The St. Mary medical mission got a surprise when they came to Marbial – electricity. After three hours of driving through the ruins of Port-au-Prince and the mountains of central Haiti and then one mile down a rocky riverbed in the dark, it almost seemed surreal to be pulling alongside a building that glowed from the inside with electricity.

But sure enough, the people of St. Therese Church were eager to show off the generator donated to them last year by St. Mary Church in Milford. Waiting inside for the team was a nicely set table and a spread of food that included rice, pasta, meat, and dumpling soup.
The church even had a room set aside with beds for the group, another welcome surprise.

The place still maintained a rustic feel… To flush the toilet, you fill up a bucket of water and take it with you to do the flushing. And the beds required a MacGyver-like configuration of mosquito nets. Think duct tape, tent poles, rubber bands, well hooks and more duct tape.
And obviously there is no cell phone service. This reporter had to hitch a ride 10 miles down the not-so-dry rocky riverbed to be able to get cell phone service and file stories. The team has a satellite phone in Marbial for emergencies.

There is no need for an alarm clock in Haiti. The roosters here start crowing at 3 a.m., about the time that the dogs stop yelping. And the roosters are persistent. They will make sure you are awake for 7 a.m. Mass.

Much of the medical team started the week by attending Roman Catholic Mass at St. Therese Church, a beautiful whitewashed church with concrete walls and a tin roof – making it one of the few buildings around that people are not afraid of collapsing on top of them in an earthquake.

The people of Marbial walk for great distances, even miles, to get to Sunday church, an incredible social event for the people of the parish. They come wearing their Sunday finest – women in beautiful old-fashioned dresses, neatly ironed and finished off with a straw hat or brightly colored scarf and men in suits. But when they kneel down to pray, you can see the soles of their shoes are worn through.

Still, the people give thanks at Mass for that they have. St. Therese’ pastor, Bertrand Dieuveille, welcomed the Connecticut medical team about to descend upon his flock. He compared them to Jesus, coming to heal the poor.

“We have the life of God within us, but we do not have health. We suffer here,” he told the congregation. When he told the parish that St. Mary Church plans to send a medical mission once a year and eventually set up a permanent clinic, they applauded.

Later, during the sign of peace, a ritual in the Catholic mass, church members made their way to the doctors and nurses to shake their hands, hug them, say “peace” and “thank you.”

After a bumpy and stressful journey to Marbial, it was an emotional showing of kindness.

“I thought, ‘this is why I came here,’” said Michele Covino, a nurse at Bridgeport Hospital.