By Gretchen Keiser

Inside the three-ring notebook that Ferdinand Mahfood carries are page after page of photographs of the wretched and the dying. The stark black-and-white tones do nothing to diminish the details of suffering involved.

The sights are not ones that most people care to see. And yet, as he makes copies of this notebook and these photographs available to people, Ferdinand Mahfood makes no apologies. He believes, rather, that those who do not want to see really need to be serving their poor brothers and sisters in the Third World.

As he travels -- and offers to bring interested people to Jamaica to see for themselves -- he seems as much interested in educating as in raising support for Food for the Poor, Inc. He envisions the trust as a "bridge" that eventually will link those in need with those who can help, and he thinks that the call to serve the poor will revitalize and renew American parishes. Rather than being "turned in on ourselves," he says, "we are supposed to be a missionary people. We're supposed to be a missionary Church."

Looking at the stark poverty that surrounds us calls us back to being the bearers of the Good News, he believes. "I really believe the Church needs this," he emphasizes.

If serving the poor can assuage the spiritual need of the American Church, there is certainly much poverty to be met in Food for the Poor's efforts in Jamaica and Haiti. The Eventide Home is one of the projects that Food for the Poor is trying to support. Another is the work of Father Paul Walsh, running a home for abandoned children in Kingston, Jamaica.

A letter from Father J. Francis Cawley, priest-in-charge of St. Thomas missions, details in three pages the needs of parishes and hospitals within his jurisdiction, including shoes, clothing, food and many basic medical supplies such as adhesive tape and gauze bandages, in addition to major hospital equipment.

The enormity of the need seems not to have diminished Mahfood's determination. Asked whether he had been able to supply the many needs of Father Cawley's list, Mahfood said that his requests were being handled one by one. In the same way, he said, Food for the Poor is going to each priest on Jamaica and Haiti, one by one and saying, "How can I help you?" Mahfood said. Whether or not all the needs are met, he said, "If I beg and give it away, I think this is the way it's supposed to be."

He believes that eventually all the parishes on the two islands could be receiving support, although that would mean helping some four million people. If that seems great, it is poised against his notebook of photographs and the other sights he has seen which call him to beg for the poor and stir the consciences of others. "Let us make a concerted effort to say to the Church in these little islands: 'We're up here and we care'," he said.

Perhaps it is through that concern that the change occurs. Now when he returns to Eventide, Mahfood said, he sees more than the photographs show. He sees "something beautiful" in the people. "That is a grace," he said. "You are seeing something that God sees."