St. Pauls Almonte

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to those who have helped the people of Haiti, especially to Focus on Development, the Almonte Presbyterian Church, Holy Name of Mary Church in Almonte, the Sarnia fundraising initiatives for RayJon, and friends of the program in Germany, Atlanta and Quebec.

Six months have passed. Yet it seems like the earthquake happened yesterday. The rubble and tents are still here, the amputees are learning to walk with one leg - or with no legs - or to work with one arm. The kids are here with no parents, or missing a brother, a sister, an aunt, the list goes on. It is unimaginable.

We do not have words to express the depth of our gratitude. We are especially grateful to Focus on Development for doing such a wonderful job in raising awareness in the community about the plight of the people in Haiti. Your response exceeded our highest hopes. Our most sincere thanks to all of you, and a very special thanks to Jeff Mills who has visited us in Haiti five times.

We made T-shirts and gave them to Jeff, to thank the people of Almonte. We could not produce enough shirts for everyone, but Jeff distributed some to the high school students. We also gave a certificate of gratitude to Jeff in acknowledgement of his awareness-raising initiatives in Lanark County.

We are taking this opportunity to thank everybody who contributed their help in this period of crisis. The crisis continues as we operate a small orphanage for children ages 4 to 11, who have all kinds of physical and emotional problems. We are still in need of great help as these kids are from difficult situations and their latest trauma brought new challenges to their health, and jeopardized their chances of receiving an education. We have been managing with the help of relief money from RAYJON, our parent organization in Sarnia. However, this relief money is going to stop in July of this year, so we need to look elsewhere for funding to help support these children at the orphanage. We are confident that these kids will not be forgotten.

The name of our orphanage is "Centre Vie" (Life Centre). "Compassion in Action" is our mission statement, because it was compassion in seeing the children’s pain that we were moved to shelter them, the amputees, and the orphans during the earthquake, and it was your compassion that moved you to help us. Thank you very much.

My number one teacher in this crisis is a 4-year-old boy, Landon Bedor, who guided his family into this humanitarian venture of saving the orphans of Haiti. He has taught me a lot. For the past six months, this young child’s efforts have inspired me to continue my work with the poor and the needy. Thank you to Landon and to his family for supporting him in this charitable work.

I am amazed and grateful that the people of Almonte, Mississippi Mills and Lanark County were the first to send me money to use for relief work. I had been buying relief supplies on credit, but when you sent the funds, I was able to pay the merchants and continue our work until RAYJON was able to transfer funds to us. Thank you for being diligent, and for your prompt response.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas and also the first country where people have been living in tents as their permanent shelter for the past six months. We hope that this situation will not continue for the next 10 years. So please keep Haitians in mind, especially the children. So many young people have died. Please help keep our young ones healthy and educated so that they can contribute to the reconstruction of this country.

It is a small word, but it is the only one I know to express my gratitude.
Thank you.

God knows best how to reward you for your generosity and for your compassion in action.
Thank you Lanark, Leeds, and Grenville Counties.
God bless you Canadians.

Thank you.

PEACE and PRAYERS,

Dieudonne Batraville, M.S.C.
on behalf of those you have helped in Haiti.