Lent starts next week on Valentine's Day! As we all know, the three disciplines of Lent are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. There are always places where your financial sacrifices (alms) are needed, but I have one suggestion for you where 100% of it will go to help Sister Nyra Anne, an older Carmelite nun, who is trying to take care of 21 orphans (some severely handicapped) with a small staff down in the poor Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Sister Nyra Anne Pajotte, O. Carm. administrator of St. Benedict Home for Children. Photo taken 8 years ago.
The attractive part of this suggestion is that I know Sister Nyra Anne personally and I have met many of her orphans personally. I made twelve trips down there until I had to quit because of COVID and when their volcano erupted about three years ago.
In the past, we have sent food, toys and school supplies. What is needed now are some funds to help pay those hired to help Sister Nyra Anne take care of 21 orphans on a 24 hour-a-day schedule. Believe it or not, the present minimum wage rate down there in US dollars is $12.00 per day or $237.83 per month! She has been struggling at that, but now the government is thinking about officially raising the minimum wage to $285.39 a month which is still very low and needed, but this will create more of a burden on St. Benedict's Home for Children that she is heroically operating in her old age beyond retirement.
If you are looking for a place to send your alms this Lent, a place you can trust where it will be stretched as far as possible, this is the place! The cheapest and easiest way to get it there without paying Western Union transfer and Eastern Caribbean monetary exchange fees is to write your check to: St. Bartholomew Church SVG Mission Fund and send it to me. I will then take it to a local Truist Bank for deposit into the St. Bartholomew SVG Mission Fund account. I have a book of their deposit slips here. Do not write the checks to me, but to St. Bartholomew Church SVG Mission Fund.
St. Bartholomew Church in Miramar, Florida, allows US donors to pass US tax deductible gifts to the Diocese of Kingstown in St. Vincent through their US account. Once the deposit is made, I will notify Sister Nyra Anne that your donation is on its way to her. Once the deposit clears, the diocese down there will then give her your donation.
FOR U.S. TAX DEDUCTIONS WRITE THE CHECKS TO;
St. Bartholomew Church SVG Mission Fund
FOR DEPOSIT SEND THE CHECKS TO ME
Rev Ronald Knott
1271 Parkway Gardens Court #106
Louisville, Kentucky 40217
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