Haiti 2013: Wednesday, July 10

Mike

As work days go, today was the best so far; we still worked hard but we had lots of cloud cover this afternoon after a few short showers at lunchtime. We were worried that we might have to wrap things up early due to tropical storm Chantal but we had no further rain and were able to get a lot accomplished. We pretty much have all the footings dug, filled with gravel, level and laid with the re-bar mesh. The Haitian cement crew has been doing a great job as well and have more than half of the footings poured.

It was late when we got back from church last night so I missed out on blogging; the church service – which they have on Tuesday evening here – was phenomenal! A solid two-hour worship (singing) service. Without my notes handy (or YouTube J) I can’t remember all the songs but I will post a lot of that on my personal blog once I’m back in the States.

The biggest, craziest thing about the worship service was the big mash-up at the end…the entire area in front of the stage – and many of the aisles – was full of people singing and praising God. There were two huge times when I felt God’s presence yesterday: during morning devotions on the roof (5 a.m.) and  during the worship service.

We are prepared as well as we can be for the storm – don’t have much in the way of latest weather but we believe it’s just going to be a heavy rain-maker and that’s about it. Either way, we know God is in control.

Jonathan

The Last 2 days have been interesting. I got to go to 4 gas stations in search of fuel. 3 didn’t have any. Jon, Junior, and I went to check on some dozer work at Mercy hope orphanage only to discover that the laser level  was dead.  Note to self, take a generator. Junior is a Haitian man that is going to college for business. He is becoming an excellent project manager. Jon is the man in charge of the construction projects. He is an interesting person from Detroit. A real go getter.  Earlier that morning, I sank up to my calves in muck. I had to dig around my foot to get out. A section of the footer that we dug was abnormally wet from the night before.  As you can imagine that was a lot of fun to clean off  before church last night. The service was amazing. The Holy Spirit was definitely present. Wednesday started out warm but by noon the cloud cover settled in and the temperature was pleasant. Jon and I went back to the orphanage and helped the dozer operator level the pad he was working on. We ate lunch at the resort we will be going to Friday. The fried chicken was excellent. After lunch, I was able to go back and help the rest of the crew build rebar grids. One of the concrete workers taught me how they  bent  a right angle on the rebar with their tool. Another crew member  demonstrated how they make their squares out of metal rod to tie the rebar together. It was very interesting. The best part was , no translator was needed. We understood each other through our hands. It is now time for supper, stayed tuned for more.     

Kirk

We didn’t get a chance to blog yesterday because the day was packed with work and our evening worship service.  Mike, Keith, Paul, and I spent the morning out at the Bercy campus working on the foundation for the Pastoral Training Center.  In the afternoon the majority of the team went to the market city of Cabaret to walk the streets and talk with some of the people there.  I stayed at Bercy and worked with another team of high-school senior boys to make more progress on foundation.   It was very hot.  Last night I was able to spend some extended time with Schnieder (my Haitian son) and Ricardo after the worship service.  Ricardo Charles was there as well and we were able to talk at length with Ricardo translating, and clear up some confusion about the boys’ school requirements.   I’m very excited.  Ricardo Charles and I were able to figure out an extended plan for Schnieder (an orphan) to provide him a loving home, school, and a potential for future income.  Ricardo Charles has been such a blessing to us, and is a great example of how Mission of Hope is helping to mentor Christian leaders.

We were able to complete our part of the work at Bercy today (Wednesday).   Fortunately with the storm approaching, there was cloud cover and a stiff breeze during the middle of the day today.   The threat of the storm kept Andrew, April, and Micah at the main campus this afternoon.  Andrew made some new friends and I found him happily playing card games with some other youth (having a great time).  He is such a social butterfly.   I’m very proud of my boy. 

I finished Bruchko, yesterday.  What a great book.  Everyone is ahead on their reading and most of us have finished the book early.  That gives you an idea of how enjoyable a read it is.  I recommend you pick it up and read it.  I hope we get rained in tomorrow so Jonathan and I can do some work at the Depot repairing machinery.

Keith

Yesterday was a full-packed day.  During the morning, the guys went back out to the site of the pastoral training building to continue work on the footings.  The rain from Monday night didn’t disturb any of the work that we did on Monday.  At lunchtime, Mike, Paul, and myself came back to the Mission of Hope to meet up with the rest of the group for a village visit.   That afternoon we and the other people on our team (from a church near Charlotte, NC) visited the Guitton village near Cabaret.  We spent several hours there playing with the kids and talking with the adults (mostly through the translators).  We also did an on-the-spot dramatic presentation of Jesus healing the paralytic man with four friends.  The village visit was very interesting and enlightening, but since I know almost zero Creole, communicating with the people in the village was difficult.  That night we got to experience another worship service.  No Chris Tomlin songs this time, but again it was very joyous and worshipful.  The service ended with a conga line slash mosh pit.

We spent all day today working at the Bercy site again.  We weren’t sure how much time we would have, but the rains held off for the most part and we were able to complete our work on the footings.  They didn’t get all of the concrete poured.  That will have to wait until after the storms.  It sounds like we are in for a lot of rain tonight, so I don’t know what we’ll be doing tomorrow.  Hopefully we won’t be completely rained out.

Paul

I had a lot of fun yesterday playing with the kids and teens of Guitton. We played soccer, a slapping game, and a clapping game (the girls I was playing the clapping game though kept making April take my place because they felt she could go faster than I could). It was awesome to be involved with sharing the Gospel through drama and then praying with our Haitian brothers and sisters in Christ that were there. The Tuesday worship service interesting for sure. The Spirit was definitely moving, and the bassist was killing his 5-string.

Today was by FAR the best working conditions on the job site at Bercy. We had peanut butter and jelly for lunch again, but without the sun beating down on us after lunch and draining us of all our energy we were able to quickly get all of our work done ahead of schedule.