FALL RIVER, Mass. — News has reached the Holy Union Sisters that Sister Eileen Davey, who has ministered in Port au Prince since September 2000, is safe. Sister Eileen administers a nutrition and early childhood education center in St. Louis Mary de Montfort Parish on the outskirts of Port au Prince. For the first few days following the 7.0 level earthquake, the only news that her religious congregation had from the U.S. State Department was that she was alive.
A Cameroonian Holy Union Sister, Elizabeth Kunsah, who lives in St. Michel, a small town northwest of Port au Prince with two other Holy Union Sisters from France traveled to the capital to see if the Sisters were safe. When she first arrived in Haiti in September 2009, Sister Elizabeth spent some time in the community with Sister Eileen and Sister Helen Ryder, an Irish Holy Union Sister.
Sister Elizabeth managed to reach the Sisters and sent news to Cameroon on Friday via satellite telephone when she returned to St. Michel.
She found the Sisters well and grateful that she had made the journey to see and be with them during such a difficult time. The Sisters’ house, the parish church of St. Louis Mary de Montfort and school are the only buildings in their area intact. They sleep each night with the people of their neighborhood in a field next to a nearby factory. Sister Elizabeth remarked that “what one sees on the television doesn’t even reflect the horror of the reality.” She also said that the situation for many other Sisters is very serious. One group has lost several Sisters and their school has totally collapsed.
Sister Eileen is moving around trying to learn the condition of the children who attended the nutrition center and generally helping wherever she can. During the day she and Sister Helen can go into their house and have been able to get food. The main difficulty is water, both for drinking and cooking. Sister Elizabeth said that there were already NGOs in their locality distributing necessities.
During the night that Sister Elizabeth slept in Port au Prince there was an aftershock at 4 a.m. and immediately all the people around them in the field began to pray and sing.
Sister Eileen, a native of Queens, N.Y., has many Fall River Diocese connections beginning with teaching second grade at St. Joseph School, Taunton from 1968 to 1971 and then teaching first grade at Sacred Heart School, Fall River from 1971-73 and again from 1975-77.
Since she arrived in Port au Prince in September 2000, Sister Eileen has received financial support from Sacred Heart Parish, North Attleboro. Lenten collections and fund-raising projects throughout the year have helped to support the nutrition center. St. Mary Parish has joined in fund-raising. When the children are ready to enter elementary school, funds raised by the parishioners of St. Mary’s provide books and uniforms for the “graduates” of the nutrition center program.
Each summer, Sister Eileen comes to North Attleboro and personally thanks St. Mary’s and Sacred Heart parishioners at all the weekend masses. This gives her an opportunity to visit with Holy Union Sisters Kathleen Corrigan and Celine Teresa who reside at St. Mary’s where Sister Kathleen serves as pastoral associate. All week St. Mary’s parishioners have been knocking on the Sisters’ residence to inquire about Sister Eileen.
The Holy Union Sisters are making contributions to Catholic Relief Services, an agency with a long presence in Haiti and they urge others to do so also.