDS, sat in the pew at St. John’s and listened to a guest speaker talk about volunteer work done in a Haitian orphanage and school run by the Xaverian Brothers. Shortly thereafter, Jim made a week-long trip to Haiti to volunteer his dental services there. In the spring of 2003, he again traveled to Haiti and spent most of his time doing extractions for children.  When stripping sugar cane, Haitians use their front teeth, rotting them. The adults and children were very courteous and grateful for his help, and he found the experience to be physically and emotionally rewarding. Out of these journeys came a desire to establish a more regular and permanent relationship.

With the beginning of the Archdiocesan Haiti Outreach Project, there came an opportunity for local parishes to enter into a specific relationship with a sister parish and to offer spiritual and material help.  The need there was great. 80% of the population lives below the poverty level. More than 2/3 of the labor force has no formal job. Only 45% of the total population has achieved literacy. 80% of the residents are Roman Catholic. The average lifespan is just 50 years.

In July 2003, Dr. Taneyhill spoke at all Masses about the desperation that he witnessed there and the fact that the Haitian government offered its citizens nothing in the way of social services.  He invited parishioners to become involved with the newly formed Haiti Outreach Committee.

In December 2003, Deacon Rodrigué Mortel, director of the Baltimore Haiti Outreach Program for the Archdiocese, spoke at all Masses here at St. John. He announced the partnership of St. John with St. Guillaume (Ghee-yome) parish in LaChapelle, Haiti. At that time, St. Guillaume had 12 mission churches and one of our first financial outreach projects was to fund the construction of a roof on one of the missions. Next in the works was the establishment of a School Lunch Program that would provide the only daily predictable meal that most of the children would have.

In November 2004, the pastor of St. Guillaume Church, Fr. Paul-Henri Dorléan, made the first of what would become annual visits to our parish. He would spend a long weekend here, speak at all Masses, greet parishioners, and visit our parish school children. His homily and subsequent talk were usually accompanied by slides showing the progress that the generous donations of our parishioners had made possible.

The past six years have seen this relationship between our two parishes grow and flourish. Your overwhelming financial support has helped with emergency hurricane relief, subsidized the education of a portion of the 1000 school children in the four schools run by the parish, as well as providing a morning meal five times per week for all of these children. Just $150 will support one of the school children for an entire year, and many of our parishioners have chosen to give this level of support annually. Training and small salaries for catechists and the sacristans who conduct the weekly services at the mission chapels have also been funded. Two of the Haiti Committee members, Phil Miller and Nikolay Ratajczak, were able to form a relationship with Food for the Poor, a philanthropic organization, to assist in securing funding for several construction projects in the St. Guillaume area. Due to this new partnership, a 90-home village called Cité St. Guillaume could be initiated.

In the fall of 2008, Fr. Dorléan was reassigned to a parish in the northwest corner of Haiti and Fr. Jean Baptiste Leroy (Leh-wah) was appointed as pastor at St. Guillaume. Fr. Leroy made his first visit to St. John parish in December 2008, where he was warmly received, putting at ease his initial apprehension at having been assigned to such a large Haitian parish. Upon reaching the end of his December visit here, Fr. Leroy said that he was most gratified, not just by the overwhelming generosity of our parishioners, but also by the outpouring of affection and brotherhood that he immediately felt upon arriving at St. John’s.

Unfortunately, we have just been made aware in June 2009 that Father Leroy has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer. He is currently in Boston seeking consultation and treatment. Please keep him in prayer as well as the multitude in St. Guillaume who are so dependent upon his leadership.

How Can You Help?

There is a dedicated Poor Box collection for our sister parish on the last weekend of each quarter, March, June, September and December.

As always, your generosity is most sincerely appreciated, both by our brothers and sisters in Haiti and by the Haiti Committee.  If you would like to contribute to helping feed and educate the children of St. Michel parish, please send your check payable to “Saint John Catholic Church” to:

Jim Taneyhill

SJE Haiti Committee

13305 Long Green Pike

Hydes  MD  21082