Speaking to graduate students in Puerto Rico

On December 8th I was in Puerto Rico visiting friends. Winna, a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, San Juan in the graduate school of nutrition invited me to give a talk to her graduate students about our projects in the Dominican. I spoke about the important role that nutrition plays in our programs.

me speaking
Winna is responsible for getting me involved in the DR. While a graduate student at Cornell she went on a field trip to the DR. When Winna returned she asked me, then pastor of St. Catherine's, Ithaca, NY, if we could not do something to help the people there who are so poor; and so began my relationship with the DR.

graduate students listening

The Daycare Center at El Portal de Belen

The good work that the sisters do at the Daycare Center, El Portal de Belen, from which the foundations takes its name, is beyond belief. When we first became involved in the Dominican Republic some 12 years ago we started with the very first group of 50 children in Portal de Belen daycare center.

In this post I would like to introduce you to four of the children we are currently serving at El Portal de Belen.

Gordani (in the middle with his mouth open)Gordani’s father died and his mother is a prostitute who takes no care of him. He lives with an aunt. As you may know, they all love their picture taken.

IvaniaA couple of weeks ago Sr. Iris presented me with a darling little girl, Ivania, whose father, a drug dealer, was shot and killed by the police. The little one told Sr. Teresa that the police shot her father like a dog. The mother took up the family business of selling drugs, and was just released from jail. Ivania’s mother also has AIDS, as does one of her four children.

Christian (middle)Christian's father died of AIDS but his mother did not find this out until after his death. Christian’s mother works to support him. If this does not melt one's hearts, nothing will.

EnyerEnyer’s mother died days after his birth. His Father has been in prison and has not been responsible. Enyer lives with an aunt who has tuberculosis and whose husband does not have work.

Mahatma Gandhi said “For so many hungry children in the world , the face of God appears as a loaf of bread.”

Launching Project Community Banks in Don Juan in the DR, a form of micro-credit.

Committee de banks
In an article in the NY Times this past December the author wrote that there is evidence that one of the most effective tools to fight global poverty may be a savings account.
The world's poor almost never have easy access to banking, so cash that sits around gets spent, often not to the best advantage. I would add that this has been my experience here too.
Catholic Relief Services has come to the same conclusion with new programs to promote savings.
One of the ugly secrets of global poverty is that a good deal of suffering is caused by bad spending decisions.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is studying how best to promote financial services for the poor.
We have now formed a committee and hired, for one day a week, Jose Gonzales as the director of this project. The committee, Jose, and myself are now assessing the likelihood of developing community banks in Don Juan.
We are now engaged in making a quick survey of the community to see the viability of said project and the needs in Don Juan. After the survey, if there is a viable market here we will begin organizing those interested, assessing their abilities, training them, and helping them to start small enterprises. We intend to continue to offer support to community bank members in their endeavors along the way.
An integral part of the project will be the development of savings accounts. The loans made afterward will involve monies accumulated through the savings of the people themselves, as well as from outside resources.
The process is to organize, develop capabilities, and implement.
That is a very quite summary of what we hope will be a long lasting and prosperous journey for all who may become involved.

Summer travels

This summer has, as usual, seen me crisscross the USA and Latin America. During June I was in the USA and Argentina, July was spent in both the USA and Dominican Republic, and during August I spent time in the USA and Chile.
Now I am back in The Dominican Republic, I returned on the 3rd of September.

So far this week I have been involved in two funerals, and celebrated the arrival of Sr. Maria, the reason I was in Argentina.
Arrival of Sr. MariaShe is from the parish in Don Juan and recently made her first vows as a sister. Sr. Maria is home for a visit to renew her relations with her family and friends after an absence of three years in Argentina for her postulancy and novitiate.
Sr. Maria and I
During my visit to Chile I visited my close friend, Sr. Veronica, and I baptized her niece, Xaviera.
Family of Sr. Veronica and baptism of Xaviera
I also spent two day skiing in the Andes, Lo Nevado. Our Northern Hemisphere summer is their Southern Hemisphere winter.
Mountains in Chile
While in Santiago I again visited the tomb of Saint Alberto Hurtado, a Jesuit priest who died of cancer at the age of 50 on August 18th 1952.
Alter and tomb of Saint Alberto HurtadoI especially relate to Saint Alberto Hurtado because of his work with the orphans and abandoned children of Chile. He was declared a saint in 2005. His work lives on in the center he established in Santiago, for such children, women and men of the street, as well as many other projects for those abandoned and in need. It is always an inspiration to visit his tomb, especially this time because it was his feast day.
Statue of Saint Alberto Hurtado

Visit from Sacred Heart parishioners

Fifteen parishioners of Sacred Heart Parish in Auburn, NY visited from Wednesday, July 28th through the following Tuesday, August 3rd. While here in the DR, the group worked on and painted three new chapels.
Wednesday, the day of arrival, we visited a free trade zone and the company of Mustard that makes fishing hooks and sells them throughout the world.
Their facility in the DR is their distribution center. In my opinion, this is one of the better free trade zones.
Front view of the chapel at Los Lanos before repair work
You can see the results of their work on Thursday in the newly rebuilt chapel in Los Lanos. The visitors also put on a meal for the people of Los Lanos.

parishioners in Los Lanos and paint crew
Friday was painting in L'Elmo and doing crafts with the children there in the morning and crafts with the children in our school in Don Juan.
The craft project of the day was making bracelets for the children that say in Spanish, “Jesus loves you”, “Jesus te ama”.
The old chapel in L'Elmo
The Community Center in L'Elmo was the work and gift of the Sigma Chi Fraternity of the University of Rochester.
Community Center in L'Elmo
On Saturday the group moved onto the new Chapel in Peluda. Sr.Chris' Franciscan Congregation, the parishes of Sacred Heart in Auburn, and Saint Ann in Owasco had given the money to build the Chapel in Peluda as well as funding for the rebuilding of the Chapel in Los Lanos.
Chapel in Peluda
By now you will have noticed that we used the same color scheme in these three projects, economy of paint.

The El Portal de Belén Foundation meeting

June 25th P. Gregorio Santana (no relation to Maria) arrived in the USA to be present for the foundation meeting on the 6th of July. P. Gregorio is a young Dominican priest whom I am preparing for the future of the foundation when I no longer will be present. Sometime in the distant future, I hope, but death comes to all of us at one time or another.

Needless to say, P. Gregorio is a great baseball buff so we went to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Pictures of him and the DR display and Juan Marichal, first DR baseball player initiated in the Hall of Fame are also posted now.

The 6th of July I met earlier with the four-member committee that is working on redesigning our water system at the school and convent in Don Juan. The water in our well is drinkable but when it reaches the faucets it is polluted. We are trying to solve that problem with the hope that in the future we can develop a project to sell drinkable water cheaply to the people in the village of Don Juan. Right now a five-gallon jug of water costs 45 pesos or $1.23. We hope to reduce that cost by more than half. Included are pictures of the four men on this committee. We have set November 9th as the target date to accomplish the first phase of making the water drinkable on demand, as well as available on demand. With electricity off half the time, most often during the day, we must set up our own power supply, a goal for which a plan is in process. First picture is of Ed Hinchey, my cousin, Jim Gascon who has been raising the money for this project.
The second picture is Dave Kobernuss and Jim Ryders.
Also we have included a picture of most of the members of the foundation's board. In the photo of the foundation are Sally True, Tony Eisenhut, Stephen Younger, P. Gregorio, Juan Arroyo and Mike Schafer, not pictured are Peter Koch, Cathryn Obern and Greg Galvin.

Sr. Maria Minerva Santana

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, on my way home from Argentina, my camera was stolen in JFK Airport. Recently I received a few pictures of now Sr. Maria Minerva Santana, the young woman from my parish in DR who made her first vows as a nun on the 12 of June, and the reason I went to Argentina.
This is a picture of Sr. Mariar and Sr. Areleida, who also made her first vows this year.

Our parish of 12,000 is proud to be doing so well vocation wise, better than most dioceses.

Travels

Saturday June the 12th I was in Argentina to receive the first vows as a nun of Maria Minerva Santana Castro. She and her family are members of the parish of San Juan Bautista in the Dominican Republic. All went well and it was a very fine celebration and mass.
Unfortunately, during my return flight to the US someone stole my camera as I was in JFK Airport waiting for my connecting flight to Rochester, so I have no pictures yet of the event.
I have emailed one of the nuns who was at the ceremony and asked that she send me some pictures. When I receive them I will post them.
On Saturday the 19th of June I baptized my grand niece, Gabrielle Elizabeth Gaesser, in Church of the Assumption in Fairport, NY. Gabrielle is the newest member of the Gaesser clan. My brother and his wife, as you can see, are both ill and in wheelchairs. Amy is for the fourth time fighting for her life against breast and now bone cancer, and my brother Allan is trying to recover from multiple surgeries and a two-month stay in the hospital. Your prayers for both much appreciated.

Mother's Day in the DR

The last Sunday of May is always Mother's Day in the Dominican Republic. Mothers are the backbone of the family in the DR, so Mother's Day is a really big event. This, however, does not address the resulting difficulties of single parenthood. Unfortunately there are 1,400,000 single moms out of a total population of nine million people. I have no ready answers here. Our school in Don Juan has a fiesta on the preceding Friday to honor the moms of our school children. One photo is of the gathering and the other of children doing a folk dance.
The last Saturday of May we celebrated the closing of the Year of the Priesthood in the DR with a large mass in the Palace of Sports in Santo Domingo. All the nation's bishops, the Cardinal, and many priests, myself included, came together for this event which also involved nine ordinations from different dioceses of the DR.

Brother Lucianno and a new chapel in Los Lanos

April 17th saw a member of our parish, Brother Lucianno Rivera Perez, make his final vows as a Carmelite, he will be ordained a priest in the next few months. This will make three ordinations from our humble parish in five years.

St. Theresa of Jesus in Santiago
People often ask me what I do during my time here. I like to point out it sometimes takes a lot to get a little done. To explain what I mean: The above ceremony was first scheduled at 10am on the 17th. This meant that in order to arrive at the church, St. Theresa of Jesus in the city of Santiago, we would have to wake at 6am and depart at 7am on the three-hour drive from Don Juan. Word came that the time had been changed to 8am, meaning rising at 4am to get there on time, which we did.
We arrived at the church on Latin time and it was completely empty. Yes, the ceremony was at 10am.

Last week some of the sisters and I went to pay our respects to a deceased member of the parish in the community of La Haina, which is outside Santo Domingo.
On route we were discussing how to get to the home in question, it turned out that none of us knew the address! Thankfully, we were able to find our way after a few cell phone calls.
If you are an A type person, which I tend to be, life can get to you if you let. My advice is to relax and let the sunshine in.

We recently began construction of a new chapel in Los Lanos. The image below is of the wreckage from the previous chapel.
Los Lanos is an extremely poor, distant, and hard to get to community.

Construction of the new chapel is possible due to the help of Sacred Heart parish in Auburn, New York.

The people of Los Lanos are so grateful to now have a decent home to worship in. We lack money for windows, doors, and pews, which will cost about $2000.

Outdoor mass during reconstruction of chapel in Los Lanos.

Holy Thursday and St Catherine of Siena Parish Youth Group

After indulging myself in my annual pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Snows in Vail, Colorado I am back on line in the Dominican Republic.

The DR has suffered a very intense drought since the earthquake in Haiti on January 12 until this week, leaving many areas that were formerly green, a parched dull brown. Many communities have been left without water. As a result, the rains this past week were very welcomed by all.

Holy Thursday saw the first use of the new center in L'Elmo, a gift principally of the Sigma Chi Fraternity of the University of Rochester. Click here or scroll back to a previous post to see this wonderful group of young men working on the site. They raised most of the money for the construction of the center. We still lack windows and the doors, the estimated cost of which would be $1100.

Pictures of the washing of the feet and mass, Holy Thursday as well as the old chapel.


Some members of the youth group of St Catherine of Siena Parish were here during Easter Week to paint the center.






before painting

after painting

youth group members with children


I baptized some of the youth group members when they were infants, some 16 years ago.

It was a great experience for them as well as quite nostalgic for me as their former pastor.