A letter from Pix Mahler in Virginia
February 1, 2008
My Dear Friends,
Greetings to you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
I am writing to thank you for the support I have received during my three years as a mission worker for the PC(USA). I am very grateful for the encouragement and the financial support you have provided. Westminster’s support has not only been financial but more importantly, spiritual. The gift the church has sent for programmatic expenses (for travel funds, etc.) of the Haiti Partnership Facilitator has enabled me to travel and work on tasks that are described in my appointment, that is, to assist, provide resources, troubleshoot, consult, and inform.
Last year I traveled for 30 days in Haiti and made other trips to Cheyenne, Wyoming; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and points in between. I have attended conferences and consultations with Presbyterians and Episcopalians in Miami, Florida; Greenville, South Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia; Raleigh, North Carolina; Louisville, Kentucky. I have made presentations, preached, led workshops, represented the PC(USA) and interpreted the work of the PC(USA) in Haiti.
The PC(USA) Web site and the PC(USA) staff have referred numerous people, mission teams, and mission committees to me. I get questions like:
“Is the PC(USA) active in Haiti and if so how?”
“How do I direct funds to a specific mission project?”
“Is it safe to travel to Haiti?”
“What does a ‘partnership’ with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti mean?”
“How do I get things shipped to Haiti?”
“Who are the mission personnel in Haiti and what do they do?”
“Who else is doing agricultural work and how?”
I have been the recorder for the semi-annual Hôpital St. Croix Board meetings in Leogane, Haiti, as well as organizer for a round table meeting of nine key ministries based at Hospital St. Croix. The outcome of that meeting was a collaborative letter written to the Bishop of the Diocese of Haiti urging the formation of a governing board for HSC. The Bishop received the letter favorably and has endorsed the formation of a governing board.
One of my trips to HSC was as a member of a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges (SWOC) analysis team. The report of that work was given to the HSC Board at the October 2007 meeting. As you are well aware, these are difficult times for Hôpital St. Croix. Great efforts of the PC(USA), Medical Benevolence Foundation and a myriad of supporters are coming together to try and bring the hospital back to being a place of compassionate, sustainable health care for the people of Leogane and the surrounding area of over 100,000 people. Please pray for these efforts and the sustaining guidance of God through this difficult time.
In addition to the work involving HSC, I am working with PC(USA) partners on the island of La Gonave just off the coast of Haiti AND supporters of St. Barnabas Agricultural School in Terrier Rouge, about 20 miles (a two-hour drive) east of Cap Haitian. This work is done in collaboration and consultation with the Episcopal Bishop of Haiti, the partnership coordinator of the diocese, and others.
I am not the only PC(USA) mission worker assigned to Haiti. I have colleagues in mission who live in Haiti, and I have the wonderful pleasure of visiting with them, learning firsthand of their work, and sharing their joys and concerns. In October, I had the opportunity to travel to the central plateau area with three PC(USA) staff members and a representative from Church World Service to visit our PC(USA) mission co-worker Mark Hare, who is working with the “Mouvman Peyizan Papay,” or “Farmer’s Movement of Papaye.” MPP is a grassroots movement of thousands of community groups located throughout Haiti. It includes about 20 farming cooperatives. This type of experience broadens my knowledge of where and how the PC(USA) works in partnership beyond what is done with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti. It was a very different experience than the situation at HSC.
I also visited with Rodney and Sharyn Babe who are assigned to the Episcopal University of Haiti in Port au Prince. We had a grand visit. They showed area coordinator Maria Arroyo and me around the university grounds, which have been greatly improved since my visit a year earlier. The dean of the university met with us and told us what an asset the Babes are to the school.
Mine is not a traditional type of missionary calling. I am based in the United States. Often the work isn’t very “exciting” and so it doesn’t make for wildly exciting newsletters from the mission field. But I believe my work is, nonetheless, key to international partnership ministry.
In Haiti, there are more missionaries per capita from churches and NGOs than any other country in the world. Sometimes just discovering who these players are and where and with whom they are in ministry is a job in and of itself. I am always discovering Presbyterians working in Haiti or supporting a ministry in Haiti other than through the partnership of the PC(USA) and the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti. Likewise, Presbyterians are discovering that the PC(USA) has an active partnership in Haiti with mission personnel living and working in Haiti as well as here in the United States.
Trying to keep straight a mixture of denominations, language differences, and cultural understandings sometimes makes my head spin. Every one of my encounters—in the United States or in Haiti—reminds me of the blessings of this appointment. I hear stories of little children brought back from severe malnutrition who have become energetic bundles of life. I know of old men and women given a new lease on life through the gift of sight. I heard of the joy of a child learning to read and of babies who only live a few days because they were so weak at birth. For every tear I shed with my brothers and sisters in Haiti, I have ten moments of laughter. For every request for help, I see many smiles from industrious people of God who are doing remarkable things with so very little in the way of material resources.
I want you to know your support is appreciated. I have received emails from people who read PC(USA)’s Mission Yearbook for Study & Prayer and want to tell me they are praying for me and the ministry in Haiti. I know those he email me are only a few of the many people who are praying in support of this work. What a grand and wonderful church of which we are part. I feel blessed every day to be one part of God’s larger design, as I see His love demonstrated in Haiti.
Again, I thank you for the support you have extended these years. You may be assured that when I am not in the choir loft wearing my “little red beanie” on a Sunday morning, or wearing my clerk of session “hat,” I am more than likely traveling under my other hat—as a mission co-worker for the PC(USA). I hope you will always see a smile and know that when I am wearing that hat, I feel blessed in more ways than can be counted.
May God continue to bless richly the ministry of Westminster Presbyterian Church.
In Christ’s service,
Pix Mahler
