Two weeks ending Sunday 30th January

Prayer requests

• We always ask for prayers for the school construction workers - we need to always ask the Lord to guide this team that they will work for his glory safely.
• Political stability - this is a long standing prayer for Haiti. As the Haitian people seek their destiny, politically, they need to be guided with wisdom, peace and a true desire to see the uplift of the whole Haitian people.
• February will be a busy month for us. Slow start and a very busy three weeks - prayers for the Lord continued guidance, our understanding of His will and a peace, provided by Him.
• The Self Help Group program - that the enthusiasm of the team is carried to the local Haitian communities that they work with.

The last two weeks
Looking back at the last two weeks we have done a lot. David Harding, our boss, came in for a visit and we were able to complete a few visits to Floresta - Plant with Purpose http://www.plantwithpurpose.org/ and the water filter factory, at Jacmel http://www.filterpurefilters.org/. We had the Self Help Group here in Grand Goave. This is a link to what the SHG groups are about, although our team learnt their knowledge from Ethiopia - the Ethiopians learnt it from India - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-help_group_%28finance%29 We had a good brain storming session with them as well as a meeting with the opportunity for them to share, with our local church, the vision that they have with the Self Help Groups goals and aspirations. It as truly inspirational to hear how enthusiastic the team members were and the high hopes they have for this program. It has been so successful in Ethiopia. David asked some questions that have made us think; that is a good thing. He has helped us to look at things from a different angle. While he was here we also enjoyed Steve James coming down from the Cap.

This last week we had a construction team here; they came under the guidance and leadership of Mark White, the Pastor of Chamberlayne Baptist Church Richmond, Virginia. He successfully brought three churches together for this trip. (Chamberlayne Baptist, Anointed New Life Baptist, First Mennonite). They worked so very hard! They were here for construction but they worked more as a "prison team" moving a number of rock piles from one part of the construction site to another. When a truck brought yet more rocks they patiently moved them too! They did help use the rocks that they moved to build the foundations for classrooms 10,11 & 12. The team were able to bless a few families, as their presence here in Grand Goave, allowed Moise to add a few extra workers to the team, for the week. The ladies of the team helped Jenny with a clinic in the mountains, for one day, and three of the team used their carpentry skills to kit out the shelving in Kay Jenny's clinic. We are always blessed when we see God's Plan, with any team that comes here. The right people here with the right skills. for example amongst the team we had men with the skills to relate to the children, even if neither could understand each others language - we had great team management and one morning we had a few show the team, their enthusiasm for cooking.

We have had a few set backs too - our internet dish has decided not to work and it has to be shipped back to California. That will take some arranging. We are now using the local internet cafe which, if timed, unwisely, can be quite a struggle. Brenda had to sit between two other laptops while she worked; each laptop playing their own music, as loud as the laptop can! Not good for concentration!

The other setback was a misunderstanding as to what "All parts and labor" means! Our water well contractor finally came over to connect up the submersible pump in the well at the Volunteer House! He did not bring the water tanks, as he expected us to have purchased them. Nearly two weeks later they came back, after we purchased the tanks, and, while they were hard workers, their skills were not as skilled as we had expected. BUT, we NOW have water, from the well, to supply the volunteer house - no longer do the volunteers need to carry 6-7 buckets of water, every night to the volunteer house:) As one mission team member said "I'll never take indoor plumbing for granted!" - the buckets were a drag, but a reality for so many people here in Grand Goave and Haiti. We hope that soon we will be able to offer the community water too, from the same well. We have a bit of work to do there but the end is now in sight, and I think that we can achieve it locally with our own skills.

This weekend Brenda and I have had to leave Haiti, as we need to exit once every 90 days to keep the right side of the immigration officers. We are in the Dominican Republic enjoying a weekend of R&R - we are doing as little as possible; we both really needed this break.

Internet issues

We are currently having issues wiht our dish and are sitting in the local Internet Cafe. The speed is find but it is amazing how quickly an hour rushes by wiht there are so many e-mails to respond to - hopefully we'll get something posted in a few days.

All OK, loving the current team here - they are working hard on the school foundations and planning the shelves for Kay Jenny's clinic.

Week ending Sunday 16th January

Prayers

• Praise for Brenda – we have been married 24 years this week – We would not have it any other way.
• Travel mercies as we travel around this week for meetings in Port, Leogone, Jacmel and here in Grand Goâve.
• The Jersey Village mission team – they are presenting their mission week to their church, this week. We pray that they will be able to impart the same enthusiasm they had while they were here to their church family.

 This week
 This blog is a short week but it is still worth letting you know what is going on in Grand Goâve. Having said goodbye to our last team we had Wednesday as a remembrance day, of the earthquake last year.

We do not get much news here, but what we do get seems to say that Haiti has so much wrong with it. What many people don’t report on – because good news does not make good reading – is all the things that have been done in the last year. Sure there is lots more to do, however, drive around our area and there are many, many, temporary homes. There are block homes built by Lifeline. There are rubble homes, built by our partners Haiti Housing Network. Schools have been re-opened, businesses are being restarted. There are many carpenters building home furniture that would not be doing so if there was not a market for it.

If you are looking for positive things in Haiti they are there. We need to keep that hope in the forefront of our work. We are on a marathon, not a sprint – some days we too wish we could do the 100 meter dash but we realize that this marathon is a long one – with the Lord in front, beside and behind we will get through it.

We have three praise worthy things for the blog, from this week –

Our car is now all taxed and insured for 2011. It was a bit touch and go for a few weeks but the right paperwork has been produced and Gesner had the car inspected, in Port-au-Prince, this week and we are A-OK.

Bondidias broke out a HUGE slab of concrete that was in the way of the new foundations of classrooms 10,11 &12. 4 to 5 feet round and the same depth into the ground. It had eluded our last team’s valiant efforts on Tuesday but on Thursday, within two hours of the start of the day Bondidias, with a HUGE smile let me know that he had sledged hammered it out! Bondidias rules!

We have the slab poured for Tikammie’s new home. His is currently living in a tent that is beginning to see the ill effects of sunshine, rain and daily use for 6 plus months. With the help of him and his friends we poured the slab and we hope, within a week or so we will have the sides and the roof on.

Friday night it rained – and it rain hard and long. It has not rained in weeks; thunder came in and about 10:30pm the rain started and while I’m sure it was welcome for many others would have preferred it not rain at all.

We were invited to Norgess church, today, for worship. It was a big church building with a small but lively congregation. Men and women separated down the center aisle, however, they did dance in the aisle during one energetic hymn. Moise preached and he too was very enthusiastic about it. While the details of the sermon still pass me by his theme was to always trust in God – he WILL be with you and he does care about you.


Comments on our blog site. Few people leave comments on our site. Until the other day I did not realize that you needed an account on one of four or five blog sites to actually add a comment; however, we really would like you to share your thoughts with us (and the rest of the world). How about a caption competition? Remember that I am NOT a mason. This was the final bit of the poring of the slab for Tikammie’s new house. Light heated – what caption should be put with the photo below?

Go on, add a caption for this photo!

Week, well sort of, ending Tuesday 11th January

Prayers

• Peace in Haiti as the anniversary of the earthquake, 12th January, is remembered
• Peace in Haiti as further announcements of the elections are expected shortly
• Safety at our construction site
• Prayer of Thanks and Praise for the Jersey Village Baptist Church and all that they have done during their week here.

Our week
We are a little late with our blog for the best of reasons – we have had another hard working and loving team with us in Grand Goâve. Every team is a little different and God uses them in different ways. This team was given the task of school bench making. Should we have been surprised when they exceeded our expectations and made so many more benches than we expected?! We set up to make 40 benches and we ended up with 63; praise the Lord. They also made 6 smart new chalk boards, and framed out 6 more. On their last full day, they were put to work with heavy labor, digging the foundations for the next set of classrooms, 10, 11 & 12.

The Jersey Village team worked in other areas too. When a team, like this one come in, the Haitians see and feel the enthusiasm as well as the hard work that they bring. It infiltrates its way through all the team and inspires everyone to give more. The roof pouring last Thursday was swift, and efficient. The finishing of the classrooms with the metal windows and doors was sluggish to start, but the welding crew put in extra hours to get their work finished and really appreciated some expert help from the team.

Siloë School is officially back on campus! The rooms look, and feel, like real classrooms. It is good to have the noise of school, once again, at Siloë.

We love the teams to spend time enjoying being part of the community of Grand Goâve and this team did not disappoint us. They showed love to their brothers and sisters in Christ; perhaps this is the most important part of any mission trip.

Check out the Jersey Village Blog of their week - get the lowdown how they saw the week - www.jvbcserves.blogspot.com

On the domestic front, we seem to have sorted out our recent electrical and internet problems. We have enjoyed some glorious weather. January may see us with kitchen cabinets, if we are lucky.

Our partners, the Haitian Housing Network, have hosted their first team in Grand Goâve, at the same time as we hosted the JVBC team. We look forward to working together this year with many more rubble homes being built. Our partners also hosted two news crews, interested in the rubble house project; the Canadian Discovery Channel and the Palm Beach Post.

Week ending January 2nd 2011

Prayer Requests

• Travel mercies for the volunteer teams that are coming to Grand Goâve, this week.
• Praise for all that God will do, through us all, this year.
• The work on the volunteer house (see below!)
• Praise for the loving community that we are becoming a part of.

2011 has started and we wonder what the year will hold? Although it will soon be the anniversary of the earthquake which devastated Haiti, we are still only just beginning to rebuild. In our small way, in Grand Goâve, we are starting to understand why so little appears to have been achieved. It is because it is so hard! Take our volunteer house as an example; we thought that we could say with confidence that our first team of 2011 would find both running water and electricity in the house, for the first time. Our team is due to arrive on Wednesday and sadly neither the running water or 24hr electricity will have been achieved. It seemed so close to fruition, just a few weeks ago. What’s the story?

We are renting the house. In the rental contract, it was stipulated that during our tenure we could erect solar panels on the roof for electricity for the house. Also a well, could be sunk, for the use of the house and community. The first stage of well sinking was achieved after many weeks of waiting for the company to come to our area and drill it for us. At last it was done, sadly all we could see, in the end, was a single four inch pipe sticking out of the ground! We needed another company to come and put on the pump equipment. After phone calls, more phone calls, quotes, discussions and more phone calls and finally payment the task was scheduled; "As soon as we have finished our small job in Ti Gwav we will come and start your job". We are still waiting. We have called most weeks, some weeks they have called us too. Maybe this will be the week they can come.

Meanwhile we needed a welder to make a box to hold the inverter and the battery bank, which would, combined with solar panels, achieve 24 hour electricity.  After another patient wait, we finally installed the box. We put the solar panels on the roof and theoretically the house would have electricity. Another set of solar panels were put up ready to power the water, once the pump equipment was ready at the well head.

Then disaster struck, a first set of solar panels were stolen. We asked around, no one saw or heard anything. We tried to explain to everyone that the community was going to suffer because of this theft as we would not be able to pump the water from the well to their taps. Maybe it wasn’t understood. Jeanson, who lives in the volunteer house, was concerned about the second set of panels on the roof being stolen, too. We cordoned off these panels with barbed wire and arranged for the welder to come and complete more welding of the panels to the roof. Unfortunately the welder was busy. In the meantime, last Tuesday, to be exact, the second set of solar panels were stolen!

So the house is back to being without electricity and still no water; and we are faced with replacing all the solar panels. We are being advised that the new solar panels should sit on a high metal tower, to be safe from thieves, and we should perhaps employ a 24 hour security guard for the house.

Our project would greatly benefit those living in the community around the house. Currently, they have to queue to hand pump their water, every day. Yet, our project has been delayed by theft, by increased complexity in securing the next set of solar panels and delayed by the need for all the additional work.

On to a lighter topic! We had a great couple of days in Jacmel, last week. We were able to truly relax and recharge our batteries. It was just the tonic we needed. We came back to celebrate the New Year in Grand Goâve. We enjoyed a rather serious church service on New Year’s Eve. After midnight the service was followed with the traditional pumpkin soup of Haiti. It symbolizes their freedom, food which was once the preserve of the ruling class; now enjoyed by everyone. We hope this belief, in themselves, and their country will stay in their minds and hearts as they continue to rebuild their country.