Gangs occupy the central part of the country, including the capital, Port-au-Prince. The rest of the country is free of gangs, but the people suffer greatly because supply lines through Port-au-Prince are blocked, controlled by the gangs. Haiti was already the poorest country in the western hemisphere, where more than half the population is chronically malnourished. Now poor people who weren’t getting enough to eat are forced to pay even higher prices for what little food they can find. For them the question is no longer WHAT will my children eat today, but WILL we eat today? Is there hope that the situation in Haiti can be improved?If you’ve ever complained about bad roads, you obviously haven’t been to Haiti. Our students there find it difficult to get to school on time because their roads are full of humongous potholes and so heavily congested with trucks, cars, motorcycles, pedestrians and animals that they’re almost impassable. And then it rains, making it all much worse.

In Haiti’s second largest city of Cap-Haitian there’s no electricity. The only lights at night come from solar power or batteries. Generators used to be more common, but not so much now that fuel is so expensive. And I can testify that driving those terrible roads on a dark night in the rain is quite an adventure.

One of our students goes to bed hungry and in tears at night. Her mother bought some merchandise on consignment to sell in the market, but there was a fire and she lost everything. Now her mother is in tears because she is losing hope. She doesn’t know how she’ll be able to feed her daughter. Her daughter doesn’t ask for food because she knows her mother doesn’t have any. She goes to bed in tears with an empty stomach, so her mother won’t feel even worse.

Another of our students says that every day brings bad news that she hears and that she sees. She feels very stressed because she saw a dead man near her home. “Bandits” had killed him and then cut out his heart and kidneys. The rumor I kept hearing, no doubt greatly embellished, is that bandits take children and adults so they can kill them and remove their organs and sell them. No wonder students are stressed and fearful of going out, of going to school.

Insecurity. That’s the first word everyone uses when asked about the problems in Haiti. It really describes everything. Obviously, their feeling of being unsafe from various dangers (from bandits and due to an inadequate, poorly trained police force), but also economic insecurity (massive unemployment, no jobs and excessively high prices), food insecurity (expensive food, never enough food), government insecurity (no president or functioning government), health insecurity (inadequate, expensive, struggling hospitals and healthcare), housing insecurity (many are homeless), infrastructure insecurity (lack of clean water, terrible roads, no electricity) and hope insecurity (little hope things will improve).

I’ve always found Haitians to be genuinely good, happy, faith-filled people. They’re hard-working, resilient and full of hope and gratitude for all God’s gifts to them. But the strain on their resilience is showing. They seem to be a little less hopeful. The only solution many young people see today is to go somewhere else, to another country with more opportunities. But most other countries don’t want them and make life difficult for them. As we heard before, hope keeps drifting farther away.

It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of such pervasive insecurity and suffering. Will anything we do actually help these people whose problems seem insurmountable, whose situation borders on hopeless? St. Joseph Worker Foundation provides scholarships that enable poor children to go to school, to get a good education that will hopefully enable them to break the cycle of poverty. We provide emergency assistance with medical expenses and basic survival needs, to help people in desperate need right now. The needs far exceed our resources, but we continue doing our best to lovingly help those we can, to show them that someone cares, to strengthen their hope. It’s the smiles and boundless gratitude of those whose lives we touch that keep us going, that make all our efforts worthwhile. Please know that your support is greatly appreciated, certainly by us, but especially by the good and incredibly grateful people of Haiti.