MATTAPAN -- Marise Pierre-Louis Simon did not meet her father until she was 26 years old.

Her father, a politician and presidential candidate in their native Haiti, was forced into exile during the dictatorship of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Simon visited him in 1984, when he was living in Florida. Simon would suffer the same fate as her father when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide rose to power a few years later, putting her life in danger.

"If you are not for, you are against," she said. "That is how Haiti functions."

Like many Haitians forced to flee their homeland, Simon settled in Boston in 1990. Her brother was already living there, and the city's exceptional schools made it the perfect place to further her education. It reminded her of the Haiti she once knew.

"When you come to Boston, it's like you feel you are still part of that world," she said.

She attended the former St. Leo Parish in Dorchester, then St. Angela Merici Parish in Mattapan. St. Angela's later became Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the epicenter of the Archdiocese of Boston's Haitian Catholic community. Simon helped establish St. Angela's Haitian community, bringing their music and culture into the liturgy.

She founded the Angelus choir group, which sings at Our Lady of Mount Carmel's 7 a.m. Mass every Sunday. She has been in the church choir since she was eight years old at St. Martin Parish in Delmas, Haiti. She said if she isn't singing, it's like she isn't in church.

"It's in my blood," she said, adding, "This is a habit. It's in me."

She also helps out with the parish's Immigration Committee and teaches English to new arrivals. Inside her Mattapan home is her work station, where she provides counseling to immigrants and helps them fill out their paperwork. Increased immigration enforcement has caused declining Mass attendance at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and therefore declining donations.

"There is a lot of problems, because people, the community, they are afraid, because they don't know," Simon said. "Even if you are a citizen, you're at risk, because when they see you, they arrest you."

She has been trying to help the church fundraise however it can. The current situation for Haitian immigrants in Boston is "painful," she said.

"We don't have anywhere to go," she said. "This is the reality. We are in a desert, and nobody wants us while they are taking our country."

Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a place of solace. When there's bad news, Simon and others gather to pray and seek solutions. For her decades of service to her parish, she was one of 101 people who received the Archdiocese of Boston's annual Cheverus Award last year. The awards, named after the first bishop of Boston, honor those who have dedicated themselves to serving the Church.

"She is one of the leaders who assists our parishioners with their many challenges, from immigration issues to the need for food and shelter," Father Garcia Breneville, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, wrote when nominating Simon for the award. "She balances action and contemplation, constantly participating with enthusiasm in both our celebrations and community life."

Simon didn't know what the Cheverus Award was until she found out she won it.

"It was a joyful moment," she said. "It's like, since eight years old, I am in the Church and very involved in the Church, in everything. And when I received that mail, it was like a comet, like the apogee of my services, the things I do in church."

If Father Breneville called her right there, she said, she'd head to the church to help in any way she was needed.

"It's our duty," she said.

Simon grew up in Delmas, a city just outside the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, with 15 siblings -- two from her mother's side of the family and 13 from her father's side. After graduating from one of Haiti's most prestigious private schools, Simon wanted to study medicine.

"That was my vocation, my dream," she said. "I had to become a doctor, and especially to take care of the kids, a pediatrician."

However, she was not able to achieve her dream. Before she finished her degree, she was forced to flee Haiti. Upon arriving in Boston, Simon, by then married with children, decided to become a social worker. Cardinal Bernard Law arranged to send her to Aquinas College to receive a master's degree in adult education and arranged a scholarship for her.

Though the archdiocese is now her home, she still loves Haiti and wants to return when it is less dangerous and is involved with UNIDHAD (Unification of the Haitian Diaspora for Development), an organization which provides humanitarian aid to the country.

"We are doing outreach," she said. "We are trying to help teach to Haitians here and in Haiti, because we believe Haiti can revive. We believe one day we have to go back to a country that we have to rebuild."

In the meantime, she feels that she has no choice but to keep going.

"I am a Christian," she said. "I am a daughter of God."