A home away from home, well not quite, but in the case of attending mass, it was! A typical Catholic mass, so I knew when to stand and when to sit, when to say 'Amen' and when to make the sign of the cross. However, Edinburgh is missing something, a set of bongo drums! That would really make for more upbeat hymns.

So if you haven't guessed I managed to break from the team and attend mass at the Redemptorist church called St Gerard. You would think it would be an easy morning, attending church, however in this case it was really testing my faith.

The devastation from the January 12th earthquake really left the Redemptorist community with a pile of rubble. Their priests house, church, monastery and school were completely destroyed. These were not single story buildings, but two to three stories. Miraculously no one from the community died.

Unfortunately, around 200 young school children perished as the school collapsed on them. These kids ranged between nine to fourteen year olds. Despite all this the parish in St Gerard remain faithful and hopeful. They even created a colourful shrine to our Mother Mary and also keep an active parish growing.

The regional superior Fr. Adonae spoke about his 'seeing death before his eyes,' he relived his account as the house shook during the earthquake. He said 'you have no control over anything, you could not hold onto the walls, as they were crumbling around you, you could not open doors as they were jammed shut, the only way I could escape my crumbling room, was to squeeze through a small hole in the door.'

It was clear that the Redemptorists do need help to re-build their homes, church and school. The sheer scale is what frightens me as currently Haitian inflation is so high. Can you believe that a normal standard ceiling fan will cost you US$200? Imagine the construction costs to essentially rebuild an entire church!

It will definitely be a few years before anyone can actually make a difference on the Haiti architectural landscape.