Hajja Salesjana March April 2017

24 Long before hurricane Matthew crashed into the lives of the Haitian people on October 4, 2016, some fifty thousand Haitians had already fled their homeland seeking new hope in Brazil. Reeling from the devastation of the 2010 earthquake, Brazil’s promise of employment opened new horizons for a crushed people. The sun, alas, set quickly over those horizons. Brazil’s recent political and economic woes abruptly turned the Haitians from invited guests into personae non gratae. Accustomed to surviving disaster after disaster, many Haitians found the courage to trust President Obama’s 2010 promise not to forsake them. With a tenacity which most of us in our first-world comfort could never muster, thousands of Haitians have undertaken a three month odyssey, on land, from Brazil to Tijuana, Mexico, seeking entry to the US. Their trek to the US border typically lasts three months. It winds through Brazil to Peru, then Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and finally Mexico. Three thousand, nine hundred kilometres; two thousand four hundred miles. Pull out a map and appreciate what that means! They travel as they can: by bus, by truck, and on foot, through cities, forests and across rivers. They travel under cover of night. They travel with children, Fr. Mike Pace SDB was pastor at St. Benedict Parish in Toronto from 2007-2016. He is currently serving in the Salesian missions in Tijuana, offering French-language pastoral and humanitarian care to Haitian migrants. The Door of Mercy of our Heart Remains Wide Open by Fr. Mike Pace sdb