Rich Gosser

Post details:

Feb 7

I first met Fr. Rick Frechette, CP around 1992 when my wife and I began bringing groups to Haiti on what we called "reverse mission pilgrimages". (Unlike missionaries of another era who went to foreign lands to convert people to Christianity our groups generally consist of Christians from the US and the conversion we hope to accomplish is in THEM - the kind of experience that my wife and I had when we first came to Haiti 20 years ago this month!)

I was immediately captivated by his sparkling blue eyes, his impish smile, and his remarkable ability to articulate the complex realities of Haiti. "If we had ears to hear the cries of the poor like God does", he said, "the roar from this island would be deafening". Fr. Rick's religious community - the Passionists - identify closely with the sufferings of Jesus. On another occasion Rick said to me, "Being in Haiti isn't like touching the wounds of Christ, it's like being INSIDE the wounds of Christ". I confess that the first time I met him I announced that I'd like to be his shadow so that I could tag along behind him everywhere he went.

When I first met him, Rick was the director of Our Little Brothers and Sisters Orphanage in Kenscoff, above Port au Prince. At that time the orphanage had over 200 children in a beautiful setting of group homes that resembled a village of children rather than an institution. Rick joked about being the "unwed father of 200 children" and - in a sense he wasn't kidding. Each of the children has his last name and Our Little Brothers and Sisters makes a life-long commitment to them. Every child is educated from preschool through secondary and even university or professional school if they have the talent. Today OLBS has more than 500 children and is one of the finest such places in Haiti.

Rick was also the director of a children's hospital on the edge of Port au Prince called Hospice St. Damien. During the troubled years following Haiti's 1991 coup d'etat Rick agonized over life and death decisions and watched children die because medicines, supplies, even electricity and water were in short supply. At the orphanage there was no resident physician and some sick children there died because medical treatment at the hospital was too far away. At the age of 42 Rick decided that he could serve Haiti's poor children better if he studied medicine. He completed his medical training in the US while continuing to direct the orphanage and hospital in Haiti.

Rick returned to Haiti and continued his work at the orphanage and St. Damien hospital, a cramped space in an old 4 story hotel. I hesitated to take groups there. There was usually only space for 1 or 2 visitors to enter it's crowded wards at a time. But Rick had also returned with a new dream - to build a new St. Damien hospital that would be a first-class medical facility dedicated to the care and treatment of poor children. After several years and many challenges, the new St. Damien's hospital opened in December 2006 along Route Tabarre, behind the Port au Prince airport. I got to visit it yesterday!

The children admitted to St. Damien's are all seriously ill. Some are abandoned by their parents, probably because they believe that their children will die and they have no money to pay for a funeral. Sick though they are, I wondered if maybe this place seemed like being at the threshold of heaven. It's certainly an oasis in a desert of despair.

Touring the hospital was a great treat. Spending an unexpected hour or so with Fr. Rick and some of the volunteers at the hospital was a still greater treat! We talked about the work he does in Wharf Jeremie and City Soley where twice a week he takes his "mobile clinic" and enters what many describe as a "battle zone" and where shoot-outs between rival gangs are commonplace and where assaults by the UN "peacekeepers" here in Haiti have added to the suffering of what might well be the some of the most desperately poor people in our hemisphere. (The UN recently acknowledged that in one such shoot-out last July their troops discharged more than 22,000 rounds of high powered amunition in this crowded shantytown of houses made of wood, cardboard, and tin.)

One of my greatest satisfactions in working in Haiti or in support of development in Haiti is that I get to meet some remarkable people - not just a few, but a LOT of truly remarkable people. Among the many remarkable people I've met here, there are few as remarkable as Rick Frechette. I won't ever get to be his shadow. It's just as well. I could never keep up with him and don't have anything like his courage or compassion. I'm just happy to enjoy the privilege of knowing him as a friend.

rich