The Diocese of Alabama's Haiti mission team headed for home Saturday, Oct. 18, 2008, after completing a week-long construction and relief effort.

The mission was conducted as part of Alabama's companion relationship with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti.  Alabama is working with Father Fritz Valdema, who with his wife Carmel, a public health nurse, serve Episcopal Churches in five villages outside capital city of Port au Prince. 

The team's top priority was to help ease suffering brought about by the four devastating storms that had overwhelmed Haiti in September.  While there, the team purchased and distributed a ton of rice, beans and cooking oil in the village of Gorman, which was flooded by a total of 40 inches of rain.  The entire team participated in repackaging and handing out the food to thankful villagers.  And for most, it was a high point of the trip. 

A second ton of food staples also purchased by the team with donations from the people and parishes in the Alabama was to be delivered to the remote mountain village of Crochu this week.  Crochu is the most remote and poorest village served by the Valdemas.

The effects of the storms were in evidence everywhere team members went.  "The road conditions everywhere are just atrocious," said Bill King, the team's leader.  In Gorman, the main street was still flooded, and it was punctuated by potholes.  Water continued to run beside the church and the churchyard was a mud hole, according to King. 

At St. Sacrament Church in Fond Parisian, where team-member Patrick Turner installed electric lighting on Friday, the team, identified significant storm-related damage to the school building.  "If they get a heavy rain again, we've said that they need to evacuate that building because the ceiling at some pint is going to come down," said King.  The ceiling which is also the building's exterior roof, is made of concrete and is cracked and sagging.  If the roof were to collapse with the children inside the result would be catastrophic, according to King.  Team member Phil Croft, a civil engineer, is working on design recommendations for the school to shore up or replace the roof.

Three team members, Erin Goldsmith, Elizabeth Croft, and the Rev. Bill Winters, assisted with a mobile nutrition clinic in the village of Thomazeau, on Wednesday.  The clinics are operated by Carmel Valdema to evaluate, immunize, and provide nutrition supplements and vitamins to significantly malnourished children.  The clinics also provide nutrition education to their parents and identify and arrange medical care for critically malnourished children. 

Originally the mission's primary objective had been to pave a schoolyard at St. Simeon Church in Croix des Bouquets.  The dirt area, also used to support nutrition clinics, floods after a rain making it unusable.  Even though after the storms the team's priority became hurricane relief, the schoolyard project was also accomplished during the week with funds contributed by Alabama parishes.  Team members carried tools with them to help facilitate the effort and hired a number of Haitian workers to do much of the work.  Team member David French helped speed the effort by using a power saw and special blades brought from the U. S. to cut concrete blocks to the appropriate size. 

In all the team carried with them more than 600 pounds of supplies including the tools, school supplies, vitamins and laptop computers for students.  Team members were also present when a drilling company hired with contributions from an Alabama parish brought in a well at the school in Lilivois. 

"We pretty much accomplished everything we set out to do," said Winters.

But beyond the work, and amid the extreme poverty of the poorest nation in the western hemisphere Alabama's team found a people of joy, hope, patience and love. 

"They live day-to-day, but they still have so much hope," said Goldsmith who was making her first trip to Haiti.  "They are an amazing group of people."

"God is everywhere in Haiti," observed King.  "But most of the time, God does not wear shoes in Haiti.  God walks and His footprints are those of the bare feet of men and women and children walking through the mud and rock along the roads and in the fields." 

As the team celebrated completion of its mission Friday evening, Father Valdema expressed his appreciation to the team and to the people of the Diocese of Alabama during an internet call on Friday.  "The people at Gorman were very happy to receive food from the people of your diocese, especially from the special team you sent this week," said Valdema.  "Transmit for me to everybody in your diocese their thanks for the gift.  We thank everyone who contributed to pave the field at the school," he said.   "Thank you for everything.  I'll continue to pray for you that God will continue to bless you."

Team member, the Rev. Bill King is priest in charge of Trinity Church in Clanton.  Patrick Turner is a parishioner at Trinity.  The Rev. Bill Winters is rector of Epiphany Episcopal Church, Guntersville.   Phil Croft and his daughter Elizabeth are parishioners at All Saints Church in Birmingham.   Erin Goldsmith, a nurse, attends St. Mary's on the Highlands also in Birmingham.  David French is with St. James Episcopal Church, Alexander City.

For more details on the mission listen to two podcast reports from Haiti on EpiscoPatter and visit the Haiti page on the Diocese of Alabama website.