Contact: The Reverend Tryggvi G. Arnason—404-255-4023 ext. 9423

The Partnership of Holy Innocents’ and St. Mathieu, Leogane.

Our partnership program is dedicated to build relationship in Christ with our sisters and brothers in Haiti.  Haiti is ranked among the poorest countries in the world. The statistics demonstrating the extent of her misery are almost incomprehensible. Her unemployment rate is almost 66%. The annual salary for a working person is $280 a year. The life expectancy is 51 years, and the mean age for the country is 15 years.

Presently, Holy Innocents' is in partnership of mission and outreach with Paroisse Saint Matthieu in Leogane, through the Anglican Diocese of Haiti and its Bishop, The Rt. Rev. Jean Zache Duracin.  Each parish church in Haiti has urgent needs of providing education, nutrition, and health care for children and adults in its neighboring area.  The Season of Lent has and continues to afford our Holy Innocents’ community the opportunity to make a significant financial contribution to our Partnership Program with St. Matthieu church and its missions through our Starfish Lent Project. 

Initially, Holy Innocents’ goal was to build a school building, and thereafter to provide a needed infrastructure at St. Matthieu’s parish / school property.  By “infrastructure” we mean several things: a kitchen, a dining room, sanitary toilets, and generator.  Over 70% of homes and houses in Haiti are without electricity.  Our first partnership commitment with St. Matthieu was completed and consecrated on the Feast Day of Saint Matthew, September 21, 2005.

But St. Matthieu is not simply a parish, in the living Christ it is also a mother church to four mission churches and two pastoral mission stations.  All mission churches provide schooling for the children in their neighboring areas.  Due to the needs, the Holy Innocents’ community set out to further extend its support in helping St. Matthieu to build a new church building and a school building at one of its mission churches: Saint Jean Baptiste.  In 1994, hurricane Gordon had left the church building at St. Jean Baptiste in ruins, and students of its school attended classes in a makeshift structure that was open to the elements of nature.  Since the hurricane, the parish community celebrated the Eucharist at the makeshift structure of its school.  On December 16th, 2007, a new church building and a new five classroom school building was consecrated at St. Jean Baptiste.  The third project that the Holy Innocents’ community has taken on is to help build a school building for another of St. Matthieu’s mission churches: Saint Marguerite.  As well, Holy Innocents’ is financially supporting the reconstruction of the mother parish, St. Matthieu, whose house of worship has taken its toile of sheltering people from the storms and hurricanes sweeping the Caribbean.  The building structure is critically decaying and becoming dangerous.        

The purpose of the partnership has never been a one-way street.  The Haitian people are our sisters and brothers in Christ, and for such a relationship to flourish, we need to see each others’ faces and hear each others’ voices.  The Haitian people have always been clear about this, as have we.  It is next to impossible for the Haitian people to visit with us.  But we have the means to visit with them.  In recent years, the instability in Haiti has made this part of our partnership difficult.  However, now with a new president and a new government in Haiti, there is hope among the Haitian people, and with hope comes optimism, empowerment, and stability.  This has allowed us to reestablish our pilgrimages to Haiti.  Since October of 2007, thirty nine members of the Holy Innocents’ community and its friends have taken on three pilgrimages.

We have been blessed with the ability to share the gifts granted to us with our wonderful sisters and brothers in Haiti.  More important, there are so many blessings and ways of grace that our sisters and brothers in Haiti have shared with us.

Haiti Photo Album

LeMarron Inc

St. Matthieu School

St. Jean Baptiste Church School

St. Matthieu Church