Minutes From January Meeting

The meeting began at 10:00 A.M. and took place at the Church of the Epiphany. The Reverend Debbie Shew, Cannon for Community Ministries, Diocese of Atlanta, opened the meeting with prayer.

1. Parish Reports:
Terry Franzén, convener of the group, briefly described the origins of EAHC
and asked each parish representative to briefly introduce themselves, describe the
work which they are doing in Haiti, and tell us about any upcoming trip.

Parishes represented include Church of the Epiphany, Decatur; St. Francis, Macon; Holy Trinity, Decatur; Christ Church, Norcross; Advent, Madison; St. Paul’s, Atlanta; Christ Church, Kennesaw; and St. Luke’s, Atlanta. In addition, Rev. Debbie Shew represented the Diocese of Atlanta, Richard Hall represented the Diocese of Atlanta Global Mission Committee and attends All Saints (Atlanta), and Debbie Betsill represented Episcopal Relief and Development and attends St. Teresa’s, Acworth.

The following reports were presented:
Church of the Epiphany is partnered with the Bishop Tharpe Institute in Les
Cayes. They provide financial support, as well as technical expertise and building
relationships. They had planned a trip in December, which was cancelled at the last
minute due to the rioting in Haiti caused by the elections. They have another trip
planned for mid to late March.

St. Francis, which is assisted by Holy Family (Jasper) is partnered with St.
Marc’s in Trouin. St. Francis reported that their mission is education. They
provide funding for daily hot lunches at a cost of $1,700.00 per month to feed 400
children (22 ¢ per child/day) and they provide funding for 12 teachers at a cost of
$1,000.00 per person per year. They are very involved in fundraising both locally
and nationally and are seeking funds from various foundations with a goal to
rebuilding the school. They have recently identified a Virginia partner who will help
to rebuild the church. One of their successful ongoing fundraisers is a partnership
with a local Irish pub which donates 10% of the proceeds from two Wednesdays per
month to their Haiti work. The church has used this as fellowship time and meets at
the pub. They provided emergency relief following the quake. They have bought a
generator, and a truck for the school, which is driven by their priest. One of the
members of their group has established a Daughters of the King
chapter at St. Marc’s and at a few more locations. She is available to assist others
who wish to establish a chapter at their mission parish. They also started a goat
program.

Holy Trinity works through Food For The Poor to provide clean water and most
recently an installation of solar panels at a school. The Holy Trinity
parishioner who was present for the meeting, described the work of Medshare, which
is based in Decatur. Christ Church in Norcross also described further
work with Medshare, as well as through Christ Church’s becoming registered with the organization to obtain medical supplies for its medical mission trips. Tish said that Medshare is always seeking volunteers to assist
in sorting the medical supplies which it collects from local hospitals and that the work
is suitable for youth as well as adults. See also: Medshare

Christ Church (Norcross) also described their relationship with the Global Soap project, which is a non-profit based in Norcross. The founder of the project collects used soap from various hotels, sterilizes and re-melts the soap, and
produces new bars of soap. Christ Church has received donations for its mobile medical clinics to distribute to the patients. In addition to supporting education at its partner St. Joseph’s of Arimathea in Jasmin, Haiti and providing emergency aid after the quake, Christ Church has provided staffing and supplies for mobile medical
clinics for the last few years. The goal is to provide sustainable medical care through the use of Haitians, with supplements of mobile medical clinics twice a year. Christ Church has a trip planned March 11 through the 19th and a second trip planned September 24 through October 1st. Christ Church partners with St. Johns in Minnesota, which has partnered with the church down the hill from its mission and which is led by the same priest. Over three days, the mobile clinics serve over 600 people. The children seen at the clinic are given a hand-knitted doll or bear, which
are provided by several churches around the country. A congregation in Iowa provided cloth drawstring bags for giving the medicine to the patients. Both the dolls/bears and medicine bags were enthusiastically received. Christ Church has established a relationship with IMA World Health, an international nonprofit which provides medicine for medical mission teams. There is an application and approval process, following which the team can order medicine
which is delivered to the team in the states. The team is responsible for transporting the medicine to the location.

Church of the Advent has just recently established a relationship with three nonprofits on the
island of Ile-a-vache, an island located off the coast of Les Cayes. Church of the Advent
distributed a description of the organization, whose goal is to “walk alongside”
nonprofits who are already working on the island and to help establish an Ile-a-vache
development council. (Please contact Terry, Brian, or Debbie, for more information on Ile-a-Vache.) Church of the Advent will also contact Père Kesner Ajax, chair of the Diocese of Haiti Partnership Program, to begin discussions
and determine whether the Episcopal church is working on the island.

St. Paul’s and St. Bart’s jointly support the mission at Bois Blanc, and reported that their mission is education. Their school has 250 children. They provide daily feeding and salaries for nine teachers, as well as a custodian. They also provide uniforms and supplies for the school. In addition, they provide an
annual gift to the Micah Project in Mirabolais. The Reverend Joseph Constant is the chair of that project. This is a feeding program for street children and children displaced by the earthquake. They have a mission trip planned for April 9 through 14th. One of St. Paul’s members is an ophthalmologist, who has performed cataract surgery on these trips in the past and will do so again during this trip. There is a person from their parish who is in Haiti now, who will provide a report upon her return. Paulette reported that they do not engage in fundraising. Their Haiti mission is a line item in the church’s budget in the amount of $10,500.00. In addition, they have a designated fund to which individuals may donate. Jointly, they provide about $4,200.00 per quarter to support the school.

Christ Church Kennesaw’s representative described the work in which he personally is involved in Haiti. He is involved in housing reconstruction in Port-au-Prince with a business partner. He is an urban planner by trade and is working with the Haitian government. He also introduced his business partner, who spends about half of his time working in Haiti, and reported that the country is calm is at this time, that it appears that the run-off election will be resolved with Celestin withdrawing from the election, that the run-off is anticipated to be March 20th, and that he expects that the front-runner female candidate will be the winner. He did not anticipate there being problems with individuals traveling to Haiti in the near future. They also reported on a water program one of their partners has developed using 5-gallon buckets.

St. Luke’s representative stated she was present to learn and did not have a report.

2. Establishment of EAHC Facebook® Page
There was discussion about the need for better communication among our
group. Rev. Debbie Shew has established a blog which is linked on the Diocese
Global Mission page. Brian Gross, a member of Epiphany, agreed to work with
Debbie and Terry to set up and administer a Facebook® page for the group.

3. What are we called to do?
Debbie Shew reported on the Diocese of Haiti’s request to the National Church
to assist in rebuilding the Cathedral Center in Port-au-Prince. The National Church
has recently announced a fundraising effort focusing on a “buy a brick” program.
The Diocese of Atlanta is formulating its appeal to the churches in our diocese and
there will be more information about this project in the near future. The Diocese
Global Mission Committee had discussed a clean water project in the Diocese of
Haiti. This project may be delayed in light of the Diocese of Haiti’s request to assist
in rebuilding the Cathedral complex. There will be more information about this at a
later time, after the Diocese of Atlanta has formulated its plan.

4. Other matters.
There was discussion about the need to establish principles within our group for
working with our Haitian partners. The group discussed that these principles should
include working through the Haiti Partnership Program, a requirement of
accountability from our Haitian partners, and a requirement that our Haitian partners
refrain from the use of restavek children in their homes. These principles will be
discussed in further detail at our next meeting.

David from Advent briefly described the Corbett list, which is a bulletin board for Haiti discussions. There was a suggestion that rather than spending time in our meeting discussing the work in individual parishes, that we post individual parish’s stories on the Diocese website
and on our Facebook® page. To that end, someone from each parish please provide a
narrative report to Terry Franzén and she will
forward these to the appropriate individuals. Please see the recommended outline. Our future meetings will attempt to focus on specific action items or areas of interest, with a call for agenda items prior to the meeting. As in the past, the Agenda will be
distributed to the group prior to the meeting.

Marcia from St. Francis reminded everyone that it is very expensive to
ship items to Haiti and that once the items arrive, the duty, whether formal or
informal, which must be paid in order to obtain the goods, is also very expensive.
Accordingly, it is preferable to take items with you when you travel to Haiti, rather
than attempting to ship items. She also reported that her group has been
successful in obtaining a corporate match for donations to its Haiti program, despite
the fact that the program is faith-based.

5. Future Meetings.
Terry reminded everyone of the National Episcopal Church Mission
Conference, which is jointly sponsored by ERD, GEMN, and ETGM, to be held
October 13-15, 2011 in Estes Park, Colorado. St. Paul’s will host the next EAHC
meeting, which will most likely take place after Easter. If you would like to host the
summer meeting, which is tentatively scheduled for July 23rd, please notify Terry. As
soon as the next meeting date is confirmed, that date will be sent out to the group.
The fall meeting will take place as part of the Diocese of Atlanta’s Global Mission
Conference, which will take place in early October at a place to be determined. The
information about the Conference will be distributed to the group as soon as it is
confirmed.

The meeting closed at noon with the Lord’s Prayer.

Respectfully submitted,
Terry Franzén
Christ Church Norcross