By Ana Rodriguez Soto - The Archdiocese of Miami

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTON | FC

Father Reginald Jean-Mary, second from left, back row, and Father Robes Charles, first from right, kneeling, pose with members of the medical team before flying to Haiti Jan. 23.

OPA-LOCKA � Father Reginald Jean-Mary spoke above the roar of jet engines warming up before dawn Jan. 23 at Opa-Locka Airport.

�Every time I go to Haiti,� he said, �whenever I touch the land, I regain a new strength, a new spirit. It�s going to be different this time, I think.�

A few minutes later, the pastor of Notre Dame d�Haiti Church in Miami�s Little Haiti neighborhood departed for his homeland along with another archdiocesan priest, Father Rob�s Charles, and a medical team consisting of four doctors and eight nurses.

It would be their first hands-on contact with the devastation in their country.

�It�s going to be very moving. But I pray that the Lord will give me strength,� said Father Jean-Mary, who would be met at the Port-au-Prince airport by a member of the Sisters of Wisdom, the niece of another religious, a woman who had helped him discern his vocation and had herself been killed in the quake.

�They are really broken,� he said of the sisters. �They have only one underwear, washing every day. No food to eat.�

Being religious, however, �they sacrifice themselves so the people can get care. We have to pay special attention to them, or how can they care for the people?�

He and Father Charles would stay in Haiti just a few hours initially: Long enough to assess the needs of about 150 priests, religious and seminarians being tended to by Msgr. Jean Pierre, pastor of St. James Parish in North Miami.

Msgr. Pierre has been in Haiti since Jan. 13 and has set up camp at the Lazarist Fathers� monastery in Fleuriot La Plaine, a suburb of Port-au-Prince. Some of the priests and religious there were injured themselves in the quake. Many have lost members of their community.

A few were flying back to Miami that same day with Father Jean-Mary and Father Charles, but most �don�t want to leave, so we have to bring help to them,� said Father Charles, pastor of St. Clement Parish in Fort Lauderdale.

The medical team planned to set up a clinic at the monastery and spend a week treating the injured and sick � both townspeople and religious � before being relieved by another group of doctors and nurses.

Father Charles and Father Jean-Mary were to return to Haiti Jan. 26, bringing truckloads of supplies to the mission overland, via the Dominican Republic, and staying there themselves for a week.

�While the doctors and nurses are providing medical care, we are going to be there to provide spiritual care to the people,� Father Jean-Mary said.

They hoped to continue the rotation, with priests from Miami going to Haiti for week-long periods of ministry and priests and religious from Haiti being brought to Miami for a week or two of respite.

�The stress is unbearable,� said Father Charles, whose cousin and her husband, a doctor, had left the country because they felt overwhelmed. He himself had lost his best friend in the earthquake.

�It�s a close-contact effort that you can do to help you process your own grief,� he said of his desire to help in Haiti.

A Jewish donor had put his plane, pilots and fuel at the priests� disposal. Amor en Acci�n, a lay missionary group in the archdiocese, had obtained the medical supplies, and a Hispanic doctor was rounding up medical professionals willing to serve in Haiti for a week at a time.

Father Jean-Mary saw the outpouring of help as proof that �our God is a God of providence. God always provides for his children.�

He and Father Charles also were collecting donations of vestments, French and Creole-language lectionaries and missals, unconsecrated hosts, chalices, ciboriums, crucifixes and even altar wine for churches in Haiti.

�They lost everything,� Father Charles said.

The donations were being accepted at his parish, St. Clement in Broward County, and Notre Dame d�Haiti in Miami. Moroneys� Religious Art in Fort Lauderdale also was trying to establish a way for donors to buy supplies online and earmark them for Haiti.

Updated: Jan. 26, 2010
Jack Moroney, of Moroneys' Religious Art, said he has already received donations for Haiti that total $100,000 from vendors and suppliers. Items include vestments, chalices, hosts, candles, altar linens, rosaries and holy cards. He hopes to be able to fill an entire container by next week and then have it delivered to either Father Jean-Mary or Father Charles.