How We Do God's Work
How We Do God's Work
We’re very proud of this track record. It wouldn’t have happened without the people of St. Dunstan’s walking with and working with a remarkable succession of Episcopal priests and dedicated laymen and women in Hinche. It has taken all of us, plus a network of friends and supporters throughout the Monterey Peninsula, to get us this far. By walking together hand in hand we are bringing hope for a better life to thousands of children who otherwise would grow up without hope!
Throughout this journey, we’ve been blessed with help from our local Carmel Unified School District (donated computers), our local Rotary Club (sanitation system), the International Foundation (solar panels), Episcopal Relief and Development (water well and diesel backup generator), the St. Dunstan’s Foundation (school costs and food) and from others. Our gratitude is boundless.
So too has been the strong, inspired leadership of our friends in Hinche. They, after all, have literally done the work while ensuring that funds sent from St. Dunstan’s are spent as intended. We’ve never had cause for concern about their stewardship.
In recent years, major civil unrest throughout the country has made life very difficult and often dangerous for our students and their parents, our teachers and staff, and our local farmers and cooks. Gangs of young men armed with advanced military guns from the United States imperil daily life with kidnappings and assault in Port-au-Prince, the capital, and elsewhere in the country. Endemic poverty forces countless widowed women in their 40s and 50s onto the streets, where they become ragged beggars because their families can’t afford to feed them. Their constant companions are illness, starvation, and death. Some children eat cookies made from mud dried in the sun to quench their hunger. Our female graduates will never be beggars.
“Life in Haiti is very, very difficult,” our devoted priest-in-charge at St. Andre’s, the Rev. Noe Bernier, recently said from the pulpit at St. Dunstan’s. Even so, he said, “I see hope in the eyes of 1,500 kids . . . in the eyes of parents . . . in the eyes of staff. I will never, never give up.”
Nor, with God’s help, will the people of St. Dunstan’s and our many friends.
