Haiti Mission Trip

Next trip:

2024 (dates TBA)

Past trips:

January 13-20, 2020
November 12-19, 2018

Our Lady of the Rosary's third Mission Trip to Haiti will be 2024 (dates TBA).. 

David and Laura Fakier will be leading this mission trip. There is room for 12 more participants. Spots will be reserved for parishioners only until the deadline (TBA). After that date, the trip will be open to anyone who wishes to join us.

More information can be found below. If you are interested in joining the mission trip, please fill out the form below or send an email to David Fakier at [email protected] or Laura Fakier at [email protected].

Our next parish mission trip to Haiti will be in 2024 (dates TBA).

The Mission Trip is coordinated by Haiti Mission, Inc. and led by Laura & David Fakier.

We have room on the trip for a total of 14 . The trip is reserved for parishioners only until date TBA. 

Total Cost: $1700 per person as a donation to HMI (includes all flights, hotel in Miami and room and board in Haiti)

Some of the Corporal Works of Mercy we will do during the week:

• Daily Mass with Fr. Joe 
• Family Distribution to approximately 150 families. This is one of our major jobs on the trip. We will work together filling bags with portions of rice, beans, flour, and sugar for distribution.  We will then pack together for distribution day when families come to the compound to receive their gifts.
• Dedicate new homes and inspect construction
• Visit Jeremie and the Missionaries of Charity (Pray with sick and play with children)
• Prison Ministry (Distribute food and medicine at prison)
• Visit the parish school and feed the children
• Go to the beach
• Host a Movie Night at Bec's Garden and provide popcorn
• Hike into rain forest and hills outside Numero Deux and meet some of the locals
• Eat lunch, dinner and drink Prestige.  
• Visit with as many Haitians as possible and enjoy “Voluntourism”.  
• Spread as much love as possible to the community we serve.

Most nights we will also spend some time together as a group sharing our thoughts about what we see and do.  This has been one of the most enjoyable parts of the day for us. It is wonderful to hear the perspectives of those who are making their first trip to the area and to share the emotions of the day. This is a time that most really enjoy, but participation is voluntary. 

For more information you can visit: www.haitimissioninc.com. 

Further questions can be directed to:

• David Fakier: (985) 804-3112 - [email protected]
• Laura Fakier: (985) 860-4311 - [email protected]

November 25, 2018  (Click here for .pdf version with photos)
 
Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord,
 
As we celebrated Thanksgiving this week, ten of our parishioners and I have found a new urgency to give thanks to God for His many blessings to us. As you know, we travelled last week on a mission trip to Haiti. Our time there was incredibly moving. Besides the wonderful natural beauty of the Caribbean island, we also experienced the beauty and the extreme poverty of the Haitian people.

We spent most of our time in a rural area about 3 miles outside the town of Jeremie, Haiti. This rural area allowed us the chance to visit and get to know some of the poorest people in our part of the world, people who live daily without electricity or running water. But in their poverty, there was still great joy and love. The first house we visited on our first full day in Haiti was perched on the side of the mountain, overlooking the gorgeous blue water of the Caribbean Sea. The house, however, was anything but beautiful. It was a tin shack with dirt floors and a tiny porch built into the front of the home. As we walked up, the mother of the family who lived there was sweeping the dirt floor of the porch to keep her home neat and tidy. Thanks to the generosity of one of our parishioners on the trip, this family will receive a new home in a couple of months – one made of cinderblock, not tin, with floors of concrete, not dirt. 

The organization that directed our mission trip, Haiti Mission, Inc. (HMI), coordinates and funds the building of houses for families like the one I described. The houses are built by local workers, using reinforced concrete and cinderblocks that are made by a young man we met on the mission trip. (The walls of the house were strong enough to withstand the winds of Category 4 Hurricane Matthew in 2016!) The houses are built on property already owned by the families who will receive the houses. And the houses become the property of the families, who will pass them down to future generations. Each house has a main room and three smaller rooms, in which members of the family can sleep, as well as a small porch in the front of the house. HMI has built 140 homes at a cost of $7,500 each and has a goal to build 25 additional homes each year.  Because of matching donations raised by the Haiti Mission Silent Auction and its Sponsors to cover half the cost, homes can then be built for an additional donation of only $3,750; and it only takes about 10 days to build each house. 

Before we left on the mission trip, I had decided that our parish would sponsor a new home for a family in the community. While we were there, our group was able to meet the family who will receive our house. The mother’s name is Marie Francois. She lives in a tiny hut made of tin walls and a blue tarp roof. Every night, she and her six children take turns sleeping in that tiny home. The pictures here tell only a whisper of the poverty in which they are living. But in just a few weeks, a new home, donated by our parish, will be built for them. One of the great blessings of this trip for me was that all of us were able to be present as the local pastor, Fr. Joe, gave this family the news that they will have received the gift of a new home by Christmas. Their gratitude and their promise of prayers for our parish were humbling for all of us present. 

A few generous parishioners donated to this effort even before we left for Haiti, but most of the funds for this house are still yet to be raised. If you would like to help our parish provide a home for Marie Francois and her family, please send a donation to the parish office. You can place a donation in any Sunday collection in an envelope marked “Haiti,” or you can send a donation to the parish office at the address on the front of this letter. Please make all checks payable to Our Lady of the Rosary Church, and please make a note that this donation is for the Haiti Mission. We ask that all donation be submitted no later than Sunday, December 9^th.

Thank you for your prayers for us during our mission trip and thank you for your continued generosity to those most in need!
 

To Jesus through Mary,
Fr. Jonathan

Our Lady of the Rosary parish has joined in a foreign mission to Haiti in conjunction with Haiti Mission, Inc. (HMI). This is a wonderful experience that will deepen your insights into the corporal works of mercy and offer you an opportunity to see the face of Jesus in the “poorest of the poor” in the villages outside of Jeremie, Haiti. 

Some of the things that we do on the one week trips we make are as follows:

• Daily Mass with Fr Joe (the pastor in Haiti)
• Family Distribution to approximately 150 families. This is one of our major jobs on the trip. We will work together filling bags with portions of rice, beans, flour, and sugar for distribution.  We will then pack together for distribution day when families come to compound to receive their gifts.
• Dedicate new homes that have been constructed by HMI’s all Haitian construction team, inspect construction and acquire GPS coordinates for all of the homes to update the HMI website for the donors of houses.
• Visit the city of Jeremie and the Missionaries of Charity who live and work in the city. Here we pray with the sick men and women who are housed by the sisters and play with the babies and children who are there as well. 
• Prison Ministry where we distribute a hot meal and medications to the prisoners.
• Visit the parish school and feed the children there. 
• Go to the beach. It is the Caribbean! 
• Hike into the rain forest and hills surrounding our villages and meet some of the local people. 
• Eat beautifully prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner and you can even enjoy a cold Prestige (local beer).
• Visit as many Haitians as possible and enjoy “voluntourism”.
• Spread as much love as possible to the community that we serve. 
• Most nights we will also spend some time together as a group sharing our thoughts about what we see and do.  This has been one of the most enjoyable parts of the day for us. It is wonderful to hear the perspectives of those who are making their first trip to the area and to share the emotions of the day. This is a time that most really enjoy, but participation is voluntary. 


• David Fakier: (985) 804-3112 - [email protected]
• Laura Fakier: (985) 860-4311 - [email protected]