A worker finishes the landscaping at the new Visitation Clinic in Petite Rivière de Nippes, Haiti. The clinic, which was built by the Visitation Hospital Foundation, based in Nashville, was dedicated on Jan. 19.

Bishop Alix Verrier of Les Cayes, Haiti, extends the sign of peace during the Mass. His diocese donated the land where the clinic was built. Photos by Andy Telli, Tennessee Register

Hundreds of people in the Haitian coastal town of Petite Rivière de Nippes marched around deep potholes, over broken bridges and past small concrete huts, rusted truck beds, women washing clothes in streams and playing with children.

Starting at St Antoine Church in the town's centre, they followed a teenage boy carrying a cross.

When they reached the edge of the town, they started up a steep driveway to the top, where they crowded onto the porch of the new Visitation Clinic, with its views of the lush mountains on one side and the shimmering Caribbean on the other.

After Bishop Alix Verrier of Les Cayes, Haiti, blessed and dedicated the building, the people filled the new clinic to get their first, eager glimpse of the building they're counting on to improve their lives in many ways.

Dr Tom Grabenstein said he is confident the clinic -- and later a hospital -- will change Petite Rivière in many ways.

Grabenstein is president of the board of the Visitation Hospital Foundation, a non-profit organisation that grew out of the Parish Twinning Programme, which links US parishes and Christian congregations with Haitian parishes and programmes to offer assistance.
(CNS)