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Caring for the earthquake victims in Haiti Caring for the young victims of the Haiti earthquake is one of hundreds of ways in which Medical Mission Sisters around the world try to be a healing presence to others today. Sister-Doctor Maria Fernanda Ramirez Rivera, a pediatrician, has completed her volunteer work with the young earthquake victims in Haiti. She spent five weeks working in Port au Prince and the surrounding area. “We landed in the crude reality of the Haitian people eaten up by the chronic disease of social injustice and extreme poverty, aggravated by the earthquake that snatched away the lives of more than 300,000 persons,” she recalls. “To see the faces of the people which reflected pain and at the same time, a determined hope, moved me in the depth of my being.” Sister Mafe, as she is known, stayed in a camp where she found much camaraderie, even when the tents flooded at night from the heavy rains. She was with a group of volunteers of different ages and professions, brought together by the organization Community Initiative of Puerto Rico. She shares, “The work was pretty hard, physically and professionally…but it was a tiredness full of love and compassion in the best sense of the word.” She found orphaned children being cared for lovingly by grandparents, older siblings, and neighbors.
“God spoke to me each day through so many people,” she says. “At times we wanted the day to last longer in order to be with more people and give more of ourselves – something we know how to do – and also receive from them.”
Sister Mafe reflects, “The whole experience left me with the great satisfaction of having been there and having contributed from my being as a Medical Mission Sister, the commitment to try to make others know better the reality of these brothers and sisters (in Haiti), the desire to keep on supporting concrete projects of trustworthy organizations – and the treasure of the many people I came to know, with whom I could share the mission, to whom I could give my time, my gifts, my love, share a hug, a prayer, a word.”
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