Mike and Brenda

News up to Thursday 22nd February 2012

2012-02-22T14:24:00.000-08:00

Prayer Requests

Please join the congregation in their prayer for the funds to re-build their church. We found out today that our church was the first Protesent church in Grand Goave. It started 79 years ago in 1933.
Safe travels as Brenda and Mike fly to the Florida for a week
Lift up in prayer our SHG work
Lift up in prayer Belmont University delegation as they prepare to come to Grand Goave on a fact finding trip.

What has been happening
It’s been a quiet and encouraging month for us.

We held a “Thank You” party for our construction team. They have done a superb job with the rebuilding of Siloë School and we give thanks to our Gracious God for his providence in providing for all the building cost and for allowing work to continue, each day, with no noteworthy injuries.

We look forward to recalling the workers back to rebuild Temple Baptiste church when the funds are donated, and come in, allowing us to break ground on the new building.

We enjoyed a visit from Dennis Sheirman and his team of Canadian volunteers from Canadian Baptist Ministries (CBM). They came to build rubble homes and enjoyed coming round Siloe School, after church to admire the school and to encourage us with our mission. It is good to be reminded of how much has been accomplished and to know we have the prayers of so many to encourage.

Blue! It's the tarp - SHG meeting at Cherident

We were invited to visit some of our Self Help Groups (SHGs) with our trainers Quettie and Micheline. The first visit was to the groups of our facilitator Ecclesiastes. He has formed 3 separate groups in the Cherident area of Grand Goâve, a long and steep ride from the town of Grand Goâve. So far up the mountain we drove through the clouds! We were pleased to be driven by our experienced driver Gesner as some of those hair pin bends were a little scary. We were met by a large party of men and women, as the 3 groups had met together for a chat with us. We also had some who came along just to see what was going on; that is very Haitian. It was an interesting meeting. We still need to emphasis that self help means just that helping oneself and doing collectively in a trusted group; that is the key to success. This group wanted to tell us all the things that they were needing, better roads, better schools, better medical care and so on and were not shy to let us know how hard their lives were. Quettie was disappointed that they were not focused on working in their groups and keeping to the SHG guidelines, but saw signs of hope and we were pleased with the smiles and goodwill between everyone, once they had aired their grievances.

Cool mountain ride

The other group we visited was at Norgaisse, a short ride up the mountain. This was a group of 15 women. We could see this group growing in confidence and stability as they meet. After initially discussing if Thursday afternoon at 3pm was the best time to meet – a few members were late – and if 5 gourds was a good sum to be collecting each week (12.5c or 8p). Quettie was encouraged by their facilitator’s approach and the guidance to keep records, follow SHG guidelines and to be more disciplined. We were delighted to hear the song that they had composed and sang at each meeting, to encourage themselves and their care and interest in each other.

Group Name: Brave Woman (Fanm Vanyan)

We have had some heavy rain and this has encouraged us to work on our rain catchment projects. Unfortunately we have not been able to pick up another large water tank or two. The tanks we want are too big for our local “hardware store” to deliver and our Canter truck has not returned to us. It is frustrating to know the rain water could be harvested, we do hope to have a system in place, soon. The administrative building could really harvest some rain water for us judging by how much was left on the roof after just a night of rain. The Haitian idea of waiting until after a shower to find the best places to put the drains mean that once the drains were in place, we had a constant waterfall for over 2 hours from the roof! We think that there was about 1,500 gallons sitting up there!

Not very good for the roof!

We enjoyed social time with the Lott Carey/AABMC medical team, while they were here. It was good to welcome one of the team back. From the happy faces and comments they were all great ambassadors for Christ.

Social time and food - great combo

They are many other schools in GG and we were pleased to be able to give funds to one of them for a new coat of paint and some new school benches. What a difference a fresh coat of paint makes and we hope the benches will help the children concentrate on their studies. We are really grateful to those who entrust us with funds to help out in this way.

We are off to our home church for a week. We look forward to seeing old friends, revisiting familiar haunts and of course – hot showers!

Seniors Appreciation Sunday - Sunday January 29th 2012

2012-01-31T06:07:00.000-08:00

Cleoda Midi receiving her “Certificate of Encouragement”

The setting for this celebration was the Norgaisse Baptiste Church, five to six miles off the main road.which is five or six miles of rough, sometimes “river bed” looking, roads. The Church Council expected to provide lunch for 400 people. The sermon was provided by a pastor that had been the church’s pastor in 1990’s and had moved away to Brooklyn, New York, USA.

The old people of Grand Goâve are few. The average age of the Haitian population is 21 years. Men are expected to live till they are 61 years old and women till 66. We were celebrating anyone that was over 80 years old.

Haiti is a hard place to live. illiteracy is high. Access to clean water is difficult and often an hours walk up and down a mountainside. Education is a privilege, and not a right. The majority of our congregation and the community as a whole are subsistence farmers.
With that as a back ground Sunday was one big celebration for the church community, for the longevity of some Haitians, men and women, and it was a great witness to the younger community.

Brenda and I rose early, for a Sunday, as we had offered to be the Tap-Tap taxi service for a number of the seniors. We have a Nissan pick-up with a king cab; 5 or 6 seats inside and space for……you’ll see, at the back! We were asked to pick up four people from the Grand Goâve area and upon dropping them off at the church to do a second run, this time further up the mountain.

As the day started I realized that I needed to stay calm, pray and be at peace with whatever the Lord had in mind. As we picked up our first person he morphed into a husband and wife. We were expecting four old people and Brenda had already said she would ride in the back of the pick-up truck! With a smile they hopped inside and we drove to house number two. Here a young girl, eight or nine came out! OK what happened to the old lady? No, here she comes and as she is with her Grand Daughter she deliberately hopped(!!) into the back of the truck saying riding outside would be just fine. Now the count was meant to be two had grown to four! When we got to house three we knew that this lady, Cleoda, was not able to walk and came to church, when she could, in a wheel chair. Moise had told us it was OK to tie her and her wheel chair in the back of the pickup, she would be fine! Cleoda came out of the house, no wheel chair in sight, supported by her son, Inatel, and daughter-in-law. Cleoda was eased into the car making up three across the back bench. Her son, climbed into the back.

The fourth (!) person we picked up was Lucius; we saw him walking at a very quick pace (for him) along the river path, as soon as his son told him we were waiting for him – up the path he came, Brenda gave him the front seat and Brenda and Lucius’s son, Borgella, hopped into the back.

With the pick-up now with a total of 10, few by Haitian standards, we headed for the hills. The drive did not need the 4x4 engaged but there were a few points when I thought I might need to. We arrived at the church in time for the adult Sunday School lesson.
So if you made it to Sunday School, remembering that the service runs, without a break from the start of Sunday school through to the end of the main service, you will be in church for a total of 4 hours – hmm comfortable pews?

I dropped them all off, carrying Cleoda into the church; saving her from having to negotiate the uneven ground, which includes the raised run-off canal from the water pump in the church yard.

How many of us do we know people that won’t go to church because it is too far to walk from the car park or that there are no wheel chair access where they think it should be! Perhaps we should be thinking more about these people and offering to help!

Off again, this time up the mountain to the community of Monthabort. This road needed the 4x4 to get there; it always does. Arriving, there was no one to greet me, mountain time is not clock time so I parked up, under a tree and waited.

About ten minutes passed and couple of ladies, one old, one middle aged came along the path. Neither of them seemed in a hurry. They stopped to chat to the lady digging in the field; the younger lady bounded over to the local church and chatted to the Pastor, then popped into the church and greeted her friends. Meanwhile, the younger of the two ladies gathered up the old lady, by the field, and wandered over to me to check I was their ride down the mountain. Mme. Deniye told me other people were still coming so we would have to wait a bit longer.

After maybe five more minutes we all piled into the pickup, there were now two middle aged ladies and the old lady. Off we went down the road, maybe an eighth of a mile, before being told to park up under a tree.

Mme. Deniye, one of the ladies, got out of the car walked 100 yards further down the road; she then stood on the side of the road and yelled, at the top of her voice, to a house way in the distance across the valley. She was telling a family to hurry up! The conversation went on for about five minutes and she got quite cross; it was obvious the family had either over slept, unlikely, forgotten the special church service was this Sunday, or had just not realized the time. While the yelling back and forth was going on the neighbors joined in and it was also obviously that Mme. Deniye did not appreciate their comments! After fifteen minutes Mme. Deniye stormed off down the valley, up the other side and out of sight, five minutes later I saw her directing three men as they physically carried Granddad, on their shoulders, all the way to the car!

How many of us would wait nearly 40 minutes for basically one man to get to the car? The family should have known the time! The family should have planned ahead! But this was about honoring the Seniors and for me it was a lesson in patience and working in God’s time and not my “Hurry up and get it done” time.

When I was ready to drive off there were three of us in the front, four on the bench seat and eight or ten in the back – now that is a real Haitian Tap-tap – 15 to 17 and we were ready to go!

Arriving at church we were met by the church officials and the Seniors were ushered into the church, to take up their official seats, at the front of the church and the rest of us were left to ourselves to find a seat. The church service had started 30 minutes before we arrived, and it was packed, like our church, in the USA, at Christmas or Easter!
Would your church service just carry on as 17 people, some with the guests of honor walk in, late, and march right up to the front of the church? It was their day and everyone was just glad they had been able to attend.

Brenda and I like to keep a low profile in these events. It is a Haitian church, a Haitian celebration and while we were very pleased we could help with the transportation, extremely content to be part of the occasion, we were also happy to blend into the congregation! However, Pastor Pascal had us sit at the front pew and then almost immediately asked me to come up and say something! I think I can speak Creole almost acceptably but in a church with 350 people looking at me, it is difficult; but I was able to say some words of encouragement and return to the pew with a few “Amen” as I finished – perhaps they were for the Lord, or perhaps they were glad I had finished!!

A packed church celebrating the Seniors of the church

During the service Pastor Peshwoir introduced all the Seniors that were being celebrated. The things he noted about each one were
• How many children they had and how many of them had died.
• How many grandchildren they had and how many great grandchildren.
• How long they had been married.
• The year they were baptized, where they were baptized and by which Pastor.
• If the individual held a position in the church and some had their profession announced too.
There were 22 Seniors in all, each one was spoken about at various times in the service. The oldest person was a gentleman that was 105! Apparently his father lived to 120!!

The Seniors, smart and attentive.

The sermon was given by Pastor William; he had been the Director of Siloë School and the Pastor of the Grand Goâve Church too. He made a point to thank both the CBF Disaster Response team (us) and CBF Medical, Jenny Jenkins, for the work we have done and the on-going work in these communities. It was a very heart felt appreciation for our efforts – these efforts are yours, mostly, and the thanks were for all the support we have received over the last two years. Pastor William now lives in Brooklyn, New York. Planning his trip here and the date of the service was not a simple task! When he was welcomed to the pulpit, by Pastor Pascal, he was moved to tears and emotion at the words Pastor Pascal gave for his introduction. It was a sweet moment to see a Haitian man show emotion in a public setting.

The service was not a true Haitian church celebration because the men leading the service kept assuring everyone that the service will end at midday! Normally a service of this nature goes for a long time with additional hymns, verses and impromptu comments and witness. The sermon would be long and people would not be at all uncomfortable to be in the main service for three hours plus.

Would a three hour service have been OK at your church, before a meal?

We were, however, sung to by the children, the teenage ladies, and the women group from the host church.

At the end of the service special awards were presented for four of the Seniors for outstanding service to the church and the community and then all 22 received Certificates of Encouragement in recognition of their longevity. Each person was helped up and brought forward for their certificate and photos were taken of each one by the official photographer and others that wanted to capture the event too

At that point the service closed with the Benediction and the Blessing of the lunch. We were all told to sit in the pews at which point 400 meals, with a cool drink, were served to us all. It was handed out and consumed in 35 to 40 minutes. The community that did not attend the service had, by this time, all appeared, knowing food was being served, they all received lunch too.

Lunch preparations for 400 people

How many of our churches can feed 400 people, including people coming in, just for the food, in 35 to 40 minutes? Rice & beans and lots of it, fried chicken, pasta salad, Haitian coleslaw, and fried plantain.

Lunch served to 400 people

After the food I was back on Tap-Tap duty. The ride up the mountain was uneventful and I took back the same people as going to church. On the trip down the mountain, however, it was obviously noted that there was “space” for more on the trip down. They did me proud; I had 17 people all the way to Grand Goâve.

Probably a good thing this doesn’t happen at home, the police would pulled us over for overcrowding!

The oldest Senior heads off home…..on a motor bike!

What a special day we had. Neither of us can remember ever attending something like this honoring our oldest family members, either as a family or as a church member – before their funeral services. As the generation ahead of us, pass the baton of their years of service, the least we can do is thank them for all they achieved and from which we benefit so much. On Sunday each of the Seniors’ dressed up for the occasion and stood rightly proud. The children, or were they the great grandchildren, were pleased to sing for them also dressing in their finest, the boys looking a bit awkward in their collared shirts, but the girls, they were beaming We were honored to be part of the celebration.

Praise the Lord

News ending January 26th 2012

2012-01-26T08:47:00.000-08:00

We left our last entry as the first team of the year was about to arrive. This team was from Oakland Baptist Church in Rock Hill, South Carolina, 2 other churches were also represented making it an interesting team of people. This was the first of 2 teams from Oakland; a wonderfully supportive church. This first team came to build rubble houses, as part of our partnership with Haitian Housing Network. They were an enthusiastic, hardworking and loving team. One member had an adopted Haitian daughter and we were delighted that he was able to take the opportunity to visit with his daughter’s birth family in a nearby village. Although the physical labor was appreciated by everyone it was this team’s interaction with the Haitians that really stands out, they showed such love and empathy. This interaction is what we think is mission work at its best: teams interacting and sharing with the local community, especially the children, reminding everyone that there is only one God and he loves us all. To visit, share and work with our brothers and sister in Christ is a privilege and a blessing.

The team load yet another wire basket on the truck - heave!

Tozin rubble house during the week of Oakland first team

The same Tozin house a week later

Jeanson shows the team how to lay foundations.

A week later.....

The second Oakland team came to work with Siloë School and to help Jenny’s medical mission. Their visit coincided with the completion of the school. A bittersweet time for us all, the school completed but the construction crew have been laid off. Their final task was to build the basketball court. It was good to see the whole school lined up on the court for the morning flag raising ceremony and later to see the children pleasure in having a smooth surface to play their games. We will be fixing the basketballs hoops up soon; we have a set of hoops and balls kindly donated by a previous mission team.

First assembly on the new basketball court/courtyard

The 2nd Oakland team was our first mission group of teachers. They were keen to share their expertise and experience with their fellow teachers and in turn to learn from them. They spent the school days in the class rooms and were able to teach English and mathematics lessons. The other half of the team helped Jenny conduct a medical check-up of all the school children, for 2 days and then help a two mountain clinics. The 6th member of the team came to film Jenny’s work and also to help us with a promotional film for the rebuilding of Temple Baptiste Church.

We appreciated both the teams, so different in their agendas but so similar in showing their love and compassion for Grand Goâve.

We were very pleased to have the opportunity, between teams, to visit the community of Monthabort an hour’s journey up the mountain from GG. We are looking at ways we can help with water in this area. Unfortunately it is not possible to drill a well here, but rain catchment was a possibility. Since we first explored the possibilities in this area the church has been rebuilt and a community hall has also be built, nearby, giving them two large buildings to gutter and harvest rainwater from. With the success of our rainwater project at Siloë, a similar system in Monthabort, with the local people supplying their own labor and CBF providing the materials is another blessing for the community as a whole. This is the sort of project we can use our partnerships with WASH to achieve, and our SHGs, to promote good hygiene and safe water practices.

1,800 sq.ft. of roof for rain harvest

News ending Monday 9th January 2012

2012-01-09T12:51:00.000-08:00

As the Lord blesses us with a great New Year we would like to welcome any of the Sunday School classes that are studying Haiti, this month, with your classes.

We continue to be uplifted by prayer, continued support through short term mission teams as well as financial support.

Our current focus is the re-build of the Temple Baptist church. It was destroyed in the earthquake, two years ago. This Sunday we worshipped in our make shift church. Our congregation truly show that they ARE the church. Their prayers, praising, hymn singing and enthusiasm for the word of God remains a constant source of faith building to us as well as constant inspiration.

Our Christmas and New Year were quiet compared to an American version; we enjoyed each others company and that of our local church congregation. With the use of technology we enjoyed talking our family on Christmas Day through the internet; we remain blessed, daily.

This week we have welcomed our first short term team of 2012, a construction team from Oakland Baptist Church, SC, that has brought two other churches too through family and friends connection. This is a great team, eager to support the locals, give them encouragement and prayer. The team are working with rubble house construction. It is tough work but with regular rests and a lot of water to drink the teams' spirits remain high. We have given a prayer of thanks to the Lord, this lunch-time for the cloudy day - so much more worker friendly than 100% sunshine.

What can you do for our Haitian mission?

Prayer - NEVER under estimate the power of prayer
See if there is time to join a short term mission team. Please contact Brayden Huskey at bhuskey@thefellowship.info
Financially support the re-building of the Temple Baptist Church; it will cost approximately $80,000 - $100,000US. Our congregation are keen to start the re-build but we need to see a lot of the funds in the bank before we can realistically start.

No funds are too small, all the funds will go directly to the project - examples of the sort of things that we would use you contribution for are..
$2.00 one workers lunch
$2.00 pair of worker's gloves
$8.00 for a bag of cement
$9.00 average daily wage
$10.00 for a shovel
$25.00 for a cubic meter of sand
$20.00 for a cubic meter of gravel
Please remember these are examples of an tremendously long list and we would respectfully request that we would use any funds in the project fore what we need and not necessarily have them ear marked for a specific - we would hate to have 1000 lunches and no cement!

Prayer - NEVER under estimate the power of prayer.

Thank you for reading about us in Haiti.

Photo Gallery

Dr. Vestal and Pastor Tim in the old church

Demolition

Current worship center

We are re-building on the same site.

News ending 23rd December 2011

2011-12-23T14:03:00.000-08:00

Christmas is almost here, although we are far away from family, and long lasting friends, we are thinking of you all.

It has been a quiet month for us as we have had no teams here and the work of the school is nearing completion. As we cannot move our construction crew on to rebuilding Temple Baptiste Church yet, as funds are still to come through, the crew have not surprisingly slowed down and although their quality of work remains very good they are making the work last as long as possible. They have discovered the pleasure in making concrete benches and we now have plenty of seating beside the clinic and in the shady part of the entrance way to the school. These benches are for Jenny’s pharmacy, however, it is also already become a resting place, meeting place and general “go to” place when you want to get out of the way!

There is little left to complete in the school project, it is a bittersweet time for us all, we are proud of the school but sad to lay off the workers.

Please pray that the funding for the church construction comes soon. In prior blog entries you will see that we need between $80,000US - $100,000US for the church and the council would also like to rebuild the pastor’s church too!

With a bit of extra time on our hands; we have taken the opportunity to spruce up the staff house. A little bit of paint and a rearrangement of the use of the main rooms sees a significant improvement. We hope to up the momentum with a fresh coat of paint in some of the other rooms and the creation of a private area on the roof to relax in, without being a spectacle to our neighbors and passers-by. Getting the blocks delivered from the construction site to our house has proved somewhat illusive!

Through the past generosity of our mission teams we have discovered that we have accumulated a store of children’s crayons, activities and sweets. Mme Moise came up with the idea of giving the children a Christmas party and handing out the “booty” as gifts. We are preparing the gift bags today and looking forward to joining the party tomorrow afternoon – Christmas Eve.

The long saga of a community well at the volunteer house seems to be near completion, again! After our disastrous attempts at providing the community with well water via electricity from the solar panels we are now going for the other option, a hand pump. To offer the community water and keep the volunteer house safe and private, a wall has been erected around the well with two gates, one for the house and one for the community. We are purchasing the hand pump equipment and soon all will be in place and at long last the community will be able to get water from the well at the volunteer house.

We have been honored to receive gift money to use at our discretion. We decided to use some to purchase some more hymn books. This time, at the request of the church council, the majority of them will go to the sister churches in the mountains. We were told that one of the churches needed only 2 books as the community are mostly illiterate. This is a sad fact and we hope that with other NGOs help with schooling and our efforts through our self help groups in the area; that this will be reversed in the near future and the community will be blessed with teachers passing on the gift of literacy.

Some days really bring home to us the fact that we live in a third world country. On Tuesday we needed to do a grocery run to town to pick up the things that we cannot buy locally. The Canter truck needed to be taken into PAP too, so we combined the trip with Gesner, our driver, so he could drive the Canter in and we could bring him home. Gesner’s son was happily returning home, from the USA, for Christmas, so we added a trip to the airport to our day. No problem. However, our trip around the grocery store which was successfully completed in an hour resulted in a trip lasting 11 hours from door to door. On top of that when we arrived home we found that we had no water. So now cold showers have become a luxury that we are doing without. Buckets of water filled up at the local well are now the order of the day. “It’s going to be fixed today” has been the call since then.

Postscript - within 20 minutes of posting this blog the water was fixed! Hoorah

Each day the sun is shining and the nights are cool and clear enough for star gazing. We hope for a joyous and peaceful Christmas, for everyone.

Photo Gallary

Us, together in the USA, during our 14 mile walk!

The benches being made.

The new office

News ending Sunday 20th November

2011-11-20T13:20:00.000-08:00

Prayer Requests

Consistant work ethic and speed from the construction team; there is a tendency to slow down now that the job is coming to the end and.......
Funding for the rebuilding of the church - we need somewhere between $40,000US and $70,000US of church construction money to be gifted to CBF, and confirmed, before we can start the project and with the school coming to an end soon...see above.
Praise the Lord for His continued support through our Haitian family, our US church family and our personal family.
For rest and restoration, we are both tired and a bit sick!
Truck repair - see note below
The canter truck - it always seems to be on its last legs and it is a well used vehicle that we are reliant on; when it is off the road we are significantly slowed down!

News

We are just at the end of a busy time hosting volunteer Teams. We had the Lifepointe team in the last week of October then the Brindle teams, yes two of them, together, at the beginning of November and now we have just said goodbye to the Matthew Road team. Each team is different, but they all share a common purpose, to come and share both in the rebuilding of Haiti and in sharing Christ’s love with their Haitian brothers and sisters.

The Lifepointe team have posted an interesting video of their trip. It’s always good to hear from the teams themselves and to find out what they took away from their experience here. http://www.lifepointevictoria.com/web/?page_id=59

We enjoyed hosting two teams lead by cousins, Tim Brendle and Leonard Brendel (yes they do spell their surnames differently) the teams met up for the first time as their made their way to Haiti and by the time they arrived in Grand Goave they had become one close, caring team. They worked on rubble house construction and made lots of new friends along the way. We were pleased to welcome Josh back for a third time and Tim of course, our predecessor. We managed to keep the team at Siloë for the Saturday morning and they constructed tables and moved shelves around the clinic for Jenny. It’s amazing how much one team can achieve together in one morning. It is always a joy to see a team of Americans working alongside Haitians with both enjoying time together, and the language barrier quickly broken down.

Having just said goodbye to the Matthew Road team, from Texas; it is good to reflect that they were here this time last year and it was good to have 3 of the original team return. When they remind us of how things were this time last year we realize how much has changed, grown and improved, and that is not just Siloë School. It’s good to be reminded of that by other people who see the changes too. God is Good.

This was Matthew Road last year - http://mchbjh.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-ending-21st-november.html

The Matthew Road team did construction, medical and dental. Their interaction with the children at the middle and end of the school days was precious. Their rekindling of past friendships rewarding and their ability to be pack mules for us gratefully appreicated. As ever, like the other teams this team loved Mme. Moise's cooking - boy she and her team are the best.

We continue to hear encouraging reports from our SHG team. The trainers hosted a visioning event, just for women at Petit Goâve. 22 women’s leaders from churches from the local towns attended and we are hopeful that more SHGs will soon sprout, enlarging our area of work and helping more Haitians.

One point of frustration, relating our work with the SHGs as well as in other areas is our situation with our Pickup truck. It is still at the repair shop. Apparently the 4x4 part that we need to fix it is still sitting at customs, coming from the Dominican Republic. We rely of this vehicle to take us into the mountain area which our SHG trainers are keen to visit, as they want to encourage and help the new groups which have formed in these isolated areas. We are being as patient as we can be, but really look forward to having the vehicle back at work. It has been “being fixed” for over two months now!

We have received the architect plans for Temple Baptiste Church thanks to our friends at BCGT. We are praying that we will have the funds provided to us from churches in the USA and perhaps outside the USA, to begin the project in the New Year. The Temple Baptiste congregation is vibrant despite its temporary meeting place and it is indeed growing. Last year, for example we had just one Sunday school class for adults and one for children. Now we still have a children’s class, and the adults have split into, young adults, new believers and adult class, which is very encouraging. Also thanks to the generosity of some of our volunteer teams we have a growing percussion group and a superior keyboard. As music and singing is such a vital part of worship we are thrilled to have these additional instruments.

Photo Gallary

A school stuccoed with support from CBF

These benches were the same design as our benches; funded by CBF and built by local carpenters for another school in Grand Goave.

Tim's team gather with the translators before church

Carpenters restore drawers and shelves for Jenny

Here is the old wall by the well - note the men behind the wall!

Here is the old wall by the well - fallen - yes, the well cage was buckled!

The Matthew Road team

Jeanson, our Volunteer Coordinator, always smiling.

News ending Sunday 30th October

2011-10-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

Three weeks so much has happened and so many things come to mind ….these are some of the highlights.
Moise was on vacation – this was a much deserved break, he had not taken a break since he started the role back at the beginning of the project! Whilst he was gone Mike was the Project Foreman; he felt it appropriate to be on the jobsite every day, at 7am and to be available whenever possible. During the time Moise was away Mike sifted sand, for stucco, moved many a block, worked with the doors and window welders for two days, and was chief purchaser and cement mixer mover. When Moise got back he was told that Mike worked very hard while he was away (and that was not by us!)

The work on the Administration building is going well, there was a tremendous pressure forced on the construction team to get the rooms ready so that the four class rooms that had been commandeered so many months ago were released for the school. In the end we feel we were pushed into the admin building a few days too early. However, the school is a Haitian school and it is run by them; they need to take the final say. The week that we moved back into the (new) admin building reminded us how much we appreciated the FBC Albany cross over team. They were with us when we moved out and now that we moved back in by ourselves we realized how much work they did, with us. The electric power is all working, the water pump is running and the solar panels are functioning.

Now the school is back in all the classrooms they start every day offically, with notices, prayer, National Anthem and the Haitian flag raising ceremony. It is well run, formal and a delight to see.

Check out the new rain catchment pipes - thank you Lifepointe.

Haitian flag raised every school day.

The construction team are now working hard in and around the Administration building to stucco all the ceilings and walls before finishing the floors as well as the stuccoing of the outside. With the end of the work on the admin building literally around the corner our prayers have increased on the search for the necessary funding of the re-building of the church. We really do need to have all the funding secured before we start as we don’t want to half build the church and run out of funds. Please pray that their funding will come soon. The whole project is approximately $80,000US to $100,000US

Self Help Group (SHG) leaders have started to explore new avenues with the ladies of CBH – Convent Baptiste d’Haiti. This additional avenue was due to the motivational encouragement of Kihome Mabudiga. Mme Nzonga is a ABC missionary, resident in Limbe and she works closely with the women throughout Haiti but especially with CBH. We have had one women's visioning meeting in Port-au-Prince and a second one planned in Ti Gwav, early next month. May God inspire the women to see the values and goals that the SHG movement is trying to foster, here in Haiti. This weekend the SHG team have returned to Limbe, in the North, to work with Brother Paul and visit a number of the groups that have started in that region.

We had a joint construction/medical team from Lifepointe, Victoria, Texas, this last week. They worked on the rain harvesting at the school, and re-roofing the shower facility, at the school . They also did a tremendous job of cleaning up around the toilet area at the school. This last task was unglamorous but sorely needed and we were blessed with a team with such willing hearts. It was good for Brenda and I to share with another missionary couple, Matt and Katie Sciba, leaders of the Lifepointe team, they talked to us about their time in Indonesia as missionaries; they were there for four years with a young family, we could relate to some of their stories, well.

New roof for Scott's showers

Lifepointe team, Herb Rogers, Tawna Kramer, Jeanson & Jenny

While our pump repair equipment is not used often, it was used with weekend. A pump chain was repaired and water is now flowing once more. It is always both inspiring and a bit scary to see the Haitians working on the pump and the pieces that need fixing. There is often a lot of hammer work and apparent “violence” to the parts; but it did get fixed! Michelet is hoping to fix another well on Wednesday. This is GREAT work, skilled, trained Haitians using the tools and skills available to them with their own direction, may the Lord encourage and bless this on-going work.

The men asked to pray over the pump once if was fixed - a Godly crew.

We have been asked if we know anyone that may be interested in sponsoring another school; this would be many, many thousands of dollars over many years. Both this and our prior blog asks for people to put us in touch with churches, organizations or individuals that may be interested in financial support of our local communities. Two great books worth reading are “When Helping Hurts” ISBN 987-0-8024-5705-9 and one Brenda has completed and I am 1/3 of the way through “The Poor Will Be Glad: Joining the Revolution to Lift the World Out of Poverty” ISBN 978-0-3102-9359-0

A useful link to a page we update from time to time http://mchbjh.blogspot.com/2011/05/web-sites-for-information.html

News to October 9th

2011-10-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow will be the first school day of the rebuilt College Baptiste Siloë, to give it its full title. The school has 13 classrooms and an administration building. The roof of the admin building was hand poured on Wednesday 28th September and the construction crew is working hard to finish the admin rooms, as quickly as possible. We have had many discussions on how to speed the work along and which is the most important part to complete, I think these will continue to change (daily) as school begins and everything needs to be finished (yesterday)! The workers are also building a privacy wall alongside the clinic building and the road. They have cleared the school courtyard, with a lot of volunteer help, for the promised basketball court. The site is almost unrecognizable even from the point at which we arrived last year, the school looks attractive and it has been well built, we can be proud of our Haitian construction team.

Other parts of our work here in Grand Goâve are looking good too. Our SHGs are beginning to bud; we have at least 7 SHG groups in the Grand Goâve area and another 7 in the north around the Limbe area. Mike and I were able to take a “quick” road trip up to Limbe to attend a facilitators training session there and to catch up with the workers. The road north can be quickly described as acceptable and atrocious, we were blessed with new smooth roads from Port au Prince to Gonaives but the road through the mountains was a sad site, a tarmac road left to rot with more pot holes than tarmac and an section completely washed away by a river. We made an average speed of 25mph on our journey; we may consider using the air service from PAP to Cap Haitian as an alternative in the future, although it is expensive it takes a mere 2 hours instead of a day, each way, of exhausting and bumpy travelling.

We were fortunate to be able to travel to Limbe in our minivan, as our ‘workhorse’ 4x4 vehicle, the Nissan Pickup, is sadly in for repair. It has two big problems a crack in the radiator and problems with the 4x4. We realize how much we rely and use this vehicle when she is not around. Thankfully we do not have a mission team here and can cope with the minivan and the Canter truck for now. We are also missing our project Manager, Moise, who is on a well deserved vacation. He has taken his elderly father with him to visit his sister in Philadelphia, USA, their first visit in 12 years. We wish the family a blessed reunion.

As the end of the school rebuilt is coming into sight, we have noticed a change in the air. We have been approached by those who see us investing in education and they hope that we would also be interested in a scholarship program. We already partner with the Texas Baptists to provide scholarships for pupils at Siloë see http://texasbaptists.org/evangelism-missions/disaster-response/change-a-life/

We have been now been asked about scholarships for students to attend university, here in Haiti. The cost is far less than an American or UK College, at $3,000US - $4,000US a year, for a 4 or 5 year commitment. This includes accommodation and books. There is talk of being able to offer this level of education locally, which would mean an enormous savings as the students could live at home, but this is very much in the future. We would love to hear of any organizations that offer this sort of scholarship. We are looking for direct contact wiht the students as CBF do not have the resources to manage education scholarships. Please let us know of any such organizations you may know of that we can put student and organization together. These students are motivated and very keen to move their education on as far as they can.

Other schools in the Grand Goâve area have also approached us to help them with school benches, roofs for a new building, updates, assistance with teacher's salaries; the list could go on; we wish we could help everyone or at least know of other organizations willing to take them on directly, again, please let us know of any such organizations you may know of that we can put school directors and organization together. These sorts of projects are likely to be in the areas of multiples of $5,000US.

In starting the SHG groups the problem of literacy has arisen. Quettie, our SHG Trainer, believes that 85% of an SHG group could be illiterate. This affects the whole group’s ability to keep group minutes and to cope with banking the savings accumulated. There are few programs available for adult literacy, especially for those who live the rural areas. Siloë School would hold literacy classes either at the school site or in the mountain areas, but needs the funding for the teachers and materials. The sad reality is that the bottom line on this initiative is again funding.

Over the past month there has been a tremendous effort by the local Grand Goâve community to tidy up the town. The trashed cars have gone, homes “planted” in the middle of side streets have been removed. A digger came round and removed all the piles of rubble and trash in the main streets. People came out and painted up their areas of the street in colorful strips, blobs and painted soda bottles across the street, as banners. Last week Monday and Tuesday we catholic saint days and the community had a long weekend. The down side was the VERY noisy nights but the truly upside has been the real change in the cleanliness of the town. After so many months of abandoned cars and trash piles the change has been a refreshing, uplifting sight.

A useful link to a page we update from time to time http://mchbjh.blogspot.com/2011/05/web-sites-for-information.html

We look forward to our week ahead as the students return to the school campus and the construction site is transformed into a working school. We pray for a productive and successful year ahead.

Photo album

Self Help Group meeting in Limbe, Northern Haiti.

Sifting sand for stucco, of course!

Beautiful doors and windows - classrooms 10 through 13

Siloe Courtyard looking from classroom 9

Siloe Courtyard looking to classroom 7,8 & 9; before it was cleaned

Privacy wall - against giants looking over the wall!!

Upto Sunday 25th September

2011-09-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

Well, the time has flown by for many reasons; but two of them were the visit by the CBF central office team and the other was 10 days without internet at the house. We think we have mentioned before the joys of the local cyber café. It serves it purpose and we are truly grateful for it but it is hot, noisy and the internet is slow!

We are not out of the woods yet with the internet issues, however, we are at home, with relative speed on the internet – blessings are always around, if you have a mind to see them.
Our last blog entry was just after our return from a trip to the UK. We came back with our daughter, Clare, she was here for two weeks, for a vacation! And to see how her Mum and Dad lived – whether we paint a true picture of life on our blog site – you’ll have to ask her! We really did enjoy Clare being here. On the second Sunday she was here she played the flute in church, it was quite amazing – apart from the music of the flute you could have heard a pin drop; we think it is the quietest we have ever heard the congregation.

Brayden Husky, Rob Nash and Harry Rowland flew in on a Friday, the flight was many hours late and it rained cats and dogs just as they were coming out of the airport – the walkway from the arrival warehouse to the car park became a swim-way! We were all glad to get in the minivan and head for Grand Goâve.

Over the weekend we had meetings, a tour of the rubble house, given gracefully by Alex, and in the afternoon we “enjoyed” a mountain ride in the canter truck, first a ride through Petit Goâve and a trip through the local market; on the hunt for a tooth brush and a pair of sunglasses. The up over the foot hills behind Grand Goâve and down via Dano – it was very bumpy but get our team a view of life in Haiti.

Sunday was worship, as usual, it is always enjoyable to see the faith and enthusiasm our congregation show worshiping the Lord. The afternoon was the time to relax and kick back, at the beach. We were very pleased that Andre, our “beach contact” parked us literally yards from the beach, very impressive.

Over the weekend we also enjoyed the company of Bob Browning and Mistee Spry, from Edge Ministries; they were in Grand Goâve with their local rep Jean on a fact finding trip for Global Women, who are planning to come to Haiti next year.

On Monday we have an SHG meeting in PAP and a “swap out” of staff, Brayden and Rob left, David, Dean and Karr La came in. The week was taken up with meetings, discussions and ideas aired both internally and with the local community. Our feedback from them all, after they got back to US, was that they all enjoyed the experience.

When they all left we did enjoy a relaxing sort of weekend – Clare had left the same day the team left - so it was a quiet and restful weekend.

The work on the School Admin building carries on; the pace looks like they have slowed down but, in fact, they have worked very hard to get the channels poured and this week they have prepared the roof, for a pour early next week. Time marches on and school starts in two weeks, with the four class rooms to be vacated before the children return to class? Prayers for continued safety on the construction site are always welcome; we do not want them to rush and then have an accident.

It has rained, it has been stiflingly hot and we have had some very pleasantly cool nights. Today it has been hot and sticky.

In the past few weeks Brenda celebrated her one year anniversary of being in Haiti. Both Brenda and I remain at peace with our lives here. We feel that we remain in God’s will. While every day is not a bed of roses we can see God’s work in the lives of the people of Grand Goâve, Praise the Lord.

A postscript to this latest blog is that our power cut out at 8:30pm last night, Saturday. Obviously the main power had been out for long enough to drain our batteries. It was very hot going to bed; but quieter than normally. This morning Tikammie said that the power issue will be fixed tomorrow – so it is back to running the small generator for hours on end for the day.

A useful link to a page we update from time to time http://mchbjh.blogspot.com/2011/05/web-sites-for-information.html

Photos

SHG meeting in PAP

New hand made foot stool; that string is painful on the arms

Family on day out at Jacmel

Harry and Rob, excellent BBQ chefs

News ending 2nd September 2011 - Wow!

2011-09-02T11:15:00.000-07:00

Prayer Requests

Praise the Lord - the work on the Administration building has been tremendous.
Work safety - fast but safe, dear Lord
Adjustment from our vacation, getting into the swing of Grand Goave life
Continued empowerment for the local community

What has happened recently...
Brenda and I were away, in the UK, on vacation. We saw many family and attended a very enjoyable family wedding.

Prior to our departure Moise and I had discussed the likely building schedule for the Admin building and as to whether it would be ready in October. He wanted to employ additional staff to speed up the process and I wanted some guarantee that the additional staff would get the desired results; rightly, he said he could not give me these guarantees - so I agreed that the could show me what the team could do while we were away.

Wow! Praise the Lord, Thank you, awesome, amazing are some of the adjectives that come to mind, seeing the building today.

The day we left for vacation

The day we came back from vacation - three weeks later! Wow!

While we were away the SHG teams met to discuss the newly formed groups; the Lord is doing so much here, in Grand Goave.

Floresta met with the mountain community and had a very productive workshop. They are planning one more workshop before they can discuss the long term opportunities. Please keep this in your prayers.

News to 12th August

2011-08-19T12:37:00.000-07:00

Prayer Requests

Travel mercies
Construction site safety
Rest and restoration

The time flies....

Since our last blog we have flown a considerable distance. Brenda and I are in the UK for a family wedding and for a much needed vacation. We return to Grand Goave on September 1st.

Having said goodbye to the FBC Albany team we had a little time for ourselves and were right back into the thick of it with Gene Gentry's ABC team from Washington State. They came a very long way and we were blessed in so many ways by him and his team.

As the team arrived so did the threat of Tropical Storm Emily. The Tropical Strom was the last thing that Haiti needed. Our prayers were answered as the Tropical storm first stalled out at sea and then dissipated into just a weather front.

However, due to the suspected inclement weather we were joined by the Haiti Housing Network (HHN) team, so they could be close to their compound, if they needed to make a run for cover, if the storm came through.

With, therefore, a team of about 18 people Gene and Jeanson set about the building of a further 30 school benches. These were done in double quick time. On Friday we had the HHN team help our construction team dig foundations for the school administration building, working along side our Haitian team. Gene and Jeanson started to work on the school tables.

The tables needed to be thought through and carefully built. Having built the first one the team needed Pastor Pascal's approval. After a "test seating" and a request to have table leg supports added, it was approved. The team then worked very hard to complete 29 more and to have them all varnished too.

During the week that Gene's team were with us we were able to train some Haitian brothers to use the paint sprayer to paint fourteen new blackboards. The framing of these blackboards will be done in September.

We really did enjoy Gene's team, they were extremely generous with the materials and supplies and worked well with the Haitians that came to work along side them in the school woodwork projects. They must have enjoyed themselves as I downloaded over 1,000 photos, from them, on their last day!

We are now in the UK and are really enjoying family time and a change in the pace. We look forward to coming home to Grand Goave and seeing the changes in the construction site; maybe the admin building will be ready for a roof!

The SHG facilitators are working hard in the creation of self help groups and we think the first actual group has been formed in the Grand Goave area, praise the Lord. Please pray that they will seek God's guidance and his understanding for what He wants with their group.

Floresta came to the Mt. Sinai area for a preliminary meeting, with the community, to see if it is a community that could benefit from their expertise. The meeting was held up the mountain, and, by the end of the meeting there were in excess of 50 community members in the church listening and contributing to the discussions. Floresta is coming back to the community at the end of August for further exploratory meeting with the community. Praise the Lord for His guidance in this.

Photo Gallery

We think they may be digging to China! The Admin foundations get deeper and deeper!

Teams mingle as they work

Haitians learn a new trade

Tables and benches - almost all ready for the school year

Gene Gentry's team - what a blessing they are

The teams of HHN, CBF and the local volunteers pose for their photo!

News to Saturday July 30th

2011-07-30T18:29:00.000-07:00

Photo Gallary

Rubble - into the bucket, into the truck!

Deep, down there, is a trantula!

40lbs per bucket!

Off to the beach!

We are all king of the mountain! We put it there!

Missionary Tony tells his story - morethanjustcoffee.org

Before.......

Who says we can't go on the roof?

During.......

Old in front - new behind

Gone! It was only Tuesday afternoon!!!

We dug this hole and we still went further!

Prayer Requests

Praise and thanksgiving for the FBC Albany teams, they have blessed us in so many ways over the last 18 days.
On-going safety at the construction site
Weather
Travel mercies for the next team, coming here next week, Aug 3rd.
Continued observance of the fruit of the spirit in us and the people around us

Awesome

If anyone is looking for a reference on the abilities of the FBC Albany missions we can give an unreserved praise report and a 200% thumbs up.

Over the last two team weeks, and the extra time in between, we have had 18 from the FBC Albany church. The youngest has just graduated High School and the oldest was old!
Team One - Lori, Billie, Ennis, Keely, Ginger, Mackenzie, Kyle, Jessica, John-Ross, Ramona, Roxanne
Cross-over team - John-Ross, Ramona, Roxanne
Team Two - John-Ross, Ramona, Roxanne, Sherri, GI Jeff, GI Susan, Ricky, Larissa, Robert, Karen

During that time, rafters were made, three rubble house porches were poured, rubble was moved from around Grand Goâve, six class rooms floors were cleared and leveled, three rooms were rehoused in other rooms, wiring was re-routed around Siloë, the Admin building was demolished, the short half of the foundations of the new Administration building was dug and three medical clinics were held in the mountains.

The weather at this time of the year can be wet, we had a lot of rain the first evening the first team arrived and that caused them to be stuck, literally, on their way here – their very late arrival at Grand Goâve was a welcome sight, as much by us as by the team!

The first team split their time with work on Rubble homes and work at Siloë. The carrying of 40lb buckets of water through the streets, the tarantula, land crab and other creepy crawlies kept the team on the toes. This team came with musical talent and between Wednesday night and Sunday morning had constructed a cajon drum – it was a gift to the church and Esaii very quickly got the hang of it once he had seen Kyle use it when his son, McKenzie, sang and played the guitar at church.

The work that the team did at Siloë helped the construction team tremendously, while they did have to move a few rubble piles more than once, the results allowed the construction team to move a lot faster in the finishing of the floors in classrooms 8 through 13.

As the first team left it was time to prepare to demolish the admin building; moving the Mission kitchen, with all its electric components; the tool room, that included Pastor Pascal’s Directors office; and Mme. Moise’s kitchen, took time, however, John-Ross, Ramona and Roxanne just got on with the requested work, and did great – cupboards were made, tools were moved, wires spliced, sparks created(!) and water pipes re-directed.

Mme. Moise and her crew obviously love their new kitchen, classroom 2, as the food that has been prepared from it has been exceptional; since the move, Mike, Brenda and Jenny have enjoyed food that we have never had before, and it has been as delicious as their other dishes.

The arrival of the second team had the cross over team realizing that they had to keep quiet on the things they had seen, to allow this new team the opportunity to experience the same joy, hesitation, curiosity, amazement or shock, as they had felt when they first had the experience.

The second team’s sole task was to knock down the admin building, safely, and to haul the rubble to the church site and the items to save to various locations on the campus. We did have a plan b, but we did not really think we would need to use it! By Wednesday afternoon plan b was in action! The team, with the able support of the local volunteers and two addition work bosses, had completed the demolition and foundations began to be dug!

Over the next two days that is all they did! Hot, hotter and even hotter. Humid, sticky, dusty. Smiles, jokes, friendship, teamwork, support – and lots of Gatorade and water.

Their work over the last 18 days was a true blessing to us all. The teams worked with the locals, played with the children, visited a English learning school at the weekend, participated in the church services, did some one-on-one English coaching, shared their testimony with the Siloë construction team, and ate Mme. Moise’s delicious food.

We are sure that as the second team return home they will sleep well after a very hard week.

SHG - Self Help Groups
In addition to the Albany team’s work this month, we are encouraged by the continued work of the SHG trainers. They gave a final training to our facilitators in Grand Goâve and gave them the go ahead to start forming their Self Help Groups. The first groups will be difficult, as we are all learning and mistakes will be made, but please help us by praying for these groups. Once they have launched successful groups others will follow and so much good work should be achieved. We are really hopeful that this is the future of Haiti, Haitians realizing that they can help themselves and each other and not relying on hand-outs.

Outreach
Our church ladies group have asked for financial help in a reviving an outreach project. In the past they build up a stock of pretty dresses and smart boys clothes, to lend to the children of the community. The stock has been drained and they need to start again. Everybody loves to get dressed up here and church is a dressing up occasion. If they can encourage the children to want to dress up and go to church, their parents will hopefully follow. It may not be the best motivation to attend, but it does get people to church and once seated in a pew they do hear The Message. The ladies are similarly helping the elderly with the clothing outreach; particularly widowed or single men, by providing them with laundered shirts, so they can ‘look the part’ too. Not only is this good for them spiritually but also socially, as older people can get very lonely. The ladies have asked for money so they can purchase exactly what they need, locally.

Post Script
As we post this, this evening it has been raining for four hours and we have just had a minor tremor.

News ending Monday 11th July

2011-07-11T13:52:00.000-07:00

Prayers

for discernment, peace and patience
continued steady progress, safety and harmony on the job site
travel mercies, for all of us

The weeks fly by!
Since our last entry we have been to Tampa, Florida and back. We have hosted our Self Help Group trainees and are now eagerly awaiting the arrival of our next Short Term mission team. We enjoyed communion on the first Sunday of July, with Pastor Remy.

We did not show you a photo of our completed comfy chairs. The cushion covers were completed locally. Brenda and I use these chairs every day and we thank God for NSBC who help fund the project. These chairs are a delight.

Comfortable chairs, never to be under rated.

The CBF General Assembly, in Tampa, was a blessing for Brenda and I, the church services we attended were uplifting especially the commissioning of the fellow field staff of the CBF. We met up with a few people who had come to Grand Goâve and, hopefully, we met with others that may still come.

The school construction remains in the stucco phase. Moise is still hoping that this phase will be fully complete by the end of July and then the demolition of the Administration building can begin! We are looking forward to the FBC Albany short term mission team, they will help us asset strip the building and move all the items out before going to town with the sledge hammers! All the other buildings, I believe, have been taken down with heavy equipment so this manual demolition will be a “new” method for us all.

The walls are transformed by the stucco.

We really do need your prayers that we will work hard to keep "on task" with the final school building construction in a time table that is acceptable and not unreasonable. The weather is hot, hot ,hot, so it’s not surprising if we all feel a bit sluggish. PLease pray that the razing of the Administrative building will, indeed, be the tonic that we need to enthusiastically finish the project. The Admin building has been there since the begining; it is the last main building on the campus that was built before the earthquake.

In the weeks that have passed we have had both good and bad days, working for the Lord is not always easy. After waiting a long time for the solar panels to be set in a tower and placed in the Volunteer compound a few unsavory characters decided that their need was greater than that of the community! They stole two of the panels! We have now removed the other two panels so stopping anyone stealing them too! We really need your prayers to discern God’s will and the next steps we should take in this saga. We wanted to provide an additional water supply to the community; it seems to have been one hurdle after another. Do we abandon the project when it has almost reached fruition or give it one last chance?

A bit of Deja vu, here.

We realize that our work here is moving on from actual Disaster Relief to Development Work. We are looking and praying for new opportunities to empower and sustain the Haitians. We ask for your prayers and support that we will discern God’s will in the coming months, we have already witnessed His hand in our work here and we know He has so more to accomplish.

News ending June 22nd

2011-06-23T04:31:00.000-07:00

What a busy number of weeks we have had since the last update! We enjoyed a visit from Darrell Smith, an environment scientist, from Global Environmental Relief. He came on a fact finding trip to assist us in our WASH, agriculture and possible SHG involvement. The visit got us to some places that were well off the beaten track as well as some places that were close by that we did not know existed. We have also enjoyed Tim Brendle’s team for a week and a flying visit for Deliris and an ABC group that included Gene Gentry.

When we were working with Darrell, we saw arable and Tilapia farms in the mountains, and Tilapia farms in Leogone as well as close to Grand Goâve. We are looking to partnering with Floresta (Plant with Purpose), who already help farmers improve their harvests and promote soil conservation and reforestation. We feel we have a common philosophy of helping Haitians to help themselves. We are excited about this possible new avenue.

We were pleased to welcome back Tim Brendle. He brought a team of seven from his church. All the team worked hard on the rubble houses and also helped us with smaller projects. We really value Tim’s continued assistance and wisdom and we look forward to him returning with another team in November.

It is always a pleasure to see people return to work with us, in Grand Goâve. We are interested to hear about the work that was begun before we arrived and delighted to show of the continued progress. It is truly a team effort in Grand Goâve, everyone has contributed something and we are all benefitting.

This last couple of weeks we have been reminded a bit painfully that we do not live in a First World Country. Just as we started to live more comfortably, we had a triple whammy of internet, water and electricity failing us. The power was on the blink, it was only providing 87 volts; should have been 120volts. After nearly 2 ½ weeks we finally persuaded (Moise did the talking) the local power company to check our wires to the main supply – they had been “knocked” and the connection was loose – it took them 30 minutes to fix it and that included putting up and taking down the ladder. While that took place our invertor batteries died. We hope not permanently. We will see over the coming week if we can recharge them two at a time (there are 24 of them!). The internet cable from the unit to the satellite disk final failed, Tim Brendle was able to carry one in and that fixed the issue, only to have another issue shut it down on Tuesday evening! We lost water pressure for about two weeks as the water company fixed a pump. While that was going on all our water was supplied by Tikammie in 5 gallon buckets! We managed; but life is more difficult without them, the house gets very hot without fans running, we miss even our cold showers and we really value the internet to keep us in touch with the rest of the world. As we leave today for a short break in Tampa attending the General Assembly of CBF, we look forward to enjoying all the facilities an American hotel can offer and hopefully we can sort out all the troubles at home, swiftly, on our return.

We have had a few meetings with our SHG leaders and are encouraged by the progress. We are looking forward to Self Help Groups forming in all three areas of Haiti, in August. Please continue to pray for this project and we believe it may be our lasting contribution to the development of Haiti.

We see the school construction day to day so to us the progress it is not major. However, we think you all deserve an update. All the class rooms have been built, so now is a time that there seems to be little going on, when in fact, the team has increased in numbers as they stucco the seven rooms. Haitian stuccoing is a true skill, done all by hand and while it looks easy we know there is skill in the flick of the wrist! We have all the insides of the seven rooms done and the team is now working on the front gallery.

Tim’s team helped with the final installation of the solar panels at the volunteer house. If you remember the original panels were stolen. This solar panel unit was “promised” as soon as we completed the welding for Jenny’s clinic; that was completed in early January; so waiting until mid June was…well…frustrating. The day arrived and the crew was content to dig the pole hole and wait patiently for the welding to be completed. At 7pm they wanted to go home and come back the next day (Sunday). The short story long is that the panels are installed wired in and the team still got to go to the beach on Sunday afternoon.

Photo Gallary

Darrell and team review Pastor Pascal's field

Solar Panels rise again at the volunteer house - many hands make light work

Tim's team worked on the roof, wiht Charlie the carpenter. This is one of the houses Winterpark and Gilbertsville filled.

They did a really great job! A lot more work went into re-varnishing the benches than we had thought necessary but they look GREAT.

News ending Sunday 5th June

2011-06-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

Prayer Requests

Travel mercies as we do a lot of driving in the next few weeks, others travel to see us, and we host a fact finding team, of one, and a mission team.
Weather! It has been very wet here this week.
Well planned preparations for the CBF General Assembly, in Tampa. {Will we see you there?}

News of the past few weeks

When we looked at the calendar we could not believe it was only two weeks ago that our Baptist Mission Society (BMS) colleagues came to visit us. They said they were pleased with the visit - we were truely blessed with them. A great team; they were here to get some footage for a 2012 BMS film. We helped with water footage, rubble house footage, a personal interview with a tent resident and a theological soundbite. Carwyn Hill was their in country host and he joined us from the HHA (http://haitihospitalappeal.org/); it was pleasant for Brenda and I to have an English team here; their accents and their topic of conversations was a refreshing change.

As they left we were joined by the ABC Gilbertsville construction team. It was a joy to see Kurt and his team. Kurt was here last July, he brought a new team and just like his last team they were all hard workers, gelled well and did a phenomenal amount of work. When they came in a team from Winterpark also came in; they were hosted by the Haiti Housing Network. They too were here last summer. Together their work on ruble houses was tremendous. We sincerely want to see both teams back here! One team brought a bunch of Basketball material and the other brought Baseball equipment - we hope to be able to continue to use the equipment as the teams come through this summer and see if we can get the youth organised or at least more familiar with the two sports. Thanks to both Gilbertsville and Winterpark for the support, generosity and love for the Grand Goave community.

When the Gilbertsville team left they were fortunate that they did not get the 24 - 36 hours of rain that followed. NOAA has not classified it as a tropical depression but it has produced a lot of rain! Our shopping trip, on Saturday, became quite the mud run as we were diverted up the river to cross, as there were two broken down trucks on the current diversion. The last 100 yards of the second diversion was a complete mud bath - the locals obviously did not think the foreigner was going to get the minibus through the mud and were already laughing, thinking were were stuck - God favored us and we crept through, more by His guidance; we should have used the other track but once we were committed we could not stop; or we would have definitely been stuck!

Photo Gallery

"Take 8!" The film crew were very patient. It was not always my mistake!

Cindy, Mike and Claudette wait for more buckets of rubble

Spiderman? Kurt and Jake make a great electrician team

Winterpark and Gilbertsville teams together at a rubble house - bucket, bucket, bucket

"Kurt, that gravel goes in this sieve!"

Web Sites for information - updated 26th Jan 2012

2011-05-25T09:18:00.000-07:00

Youtube and Blog entries
A few teams have kept up blog sites and created videos of their time here in Grand Goâve, Haiti. Listed below are the links to these sites.

You will be able to see what other teams have seen and done in Grand Goâve. We hope these will encouage you, offer you an opportunity to pray for the Haitian people as well as see what you may experience if/when you come to Grand Goâve.

Pomona Baptist Church http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr9np2lgxyA

Winterpark Baptist Church http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBFVoAzIaPY
plus their second trip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqG5p-fBs6I

Jersey Village Baptist Church http://www.jvbcserves.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

Cliff Temple Baptist Church http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQptx0BgnM

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship January/February 2011http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nGu2Ab1_Hw

Gilbertvile -Cooperstown Haiti trip video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3P2ZgYG5QM

Don Anderson's trip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma359xGO7-U

Larry Hovis, CBFNC Executive Coordinator, Admore Baptist North Carolina http://revlaurabarclay.blogspot.com/2011/09/discipleship-stewardship-and-missions.html

Flip Moore part of the Oakland/Providence Baptist Church team Jan 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywN8yMCymqw

Instructional Videos
There are four videos that were created specifically for short term mission teams to help them prepare for thier visit, special thanks to Brandon and Nell Green for their work on those videos.

Prayer Walk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyvhlI3gQOY

Kreyol 101 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FxzA2SbHKQ
Cultural training http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZbid35O1VE
Kreyol Dining http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDgCjHIk43w

Links
These web sites are general sites that are of interest associated with our mission here in Grand Goave

http://www.thefellowship.info/
www.haitihousingnetwork.com
http://texasbaptists.org/evangelism-missions/disaster-response/change-a-life/
http://www.edgeoutreach.com/
http://www.aguapure.com.do/
http://www.filterpurefilters.org/
http://winetowater.org/

Facebook links
CBF Ministries in Haiti Facebook http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/CBF-Ministries-in-Haiti/187753287943885

{if you have served with CBF/ABC in Grand Goâve and would like your blog / youtube added, please contact Mike and Brenda Harwood, thank you}
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News ending Sunday 22nd May

2011-05-22T13:59:00.000-07:00

Prayers

Continued safety for all our workers.

Travel mercies for the teams that are coming this week

The Lord's grace on the SHG program

Prayers that school will start this next week and the children and the teachers will be able to catch up on the work lost over the last 5 to 6 weeks!

Prayers we don't lose our patience with the goats that are temporary residents of our yard - they don't like being here and tell us, loudly and frequently. Aparently they don't sleep, so why should we!

What is in the news?

This week we had a few firsts :

On Sunday was joined our church young men and women with the competition finale to find the "Mr" and "Miss" of Grand Goave. It was the first type of competion that they have had - it was very well presented and we hope that it will encourage them to do more of these types of events and include more of the community.

Our medical team were picked up in the new HiAce minibus; air conditioned and smoothly driven. While the team may have been a bit "compact" with their luggage the ride was a lot more pleasant than the Canter rides have been.

We were able to offer our team burgers cooked on a real BBQ, with real charcoal! This BBQ has been a long time coming. Jeanson is a natural at the BBQ - this was a first for him, cooking on a BBQ, and the burgers came out great.

Jenny's medical team, from First Baptist Asheville, included two dentists - this too was a first; along with the rest of the medical team, they did an awesome job this week. A clinic every day of the week.

Can you pray for inanimate objects? We need our cement mixer to be fixed - the unit was not turning the mixer and it was "looked at" locally and now has been taken to Port-au-Prince to be fixed! We hope to get it back early next week.

The school construction has preogressed. The "look" will not change much for a few months, as the team are now completeing the crepisage / stucco work on the second set of rooms; classrooms 7 to 13. While that is going on we are still in discussion with the school council on the expections of the Administration building.

We need to wait for the school year to end at the end of July to allow us to move all the contents of the current Admin building into the classrooms, then we will be able to asset strip it and knock it down; before rebuilding.

Photo Gallary

These two photos show the classroom progress - top photo is classrooms 7,8 & 9 with 10, 11 & 12 to the left. The second photo is classroom 12 with the single classroom 13, just after the roof pour.

The BBQ and the new "Best Chef" - cooking at the volunteer house

The medical team from First Baptist Church Asheville - what a great team. They blessed Haiti by their service.

Not sure who is happier - us or the new owners of the goats. The photo was taken as we distrubuted five goats to the community of Norgas and Mt. Sinia. Four goats left to purchase and distribute. Thank you so much to the North Stuart Baptist Church for the gift of the goats.

News ending Sunday 8th May

2011-05-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

We start with our prayer requests. These are most important to us, not least as you will see below; because our prayers are being answered.

The local political situation. We still have an unresolved Deputy election, here in Grand Goâve. The first result was overturned, the second result proved to be fraudulent, now we have 2 factions in town fighting over who should be the elected Deputy of the Grand Goâve area. During the dispute we have seen road blocks, stone throwing, electricity power outages and reports of gun shots. The schools in the area are closed for the pupils’ safety. This has now been going on for 4 weeks and there seems to be no resolution in sight. Please pray for local wisdom and recognition of the need to compromise.
A medical team from Ashville is due to arrive on Saturday 14th May. This will be the first full medical team of the year and our first to include dentistry. Please pray for their preparations and for their mission week as we seek to use their skills and expertise in Grand Goâve.
Continued strength and peace as we strive to conceive and work for God’s Will for Grand Goâve.

Answered Prayers
As you will see below the photos tell their own stories. We have been blessed to witness many answered prayers this last two weeks. God is Good.

Goats
We are in the process of buying and distributing 18 pregnant goats to families in Temple Baptiste Church and its 3 Satellite Churches in the mountain villages in Grand Goâve. The church council has made up the list of the 18 recipients. The only stipulation to being given a goat is that the goats be allowed to keep reproducing. One goat form each recipient family will then be given back to the church next May to be redistributed to other church families so the goat project will be self sustaining. Our grateful thanks to our home church North Stuart Baptist Church, who’s youth raised enough money for 9 goats and whose mission committee doubled the gift to 18 goats.

Our Kitchen
It is finally completed with fitted cupboards. As Grand Goâve can be quite a dusty town and with having no glass in our windows to keep the dust out; a kitchen which now has cupboards to store food and sundries is a blessing and really appreciated.

HiAce

Our future mission teams will no doubt appreciate our brand new air conditioned HiAce which will be able to take them to and from the airport in some comfort. It has only taken 6 months to arrive!

SHG training
Our Self Help Group leaders came to Grand Goâve to train interested people in becoming facilitators for SHGs. We were able to see the training sessions and be encouraged by the interested reception of the Self Help concept in our area.

Well Repair

We were able to witness 4 of our specially trained well workers, repair a local well. This is a positive step forward Haitians being equipped to perform the work themselves and to charge the local rate, instead of waiting for an NGO (Non government organization) like CBF, to come along eventually and repair it for free.

Comfortable chairs
Mike’s mother warned us that comfortable chairs are not a luxury but an essential to missionary work. How right she was. After months of hard seats, we have finally comfortable chairs to relax in. Mike has made them himself but thanks again to North Stuart Baptist Church for encouraging us to spend some of their mission money to Grand Goâve on ourselves. The chairs are based on the Morris design chairs, found on the internet.

Church rebuild plans
We had a visit from Rod and Gerald, from the Texas Baptists - they were able to discuss the possible design of a new Temple Baptist church. Part of the discussion was a new construction method that uses no steel, at all, bur uses fibreglass i nthe concrete and fills the blocks with cement to make the reenforcement through out the wall.

We are building a test wall - many hands make light work.

News ending Friday 22nd April

2011-04-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a month or so since we lasted blogged!

Prayer requests

Strength and continued peace that we remain in God’s will
Continued safety for the construction team
For wisdom for the new political leaders of Haiti
That we will get our goats, real soon!

News and information
Since the last blog we have had a week or so in USA, a week or so in UK and a week plus back in Haiti.

What a contrast of places, peoples, emotions, sights, tastes and sounds and all that goes with these. Apart from family and friends, on the list of things we miss the most is hot showers! That is the one thing that we realized we were enjoying the most while we were away from Haiti.

While we were away

Grand Goave hosted two teams – the Mini team that had to be re-scheduled due to the political unrest at the end of last year and the Braintree team
The church was knocked down by Samaritans Purse – we wanted them to do that, so that is a good thing!
The roof was poured on the classrooms 10,11 & 12 and the last class room, No. 13 was well on its way when we got back
The Church young men and women hosted their first community event; to find the smartest kid in town, there are four sessions and they have now held two, so they are at the midway point. Brenda and I look forward to seeing the next session on Easter Sunday
Pastor Paul conducted his first training for SHG (Self Help Group) facilitators; at the end of his training they were able to select 35 facilitators for further training.
Our mission team went to the Plateau to see CHE/EKS (Community Health Evangelism/Ekonomic Kominote Spritual) in action; while the reports explained it was a very long way on some very dubious roads; the experience was extremely worthwhile

We have a praise report – the Church council met with Rob and Gerard from the Texas Baptists to see a possible design for their new church. Rob is proposing a new type of construction that does not use steel, rather fiberglass, and that we would make the blocks, on site, as well as making the roof tiles. This was a very positive meeting, one that I sadly missed as I was waiting in an office, in Port au Prince, for the satellite dish to clear customs!

This week saw the return of our satellite dish. We knew it was going to be a long process and that I needed to display a lot of patience; however, I can honestly say that at the end of two days I was cross, angry, upset and very hot. We had assumed that the process would take one day; in the end it was two full days. Lonel did his best to help speed on the process and Jeanson and Ernst helped me out with the translations, when needed. During the process, I was left in the car on occasions as a blan (foreigner) would mean more fees than if the Haitian team asked the price. In one office we sat around waiting for the boss to come and unlock an office that had inadvertently been locked. In the end a hammer was used! When a form needed to be signed we had to wait over an hour while the Director was located and he returned to the office. The final frustration was at 3:45pm on the second day when I was asked to pay a rush fee to process the form so we could get back to the customs warehouse, before 4:00pm to retrieve the dish and associated equipment, or come back another day! We paid!

The other praise report is that our kitchen cupboards are being installed as I type. Prior to our trip away Manno, the carpenter, had purchased rough wood and made the doors and frames and on our return has begun to install them all. This will hopefully make a huge difference in our kitchen and food preparation. The cupboards and drawers will look really great once they are stained and varnished.

While we were away the Haitian preliminary results were announced, along with the Presidential election there were many, many local elections going on at the same time. One of our Grand Goâve political parties did not agree with the local preliminary results and as a consequence there were riots, fights and a few reported shootings. There were many rallies and a lot of bravado by the people that felt they had been unjustly served by the election result. When the final rulings were handed down, this week, the result, locally, had been reversed and this caused a night of great excitement, parties and lots and lots of noise. Living on a main road we heard most of the highlights throughout the night!

Photo Gallery

Church here!

Church gone!

The Church grounds look so large now there is no building!

The School construction site with the roof on classrooms 10,11 & 12 with classroom 13 well underway

We never said thank you to Winter Park for funding the build out of the new clinic! The Chamberlayne Baptist team did the work and the Winter Park funded it. A great combination that created a superb result, thank you so much. This clinic is well used and greatly appreciated by everyone.

Blog ending 18th March

2011-03-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

Well the pace of life has thankfully slowed since our last influx of many visitors; which we talked about in our last blog entry. These last couple of weeks has just seen small ‘fact finding’ teams.

We welcomed first the members of the Texas Baptist team lead by Marla Bearsden. We were delighted to finally meet Marla, as we have corresponded with her many times via email. Her team had set up a grueling schedule, driving for many, many, hours over the terrible Haitian roads. By the time they had reached our area we could tell that they were weary and we not surprised that they wanted to trim their travelling down a little. This meant that we were able to meet and chat, but they did not actually spend a night at our volunteer house or taste Madame Moise’s fabulous cooking. They did, however, see the new school classrooms and have a discussion with the school personnel about future school funding projects. They also discussed the options, dreams and ideas of rebuilding Temple Baptist Church after the school is completed with Pastor Pascal and Moise. They were also enthusiastic about the work of the Haitian Housing Network and enjoyed seeing some rubble houses.

Mike and I squeezed in a couple of nights of R&R on the 4th & 5th March. We had hoped to return to beautiful Jacmel. But as it was Carnival weekend, Madigras/Fat Tuesday was 8th March, the hotel was fully booked. In our weary state it seemed that every hotel we contacted was booked or didn’t have a working phone number. In desperation we contacted Sabine in Atlanta, who was able to make better contact from Georgia that GG and had us booked into Le Plaza, in Port au Prince, in no time. We enjoyed getting away to a quiet hotel where we had internet access from our balcony and some easy TV to watch. We both enjoyed relaxing and unwinding.
The following week we hosted a fact finding team from Belmont University. This was a small team interested in business and education. Both these areas of interest need to be promoted as we continue our work here on Grand Goâve. Our school leaders are already talking of using the school classrooms for after hours classes to help school leavers learn trade skills. It is their ultimate dream to open a university or trade school and it was interesting to hear them discuss these education ideas with some experts. We were also able to have some valuable discussions about some ideas that we have with water and Haitian development. We hope that we can partner with Belmont University in a valuable way, in the future.

We are asked, from time to time, “What is your typical day?” The honest answer is that there is never a typical day – every day is a day that can be full of surprises – these last few weeks have been no different. Locals expecting meetings at their convience and not at a scheduled time. The expectation that we will complete a task as soon as possible but that it is not reciprocated in any way! Seeing Tikammie's daughter all dressed up for her baptism - she looked like an angel. Buying goats is NOT an every day event, apparently! The natural beauty of Haiti, up in the mountains we can truely see God's beauty.

Our internet is still accessed via the Internet Café, down the road and with so many of our regular contacts it is difficult for them to realize that we do not have an umbilical cord to the internet – communications are not instant, here is Grand Goâve. We have just got HHN jump drive working again so we can at least pick up and send e-mail from the house – we really do need to get our dish back from California; they are still trouble shooting the issues.Our Canter truck is not well, she needs to be push started every time we want to use her. So we always need many people around to get it going! We still wait for the part to arrive; coming from Japan we may now wait a lot longer! Having said that we wait with eagerness the delivery of our new HiAce van. It is in country, winding its way towards the dealership – we just need to be sure the paperwork is all in order before we pick her up. Not everyone knows the process and it seems the people that do are not always at the dealership!

We enjoyed a meeting, this week, with the SHG program members, in Port-au-Prince, they are preparing for the next stage of training in both Cap region and here in the Port area. The Grand Goâve area will be tackled in May, and we are looking forward to what the Lord has in store for us then.
As this week rounds off we wait with baited breath as to the reaction of Haiti to the return of Mr. Aristide days before the runoff election, meant to be held Sunday 20th March. We really do pray for peace, wisdom and patience.

We were unable to attend Mike’s Mum and Dad’s 50th Wedding Anniversary party over the weekend. It was held in Bristol, England. There were 67 people at the church for a service and a dinner dance afterwards. We called during the party and it sounded as if everyone was enjoying it. We spoke again the following day and both Mum and Dad were very pleased with the whole event. We look forward to our 50th wedding anniversary in many years to come.
We are looking forward a short stopover in America next week – we are going back to Florida to “Do” our taxes and to meet up with friends. People ask “What do you miss the most?” depending on the day the “Top Three” change – Pizza, hot shower, a good steak – Walmart(!), Home Depot, Barnes & Noble – Our church, our friends, a walk along the Stuart Boardwalk – good roads, good road laws, roads that are solely used for vehicular use! When we are away from Grand Goâve we quickly realize we miss the people there, their hope, their faith, their friendliness are all shown to us, here; it is the people we miss the most.

Speech prepared but not given

2011-03-03T11:33:00.000-08:00

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus.

Bonjou! Mwen salye tout moun nan nom Senyè Jezi.

The Lord has achieved a great deal in the last year, here in Grand Goâve.

Bondye te fe anpil bon bagay ane ki pot pase ya nan Gran Gwav.

The first six classrooms of our School are being used both by Siloë and by another schooling program in the afternoons. It is always a joy to see and hear the youth in school. It is the development of the children that is fundamental to the progress of this community and this school is a shining example of what can be achieved with the love of our Lord.

Premyè man gen ses sal nan lekòl la ki daja itilze pou Siloë et pou lòt lekòl nan aprè midi tou. Se toujou yon jwa pou wè, et tande tout jen lekòl la, sa se yon devlopmon pou tou timoun ki nan fondamantal, li se yon pogrè pou kominote ya, lekòl la ap rete yon egzamp pou tou sa mou ta vle fè avèk lan mou nan non Segnè à.

In the past year we have had in excess of 25 teams that offered construction, medical and VBS to this community. Each team has been unique and we have been blessed with what they were all able to offer to our community. Many of the teams have felt that they have been truly blessed more by the Lord than anything that they have offered this community. The Sunday worship has been a highlight of the week, it is a testimony to the genuine nature of our weekly worship service, here at Temple Baptist church. Even though there is a language barrier we are always able to worship, praise and prayer to our Lord – He understands us all.

Ane pase nou te gen yen vent sank ekip kite ofri yo pou fè konstuktyon, Clinik, et pale timoun yo de la bib ekip yo te vini youn, pa youn, nou te beni avèk tout sa yo te pote ofri kominote ya, anpil nan ekip yo te santi yo beni anpil pou tout bagay Segnè ya te ede yo bay kominote a sèvis dimanch yo te briye sa se yon te miv anyaj ki vreman sensè pou tout sevis kite fè chak dimanch nan legliz Temple Baptiste malgre gen yen problem lang ki mete banyè men nou te toujou chante, loure epi priye Segnè a ansanm paske Segnè a li konprann tout lang.

Before I arrived in July, all the teams, and the staff, lived in tents and I believe that both Tim Brendle and Tori Wentz, our first registered nurse, both spent in excess of 90 consecutive nights in their tent accommodation. We now have both a staff house and a volunteer house; we offer tremendous thanks to Tim Brendle for that.

Avon mwen te vini an jiyè, tout ekip yo, tout Staff se ten nan tant yo te ye, et mui en kwè sa, nou gen de moun pa examp Pastè Tim et Madmwazel Tori kòm premyè mis nou te genyen kite annegistre, yo tou lè de kòm examp pase envison katreven dis jou len dèyè lòt anba tant, kounya, gras-a-Dieu, nou yon kay pou Staff et yon kay pou volontè yo domi, nou voye yon gran remesiman bay Pastè Tim pou sa.

Brenda and I have the title of Coordinators, however, without the inclusion of all the people that work with us especially Moise, the Project Coordinator, Jeanson, the volunteer Coordinator and Jenny our current Registered Nurse, the Lord would not have achieved as much as we have, together.

Madam Michael avèk mwen se a la tèt kòdinatyon an men, nou deyò de tout moun ki enkli ki ap travay espesyal avèk Moise, nap site kèk nan kòdinatyon. Jeanson, ki ansanm avèk volonte yo et mise aktyel nou kise madmwazel Jenny et nou konen Segnè ya pap acheve, tout bagay nou genyen ansanm yo.

We joined the team after three or four fellow coordinators: Herb Rogers, Scott Hunter, Gene Gentry and, of course, Pastor Tim Brendle.

Avon nou te rive bo isit la de gen yen twa ou kat kodinate ki te la avan nou, tankou, Herb Rogers, Scott Hunter, Gene Gentry et Paste Tim Brendle ke tou moun preske konen.

We have continued working on the school construction, assistance with the Self Help Groups, encouraging the implementation of the Community Health Evangelism (CHE) program and the short term mission trip teams. We have been slowly working towards a water program that includes both the physical well drilling and education. We have only just touched the edge of what is possible; we learn all the time about how things are done and how things are not done. Last year we were able to sink three wells for local communities and this year we have linked up again with Edge Ministries for pump education, and we are hoping to link up with Living Water, shortly, to partner with them in their water ministry.

Nou ap kontinye travay nan konstruktyon lekol la, avèk tout asistan ki ofri tet yo kòrm gwoup, n ap encourage tout men dev ki nan evangelis kominote santé (EKS). Ki ap travay pou gwoup yo kapab antre, anko mou te travay tou dousman pou pogram dlo a te inkli nou travay nan ale bagay tiyo epi edikatyon, nou te silman touché yon bo de sa ki te posib yo, nou apranm detanzantan kòman pou bagay yo fini, kòman pou yo pa fini, ane pase nou te disponib pou fouye twa pi nan kominote a, ane sa nou pral konekte anko avèk “Edge Ministries”ki ap travay pou afé ponp, nou espere konekte pou yon ti kout tan avèk “living water” ki se yon konpayé et nou pap bliye pat ne nou ministry pou dlo.

There is so much that we can point at that is not working but we should draw our strength from the positive things that the Lord has done through this community. We live in a loving community and we continue to greatly value its support and encouragement. Brenda and I continue to look forward to how the Lord will use us within this Haitian community for his glory.

Gen anpil bagay nou kabap pwente ki pa bon men nou dwe desirne kouray nou, et tout bagay positif ke Sengne a fe avèk noun an kominote a, nou abite nan kominote a, nan remmen kominotea, et nap kontinye pou nou salye, vale, sipo et li bon pou nou ankouraje tout Madamn Micheal avèk mwen ki ap kontinye rete patyan de ki jan Sengne a pral itilze nou anndan kominote ayisyen an glwa pou Bondye.

Ending Wednesday 2nd March 2011

2011-03-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

Well it has been a tough three weeks for us, with teams back to back requiring different things from the hosts.

We began with the Claremont Grace River Church team, who worked so hard building a rubble house for an old lady called Theresa. Their team leader was Ken, the Youth Pastor, who claimed to only enjoy leading youth teams. Well, I reckon he had to eat his words – as well as a lot of rice that he also was supposed to not enjoy – as he seemed to thoroughly enjoy his team and there was much laughter and love shared between this group, their fellow Haitian workers and the local children. We loved their enthusiasm and they loved Madame Moise’s cooking – I don’t think that she and her staff have ever had so many thanks for their efforts – but it is always well deserved.

Building a rubble home!

Buckets, buckets, buckets

As we said goodbye to that team our team of VIPs arrived from Canada, USA, Cap Haitian and Port-au-Prince; a very different type of team from a short term mission team. We shared a special time together. Mike and I are so fortunate to have such loving and empathic leadership from CBF and its partners. We were very proud to show off our beautiful school, its talented construction crew and all the people who make it possible for us to work in Grand Goâve.

The special Sunday morning service was well attended by local Grand Goâve dignitaries as well as the Haitian Baptist Church leadership; who had traveled down especially for the service, from Cap Haitian. Dr. Daniel Vestal gave a thoughtful sermon, using a text from Hebrews about what to do if you feel discouraged. After lots of wonderful singing, other messages and prayers, the service ended with a smart school bell being presented to Siloë School directors.

Madame Moise seemed to effortlessly produce lunch for 300 people. With typical Moise organization everyone was seated and served and there was a happy time of talking and fellowship. After lunch we had an afternoon free, so Jenny suggested a trip up the mountain to the site of one of her clinics. This would be no easy Sunday afternoon drive, but an hour long extremely bumpy ride on the back of our Canter truck. Our VIPs were game, so we set off. The cool breeze and the beautiful view from the top of the mountain was well appreciated, and the insight it gave our visitors of the way so many people live outside the town of Grand Goâve was priceless. We also learned of two projects which CBF may be able to help with. The first a fairly simple way we could give the church a roof. The church also serves as Jenny’s monthly clinic as well as other venues and protection from sun and rain would really be appreciated. We also were told of the difficulties the community has in getting water. The water system they had has broken down because of the earthquake and now there is an hour’s walk of more to fetch water daily. We may be able to help with a project to restore the water pipe line to the village.

Monday began as a hard labour day for our VIPS working on a rubble house, as they were tasked with pouring buckets of rubble into the cages that formed the walls of the house. The afternoon was somewhat easier as they toured completed rubble homes and blessed a newly completed one. Later in the afternoon a meeting was called to discuss with our local Haitians their aspirations and needs. It was interesting to hear of hopes for a trade school and/or college education in Grand Goâve, garbage issues and the need to decentralize from Port au Prince.

On Tuesday morning we had an early departure as this day was set aside for Port au Prince and to see the other work that is being carried out with CBF’s help. We had a presentation from members of our Self Help Groups, and a discussion on further training for Post Traumatic Stress. We then visited the orphanage and school being built at Delmas 19 and met some of the Virginian Baptists who are helping to fund it.

The team talk to Pastor Ronel

We were all glad to book into La Plaza Hotel for lunch and to have a chance to relax in the shady courtyard. We later had a debriefing meeting, which included much enthusiasm for what has already been accomplished and firmed up plans for the future.

As the VIPs departed on Wednesday new teams arrived. The small team from Little Rock arrived and we were able to take them to GG in some comfort as we still had our comfortable rented mini-van. Mike collected the other team from Cliff Temple Baptist in the pickup, in the afternoon. Much later in the day our team from Edge ministries arrived. Although this was a large group of people with diverse projects to achieve; it all went well. The Edge team gave training to 8 Haitians (including Jeanson) on well maintenance which we hope will be invaluable to the community in the future as they will be able to repair and maintain the local wells. The volunteer teams worked hard on more rubble homes. We also had Pastor Tim Brendle staying on to do some plumbing and electrical projects. His skill and experience were much appreciated by us all.

I should note that the Little Rock/Cliff Temple Baptist team must have the distinction of being the quickest to start some hard, dirty, work. Within an hour of arrival by the later team, everyone was covered with cement dust as they realized that 200 cement bags needed unloading and stored in our depot. It was so typical to see the team looking so much happier doing their hard labor rather than they had minutes before as they stood around and chatted and sipped their drinks. The teams who come do love to work and we are always appreciative of their true servant hearts.

Jenny was able to complete a number of clinics this week with nurses from the Haitian Housing Network teams and our team. She is now fully moved into her new clinic and all the drugs and supplies are now in their right place. The locals refer to the clinic as the Hospital, something Jenny is trying to discourage, however, it looks so much smarter than the original clinic we can see why the locals may think it is a small hospital!

We are not sure but we think that this team may have out stripped Jersey Village in their consumption of soda!

Little Rock/Temple Cliff Baptist prepare to return home

We have been asked how the school construction is going, these days. Classrooms 7,8 & 9, (foundations laid by the Matthew Road team) that run along the back of the property line are roofed and awaiting crepisage. Classroom 7 has the front window and door already fixed in place so we can use it as a store once the back windows are added. Classrooms 10,11 & 12, (foundations dug by Jersey Village Baptist team) that run along the front of the property, 90 degrees to the 7,8 & 9 rooms, have just had the gallery columns poured and the roof horizontal beams will be next. The privacy walls at the back of the property have been built and the last team dug the foundation (again) for the privacy wall behind the showers.

The two new classroom buildings

The Little Rock team had some return members that were here in March last year. Chris remembers digging out the foundation for the privacy wall behind the showers – he said there was a bit of Déjà vu! Moise says that this time the wall will be built before the foundation hole can be filled in!


The foundations need to be deeper!

As promised - the wall is already being built

Ending Saturady 12th February

2011-02-12T13:31:00.000-08:00

Prayer Requests

Our Short Term Mission team have a blessed time here, this week.
Our preparations for the Weekend visit and its activities continue smoothly and we are able to celebrate what the Lord has done for Haiti, through us and our partners.
Our Satellite dish comes back quickly - it is being fixed in California.

Where does our time go?
It was good to have a real break in the Dominican Republic. We stayed at a resort where we could really relax, read our books, stroll around, eat at the buffet style restaurant and watch TV on the English channels. It was a break that we both desperately needed. The weather was perfect our only ‘complaint’ was that the swimming pools we unheated so a little cool for relaxing, so a quick daily dip was all we needed.

We came back to Grand Goâve ready to prepare for a busy schedule of volunteer teams and VIP guests, in February. We had some major problems to overcome. The first that our inverter at Siloe had ‘died’ and there was a need for 24 hours of electricity for the site. We needed a trip to Port au Prince to buy a replacement. We managed to fit this in with a meeting with Pastor Ronel at his church to tie up some loose ends for the VIP visit. We certainly learn patience here, although we arrived at the hardware store early and they had inverters in stock, the model we needed was at the warehouse so we would need to return at midday. That fitted in with some shopping we wanted to do and our meeting with Pastor Ronel, or did it? Although Pastor Ronel works in PAP he is a busy man and we took a while to arrange to all be in the same place at the same time. Our inverter also took somewhat longer than expected to arrive from the warehouse. Never mind we were able to sit in the car park and relax a while and as Mike had his laptop we could pick up and respond to emails. We ended up returning home by 3:30pm with no traffic jams to detain us and we judged it a successful day.

Our second major problem was and is internet access. Our satellite dish has a major problem so this week we finally took it to Port au Prince airport to begin its journey back to its makers in California to be checked and repaired. It went with MFI (Missionary Flights International) to Fort Pierce, Florida and will then go across to California. Whilst it is away, we were hoping to at least be able to pick up emails using a little ‘dongle’. Unfortunately the company who was going to supply us with one has run out of stock, so emails will take much longer to be picked up and responded to. Luckily we have a nearby internet café, which is cheap to use. It is small, hot and at times very noisy as the local youth like to ‘hang out’ there and play their music whilst they surf the net. As each computer can play its own music at the loudest volume (the only volume Haitians use) it can be difficult to work there.

Our small group of VIPS visiting us and celebrating the good things that have come about since the devastating earthquake last year, ballooned into a group of 20 people requiring accommodation in Grand Goâve. We are looking forward to a celebratory service at our church, an inauguration of our school and a blessing ceremony on the new rubble houses. We are hoping for fellowship and engagement between our local Haitians and the visiting Americans. Although we seen as wealthy and gift givers we hope to foster a realization of family (brothers and sisters in Christ) helping each other, rather than just a “cash cow”.

We can’t say enough good things about teams that come here – this year we have been left with a number of good books, DVDs and US chocolates. Sometimes it is the small things, in life, that the Lord blesses us with. Without the teams bringing in our requests we would be less blessed, thank you to the teams that brought us the latest two batches of items.

When Jenny came for a visit in August/September, last year she asked if it was possible to have a few ceiling fans in the staff house. The first one took till December! And this week she has finally been rewarded with a fan in her bedroom! She has been very patience about it and I am glad that I finally got the ducks in a row and completed the job.

Today Moise and I installed the new inverter - it really was a very smooth operation. We were replacing the old one with an identical new one so, basically, undo everything, remove, add new one, do everything up.

Two weeks ending Sunday 30th January

2011-01-30T13:40:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-25T07:48:00.001-08:00

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

2011-01-16T15:57:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-12T07:11:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-02T14:23:00.000-08:00

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.

Week ending Sunday 26th December

2010-12-27T15:07:00.000-08:00

Prayer requests

Our family and friends’ safety, as they travel around in icy conditions, during the festive season.
Our construction crew’s safety, as they prepare and pour a new roof on classrooms 7, 8 & 9.
The forthcoming anniversary of Haiti’s earthquake may it be a time of reflection, hope and recommitment by all parties to rebuild and invest in a healthier and more prosperous future for Haiti.

This Week
We had a trip to Port on Wednesday to see Jenny off, she is enjoying Christmas, in the USA, with her family. We also used the opportunity to get to meet the SHG team that had just returned from Ethiopia. They were pleased to meet with Pastor Ronel, CBH, and plan to see how CBH can help with the central coordination of a Haiti SHG strategy.

Knowing that Jenny was going to the USA we took the opportunity to try our hand at some filming of the local area – well Mike did! He ended up with about an hour of home video of the school, some rubble homes under construction and a walk through Grand Goâve. He is not sure it is what the real media folk need but it was a first attempt and he awaits their honest comments. Sadly, due to a band width issue, it is unlikely that he will be able to post any of the video on this web site till we are back in the USA.

The school construction continues to move forward. The first six rooms are being tidied up, ready for their use in January; we even have some areas for flowers. These rooms have really been done well and we look forward to them being filled with children, studying, soon. Rooms 7,8 & 9 have been having the top section of the walls set. Moise is really hoping to pour the roof during the last week of 2010.
Having chopped the almond tree down, on the corner of the property, we will be looking for the foundations of Classroom 10 to be dug in early January; perhaps our US volunteer teams will be assisting in this endeavor.

The weather
We are English and we always talk about the weather, don't we? It is cool here. Yes, it is all relative. The nights it is cool enough to need a bed sheet over us; mid 60s. The weather is basically dry and it gets up to mid 80s and sunny during the day. There is little or no wind, so it gets very dusty. The weather has meant that our water tank does not get very hot. Showers are cool to cold! A bracing cold shower after a hot days work is a good thing, after a cool day with a lot of administration it is not a good thing!

Our electricity
We think that as of today we are basically back to normal. Last weekend you may have read that we had power fluctuations and we ended up with no inverter power and we completely drained the batteries to such a point that the inverter did not work. Over the week we have charged the batteries using EDH power, when it was there. This was very tedious as a bank of two times 48 volts means we had 8 sets of 12 volts to charge. With the help of two local electricians and some advice from the power company, two trips to the hardware store, a call to the UK, a call to the USA and a number of e-mails from Tim we found the source of our issue, corroded terminals at the EDH counter box and a possible earth issue on the inverter; we are now back to normal.
Not having power may seem inconvenient but when you don’t have it all the time when you are used to it you really to appreciate what you use electricity for and how different life is without it. Communications with the outside world does not occur – the freezer doesn’t work, your laptop battery does not last as long as you expect it to; and your fan does not work to blow the bugs off you as you work in the office.

This Christmas
This Christmas has been a very quiet and plain one for us. We have seen few decorations and have not sung a single Christmas carol. Haiti, at least our world in Grand Goâve, just does not celebrate Christmas in the way we have come to expect. It is interesting to read from afar, the stories of frantic present buying, new clothes, decorating, shopping, baking, shopping and general rushing around and more shopping. We have not done any of those things; the only extra event we have attended was a special worship with our church youth/young adults in which we sung worship songs, prayed and had a local politician talk about his vision for Grand Goâve and of course enjoyed fellowship.

The Christmas story also comes across differently here. In our area, we often see mules and donkeys used for transport. Many people live in rather ‘primitive’ dwellings and chickens and goats roam around freely. It makes the story of Mary and Joseph and the stable seem quite common place.

Christmas as we know it with Christmas trees, special food, and so on, is a recent tradition; it certainly was not part of the early Christian’s life. We hear people complain that the Christmas present has become a secular festival with Santa Claus (Father Christmas) being the main person, the Christ part only as the sweet baby in the pageant. Maybe we can learn something from the Haitians; is Christmas the event so important? Isn’t Christ life, death and resurrection so much more important than his arrival on earth?

That being said, we have to admit that yes, we have missed our family. Yes, we have missed some good food and yes we have certainly missed singing our favorite carols. We will certainly look forward to celebrating Christmas again in the US/UK fashion. However, a less frantic more reflective Christmas is appealing and curbing excesses seems healthier and in the end more satisfying.

So what did we do? We enjoyed our first ‘day off’ in Grand Goâve. We had no meetings, limited our internet to reading only personal messages, and relaxed. We cooked a fine English style breakfast (eggs, bacon & sausage, with onions and tomato), played almost continuous Christmas music (we had heard so few until then so they was fresh and enjoyable!), played board and card games, phoned our family, went for a pleasant walk around GG, read books and cooked our favorite meal of Spaghetti bolognaise.

We tried to encourage our friends, here, to also enjoy Christmas Day. Moise, our project manager, was persuaded to give the construction crew a paid day off. They were given Christmas Day only as a holiday. Moise wants to get the roof poured this next week and they needed to work on Friday to get the chanarge poured. We had previously upset Madam Ciadelle, who does our laundry as Saturday is one of her washing days; she was upset that we declined her offer of work on Christmas Day! I managed to upset our security guard, Tikamie, on Christmas morning by declining his offer of his accompanying me to the market as has become a habit on a Saturday morning. On Christmas afternoon Mike decided that he would not answer his phone, unless it was an emergency. When someone phoned 9 times over a 15 minute period, despite a text message from Mike explaining that he was ‘doing something else’, Mike was rather exasperated to discover, when he finally took the call, that his caller just wanted to wish him a Very Happy Christmas! His response was a rather terse.

Realizing that a relaxing day off is virtually impossible, whilst we live in the staff house in Grand Goâve, Mike and I have decided to, hopefully, take a short 2 night break in Jacmel this week. Hopefully our plans will not be scuppered by another unpopular announcement about the election being made possibly on the 28th. We will be back n Grand Goâve for the New Year celebration.

p.s. We have made it to Jacmel for a few days rest.

Week ending Sunday 19th December

2010-12-21T08:31:00.000-08:00

Prayer Requests

For a peaceful solution to the election in Haiti
For the cholera epidemic in Haiti, that it may be show signs of decreasing
For our electrical problems, for a safe and lasting solution to power in our house and the volunteer house.
For a safe and happy Christmas season, especially for all those traveling
Continuing health and safety for our construction workers

What a week
This week has been a very difficult one. Haiti has an election result, which is no result, and we are experiencing an uneasy calm, whilst politicians try to sort things out. Should Jude Celestin be allowed to continue into the second round when his party has been accused of cheating, should ‘Sweet Mickey” Martilly be allowed into the second round, the ‘people’ are convinced that he had enough support, can Madam Magalin win enough votes, if we have a second round on January 16th, to be declared President and bring a peaceful outcome? We wait, however, for trouble again as we anticipate an unpopular announcement on the recount and who is going into the next round. It may come tomorrow – the 20th.

We know of many who have left Haiti for their Christmas break early. We pray that Jenny’s travel plans are not disrupted when she flies out on Wednesday. We pray also that Tor Wentzi, who is traveling to Cap Haitian to help with the cholera clinic there, can arrive safely, and on time. Our SHGs (self help group) who have been in Ethiopia are traveling this weekend and we hope they have safe travel as they fly into Haiti tomorrow (20th).

We now have a dedicated cholera clinic in Grand Goâve, so we need to remain extra vigilant and remind and educate as many as we can about safe drinking water. We are trying to quietly promote our water filters and we are prayerfully considering a plan to bring more into the community. At $30 each they are an expensive item for most Haitians and we need to find a way of showing how valuable the filters are in terms of family health and therefore its value even though it is expensive.

Another problem this week, this time in our own house, with electricity or should I say lack of it. We are currently using the large and very noisy generator to be able to have electricity on demand. We have problems with inverters and batteries not charging, no one in Grand Goâve to help and advice Mike as he tries to sort out the problems – all very difficult. We are so dependent on electricity not just for a more comfortable home life but for communication with the rest of the world. Christmas is an important time to stay connected with our families, such a long way away, our children and the immediate family is in Great Britain and our church family is in Stuart Florida.

Our good news this week is that we have made progress with a new vehicle which will transport our volunteers. Reliable and sound second hand vehicles are almost impossible to buy; we have been to the Toyota dealer and are starting to put in an order for a new HiAce 15 seater van. The only drawback is that it may be March before we can actually take ownership. It has to be shipped directly from Japan. Such is the high demand for these types of vehicles that when making this expensive purchase; one can neither, see one nor take a test drive, have any preference for color, or any other options we are just promised the fourth van which is driven off the ship when she comes into port!

It may be only a few days left until Christmas but I can sadly report that we have not sung a single Christmas carol. Although Haitians celebrate Christmas, we have not heard any sermons about Christmas or heard any Advent readings. Although it is quite refreshing to be free of the commercialization and the non Christian trappings of the season, it really does not feel as if Christmas is around the corner. We are therefore pleased to share some Christmas spirit with the news that comes our way from family and friends.

So we end this entry wishing everyone a Very Merry Christmas!

Week ending Sunday 12th December

2010-12-12T16:44:00.000-08:00

Prayer Requests

Wisdom, peace and understanding for the Haitian people during this election time
Continued safety for the construction crew
Travel mercies for the teams that may be traveling this week; whether that is by road or air

This is the week that was
This has been a week of “wait and see”. The Haitian election results were announced on Tuesday evening at 9:00pm. The country was not pleased with the results and some felt the need to demonstrate and others felt violence was the right avenue – property, cars and things that burn were all in the mix. Road blocks were set up with dumpsters and burning tires, the rioters had battles with the UN troops; rocks, trash and burning cars were used as projectiles. Sadly a few people died. Schools were closed, airports were closed, long distance travel was halted and the sane people stayed away from the trouble, waiting for it to subside.

All this occurred away from Grand Goâve. Locally there was very little aggravation. There were tires burnt and we saw the aftermath of a road block but at no time did we feel threatened or unsafe.

On Saturday (11th) things had settled down and we know people from Grand Goâve made it into Port-au-Prince, for shopping and others made it to the airport too.

Left over barricade in Grand Goave

Sadly, we did not see any of our expected guests, this week, because of the trouble. BMS made it as far as Port-au-Prince. http://www.bmsworldmission.org/news-blogs/blogs/cooperating-with-the-cooperative-baptists http://www.bmsworldmission.org/news-blogs/blogs/gunfire-port-au-prince http://www.bmsworldmission.org/news-blogs/blogs/riots-haiti The ABC media team made it to Cap Haitian but got stuck there and the BGM team never made it out of the USA. Our BCGT fact finding team that were to arrive next week have postponed their trip waiting for the recount of the vote to be announced and will see what the outcome brings.

On Monday we took the water filters to the school construction site; they were very well received.

On Tuesday I built a table specifically for the water filters. We took it down to the site on Thursday and it has been equally well received. We are hoping that the interest will be peaked and perhaps we may do a shopping trip to Jacmel and get some more for the residents of Grand Goâve.

The table, with one filter bucket in use

On Tuesday we had the pump at Nan Ti So installed. Alex and his assistant came in from Port and apart from missing the tap and dye set the installation went well. The patriarch of the village, Luseis, came round to watch us work – I was actually not allowed to work, it seemed, so I watched! By lunch-time it was installed and the village was told to wait till the cement was cured before it could be used.

This is the Nan Ti So (a.k.a Kay Luseis) pump

I was useful as a driver! We had to ford the local river to get the heavy equipment and pipes close to the well site. Fording is a strong term – you drive across the river at the point you think is best, that does not have mud and the locals are pointing at! Alex drove the truck through the ford the first time and then I was the driver for four crossings and Alex finished off the trips driving back for the last time.

Tuesday was a WASH day! (Water And Health Sanitation) Not only did we install the Indian pump we also had an offer for Jeanson to attend a one day seminar/training on pump rehabilitation, run by Edge Ministries http://www.edgeoutreach.com/ . The comments back, after the training were “Rick and Lynn had glowing things to say about Jeanson." It is really great to see the Lord open doors and to see what happens when we accept the chance to step through the door.

Also on Tuesday I finally completed the inverter at the Volunteer house. Having wired it all up I attached the final battery terminal to the inverter – there was a big spark, the controller started to beep – the error light flashed and went solid red (not good). I gritted my teeth and tighten the last bolt. All went quiet and the machine settled down and the error light went off. I switched over the breaker switch and it all worked! I ran the generator to charge the batteries that had been at the house since August – they charged, fully in less than 15 minutes.

Tuesday night and Wednesday Port-au-Prince had the riots. We were meant to be meeting up with Steve and Garth, from BMS. We were in contact via skype and e-mail with them as well as talking to our local colleagues that lived between here and Port – it was a “No Go!” situation. Thursday was the same and Steve and Garth made plans to return to the UK by an alternative route. We truly hope to see them, here, next year.

As our plans had been turned upside down we were able to use the time to clear through some correspondence and administration. The depot, at the staff house has been cleaned up, and we have tidied up the guest rooms after their doors were completed and the window screens needed some edge work on them, to seal the screens well.

This weekend Brenda and I worked on the doors and some wall painting too. Jenny joined us with the varnishing, on Sunday afternoon. This task seems a long way from completion but the back door, now complete, looks grand. Hopefully we will be as pleased with all the doors, one day.

Week ending Sunday 5th December

2010-12-05T17:36:00.000-08:00

Prayer Requests

Peace in Haiti as the election results are announced, this week
God’s love to flow during the continued cholera outbreak, that supplies continue to arrive and lives are saved
Travel mercies for the fact finding groups that are coming to see us, in Grand Goâve, this week.

Mike’s Bit
Jacmel
The three of us went over to Jacmel to see the agua pure filter factory. We ended up joining their inauguration event. The local press was there and it was a joy to see something positive and forward thinking here – it is a success story. The plant is looking to make 1,000 filters a month.

These filters are the clay filters impregnated with silver. Each filter will retail for $30US, the same cost of a filter that we use in the voyager filters. However, their filters last five years and ours last about 8 weeks!

Lisa Ballantine is very interested in helping us with a training module, they use a Canadian source that uses public domain material. The Canadian company has a Haitian presence in Port-au-Prince with a school. We could look at it if we wanted to “Train the trainers”.
There is a lot to think about in the coming weeks – we were very pleased with what we saw.

We have purchased a few to use at the construction site, in our home and in the volunteer home. Our driver, Gesner, purchased one independently of us too. We will see how they are received on the job-site. The silver in the filter kills all the bacteria and it is cholera proof.

These are some of the links to the companies and organizations that this group is attached to.
http://www.aguapure.com.do/ http://www.filterpurefilters.org/ http://winetowater.org/

Filters ready for the kiln

Stolen Solar panels
Having waited months to get the solar panels on the roof of the volunteer house one set lasted may be three nights before they were stolen.

No one heard anything, no one saw anything and of course no one knows who stole them.
The panels that were stolen were the panels to charge the batteries on the inverter; to give the volunteer electrical power.

The panels were bolted to the roof and caps welded over the bolts, one corner was welded to the re-bar of the roof.

I have said that we will not provide the water to the community until the panels are returned as I cannot believe that the community did not see, or hear, the theft taking place. However, I am not sure that that is fair on the community…….. {Please pray that God will give us the wisdom to resolve this issue}

Horse bolted - Door locked. Barbed wire around the remaining solar panels

Finished Kai Lusies (finally)
On Thursday a carpenter and I put the door on Kai Lusies. I was going to do it all myself then realized it was best to have a local carpenter to help it was an easy day’s pay for him but it did mean it got done well!

The front door!

More carpentry
The volunteer house needed some shelves and I enjoy woodwork – so we created and installed the bathroom shelving. While I did not have our local Home Depot around the corner the shelves look good. Hopefully they will withstand their use in the dormitory style life of the volunteer house.
While we were there we wired up the batteries (of the missing solar panels) and found that we were missing a bolt for the last terminal of the last battery!! We may not get this job finished for some time – all for the need of one terminal bolt!! Yep, a trip to port is needed – the local hardware stores do not carry the bolts.

Shelves at the volunteer house

Started the door painting
On Saturday Brenda and I worked on our backdoor. Sanding, scraping painting the walls and varnishing the door – it looks so much better. This door needs another coat and then we have only another 8 to go!

Sleeping…or not
The nights are currently cooler than in the height of the summer. We sleep without the use of the fan and sleep under a sheet. Remember that we have a window, above our bed, with no glass.
While the temperature is a real blessing the local neighborhood also enjoy the cooler weather!

The cockerels start earlier, 3:00am is not too early for them!! Once one starts the whole clan need to let their mates know that they too heard him. I think we have a cockerel that lives the other side of the wall; it sounds real close.

The locals still rise early and go to sleep late. However, it seems now they go to bed later and they get up earlier. The noises go on late into the night and start about 5am.

We do get a night’s sleep, however, it is rare to have it uninterrupted by something waking us.

The other night was we were settling down we were disturbed by the house shaking! Looking at the US Geological website, the next day, the nearest earthquake was off the coast of Puerto Rico; it seemed nearer than that!

Brenda’s bit
I really must start my bit earlier as Mike seems to over everything! It’s been a good week.

It was good to get away to Jacmel, a town on the other side of the island to us; across mountains, with beautiful scenic views, on a relatively smooth road! It was also delightful to see a Haitian town almost complete without earthquake damage. It was good to return home to see the first of our six classrooms with a smart polished cement floor. Our first stage of rebuilding Siloë school is almost complete.

I am waiting for the Christmas season to start here. We have not sung a Christmas carol at church yet and the only Christmas decorations, involving more than a simple strand of lights is at the Funeral Parlour! And I usually complain that the Christmas season starts too early!

Week end Sunday 28th November

2010-11-28T15:12:00.000-08:00

Prayer Request

Increase in our confidence to use our Creole and increase our vocabulary.
Peace for the post election period
Continued guidance and peace that only the Lord can give us

Brenda’s Bit
My week began with a very sore throat which soon developed into a full blown cold. I know that I take good health for granted and just having a ‘common cold’ was debilitating, I was reminded that I am not as strong and independent as I thought. It reminded me how we need to rely on God for our help and strength. When we are in need He will supply. Our security guard TiKamie gave me fruit, mango and white grapefruit, from the garden, telling me it was specifically good to cure my cold.

God has supplied us amply with our work in school construction. Just a few weeks ago the work seemed to be progressing so slowly. Then we were sent a team of encouragers with the Matthew Road volunteers. They worked alongside our crew and we saw grand results. Good quality work was accomplished, beyond the expectation of the foreman and so it has continued into this week. The classrooms have walls and the workers have stayed overtime to get jobs completed. It is a real blessing to see the crew motivated and happy. Moise has already purchased another 200 sacks of cement for the expected work, next week pouring the floor in classrooms 1 through 6.

It has been an extremely noisy week at the Staff House, we have had our internal doors completed which were achieved with much sawdust, shavings, sawing and banging. The theory seemed to be ‘if the door doesn’t fit keep banging it until it does” – there was an awful lot of banging and the job is now finished!

I will let Mike tell you the long story of the welder, but he managed to bang his stuff together too, in the front yard, mostly after the carpenters had finished for the day. The on Saturday; when the workers had gone we had 3 hours of generator noise just outside our hallway, making a vain attempt to charge our house batteries. I will let Mike tell you the story of that one too. Today, Sunday, is wonderfully quiet, exceptionally so, as we are not allowed to drive cars or motorbikes during voting hours.

We trust the election has gone peacefully in all of Haiti and the result will be a good government for Haiti.

Mike’s bit
This week has been one of amazement at the school construction site and one of patience on the other work front.

We seem to have been watching molasses pour in winter! We got six solar panels, in two frames, on the roof of the volunteer house, but it was a lesson in patience and willpower. The frames started out being built to the wrong measurements, then they needed to be tweaked (twice) and on arrival at the volunteer house the legs, to set the panels at the correct angle, seemed to take hours to be fabricated. As we are reminded a lot – we are “A type” persons and Haitians are normally “D type” persons; we should adapt to them, most of the time. During the week I learnt, again, to truly appreciate Moise being here as the project coordinator and his ability to get things done that seem impossible.

This week we had hoped to get two desks for our office so all three of us can work, at the same time, without having to sit with our laptops on our laps! Wanting to use local carpenters, however, has meant that we will hopefully pick them up next week.

We had no volunteers here, this week, and that allowed me some time to complete some plumbing, around the house, some house repairs at the volunteer house as well as some minor woodwork. While the list is now less it is far from being complete!

As Brenda said the carpenters have completed the internal doors around the house, we will slowly varnish them ourselves and use a caulking gun around the frames. It has made a huge difference in our bedroom and bathroom area.

On Thursday I noticed a red light on the inverter, where there should not be one! We found that the incoming voltage was way higher than the expected 120v. It was as high as 144v. However, all the adjusting in the world could not get the inverter to charge the batteries, and the light stayed red. By Saturday afternoon I had rewired a new double pole switch added the cable for a generator and had the generator running for three hours; still no change on the lights, by the time the grid power came back on the voltage readings were still too high the batteries failed and we were thrown into darkness – it was 7.30pm by then. More by God’s guidance and faint memories of 2 phase electrical theory I re-spliced the incoming power supply to only use one of the two pairs coming in – they had previously be spliced together – that gave us 113 volts and we were back in business. Hopefully as Sunday comes to a close and the power is still running we have re-charged that batteries and the system is back to normal. Just another eventful weekend in Grand Goâve!

In a hope that we can change our trash habits, the other week we purchased a 55 gallon steel drum, to burn our combustible waste. It has taken two weeks for us to get it into the back garden to use it and we need some education as it was lit the morning of wash day! While our washing does not have a lovely hint smoke, Brenda was a bit concerned the flames were surprisingly close to the washing line.

It is the elections today, Sunday 28th November, there were fewer than normal, at church, as many wished to vote “before the chaos in the afternoon”; however, Grand Goâve seems to have remained calm. There is a ban on driving today and there is also a ban on the sale of alcohol. While there does not seem to have stopped some from driving around today is quiet and Brenda and I enjoyed our Sunday afternoon walk up Rue du Port along the main road (Route 2) and back down Rue du Christophe; home in time for a great cup of tea!

Photos

Welders load up the solar panels into the frame. Will they all fit?

Mike finally put all the batteries in the battery box this weekend

Week ending 21st November

2010-11-21T15:11:00.000-08:00

Prayer Requests

Peaceful elections in Haiti
Reduction of Cholera
The ability to see more of God’s blessings, each day.
Grandmas, Mike’s turned 102 on the 20th!

Mike’s Bit
Thank you, thank you, Lord for sending us the Matthew Road Baptist Church team – a powerhouse of love, grace, teamwork, strength and excitement. We think that some of them slept very well when they got home! The team was also graced by Carol and Melanie; they added to the team’s merriment, willing workers and love. We were pleased Melanie spoke fluent French and the Haitians were too!

The task was to complete the building up of the foundation of classroom 7, 8 & 9 by the end of the week. The foundation build was completed by the middle of the week! We added the channage (the concrete channel around the top of the foundation dug the foundations for the front of the classrooms; the gallery; built seven sets of shelves for the volunteer house and varnished the four picnic tables the GRR team built the other week. The medical arm helped with the clinic; assisted in a school children screening in Port and were able to offer assistance with some house visits. The team said that they were so blessed by the Lord during the week. The Lord blessed us too with this team.

Move the rocks from here.....to there

The Matthew Road Baptist Church team with the construction team

All in a week's work!

The big news away from the teams’ work and interaction is that we have started having internal doors added to our staff house! I have been here since mid July and the doors are a very welcome addition. After the carpenter finished the mosquito nets, in the depot, he was quick to replace the back internal door. The sheet we used to enter our part of the house was replaced next. This replacement showed the “plumbness” of the walls. However, we are both very pleased now the door is in place. Our Security guard was able to see show us another one of his skill; he has done some krepisag (stuccoing) where there were a few gaps between the frames and the walls. We used him to finish the krepisag in two of the bathrooms too.

Look! A door

We are not sure who owns the chicken that has been sitting on her eggs for some time. She nested in the front yard in one of the corners of the house, on top of a sand pile. The eggs hatched this week. We have mother hen and seven chicks running around the yard, rather cute!

I “enjoyed” a trip into Port this week. We dropped off Ed, at the airport, and I was able to use the time wisely and complete some shopping. We are still on the hunt for mirrors; they are nonexistent, part of a huge piece of furniture or very expensive; so the search continues! When we need to shop for something that is not part of daily life it is necessary to find someone that you trust who knows where the item can be purchased, and they can direct you to the shop (checking that they have used the store since the earthquake!)We are still hunting few a few other items that most of us would assume we could purchase readily; oh well TIH!

The weather is cooler that it has been; or is that just less hot! The evenings are cool. There is a full moon, at the moment, and the night sky is truly beautiful; God is Good.

Brenda’s bit
Mike seems to have said it all! It was a real pleasure to have the Matthew Road Team here with us, what a hard-working and loving group. It was so good to see them always working alongside our paid construction workers; a great working relationship was established and so much was accomplished.

We look ahead to the election on Sunday and pray for peace and harmony in all the towns of Haiti. We have been advised to stay away from Port au Prince; and plan to spend a quiet week in Grand Goâve. We will not be celebrating Thanksgiving in the traditional American way – but we will make a point of being thankful for all that we have - as Mike has said “God is Good”.

Week ending November 14th

2010-11-15T16:57:00.000-08:00

Prayer requests

Improvement in our Creole
Health and happiness for the volunteer team, here, this week
Praise, simply because God is Great in all the blessing He showers us with every day.

Brenda’s piece
After the rush of packing up our house; it was difficult to get back to work in Grand Goâve. I suppose it was inevitable; we arrived back as Haiti recovered from Hurricane Tomas. The storm was not as bad as was feared but there was heavy rain and flooding. It felt a bit awkward that our Haitians friends had again been through a potential disaster situation that we could only read about on the internet. So our arrival just 24 hours after Tomas found us, like them rather deflated after a stressful week, but for very different reasons. Things picked up as the week went by and everything returned to normal, though we did enjoy some cooler weather.

Mike’s piece
Wow, has it already been a week since we came back! Thinking of all that we have been doing and then listing them it does not seem very much, however, we have been busy all week. I have been frustrated by my lack of engagement with my Creole but I know I set high standards for myself. I feel I have reached a plateau and I’m struggling to find the right path up the mountain!

Monday - Meeting, e-mails, volunteer house visit, money
Tuesday – US Admin, e-mails, school meeting, Ti Gwav recky, volunteer house clean-up
Wednesday – School meeting, accounts, expenses, BMS phone call, battery boxes
Thursday – Port-au-Prince trip; it took all day and we got most of the shopping list done, accounts
Friday – Accounts, Bank, Creole lesson, "small" earthquake at noon 4.4, no structural damage but the house actually shook, battery boxes, Bible study
Saturday – Volunteer house, water, general admin, arrival of volunteer team from Matthew Road Baptist Church, Grand Prairie, Texas. They arrived later than normal and then later than expected; however, they were in good spirits and wolfed down the meal before bedding down for their first night. It was good to have the team here.
Sunday – Church, Canter truck blew out a battery on start-up! Beach (in the pick-up), supper; Brenda made a great disk - Tim's Casserole, wolfed down (again), bed!

We love the picnic tables the GRR team made - we are hoping to varnish/stain them this week and get them into constant use.

Siloe students queue for a distribution

Admin note - we are not sure these weekly updates are very exciting anymore! Should we keep up the weekly blog or go to two weekly? What do you think?

We are home, in Grand Goâve

2010-11-07T09:17:00.000-08:00

Prayer Request
Please keep us and our community in your prayers. May we quickly get back into the swing of mission heads and continue the work here in Grand Goâve and elsewhere in Haiti, as God directs us.

Three weeks, gone!
Wow, to think we have not posted a blog in a month! The last week in Grand Goâve was a rush, as we tried to settle all the outstanding things that needed to be done before we left. We wished to leave the mission feeling secure. We wanted to give Jenny and Deliris enough information to manage the place while we were away. They did very well and we need not have worried – they are smart ladies; very resourceful.

Our three weeks in the States were meant to be two weeks packing up our home and a week of relaxing and visiting friends. We ended up with all three weeks packing. We were able to fit in a trip to our Home Office (CBF), in Atlanta. The last day, Friday 5th Nov, was about 12 hours too short! A lot of rushing around and then very little sleep before we set off to Miami airport for our Saturday morning flight, back to Haiti.

My Dad had come over, from the UK, to help us with our endeavors. Both Brenda and I are truly grateful for him helping us. It would not have been possible to complete all the packing without him. Dad kept it sane, happy and good humored the whole three weeks! A very, very, big thanks to Dad!

Rather than breaking down the three weeks in USA, we thought we could leave it to your own imagination with it summarized in the alphabet.

A is for Airborne, anticipation, action
B is for Boxes, business cards, back home
C is for Charity, Cholera, Commissioning, cool (weather)
D is for Deadlines, decisions, Dad – we have the best Dad ever!
E is for Eating, e-mails, emptying (the house)
F is for Family, finding, focus, fellowship, finishing up
G is for God, good, grateful, generous, garbage pickups!
H is for Hurricane, happy, heavy
I is for impossible, impatient
J is for Jesus, joy, Junk
K is for Keepsakes, Keeping stuff
L is for Long distance worry, letting go, leaving, lack of rest!
M is for music (at our Church), moving
N is for North Stuart Baptist Church, we belong to a loving family
O is for organization
P is for packing, presentations, people
Q is for Questions
R is for Running out of time, requests, responsibility
S is for support, struggle
T is for Time or the lack of it! Treasures
U is for unexpected
V is for vision, Voila! Nou te arrivé a Grangwav
W is for wisdom, welcome home, worship
X is for
Y is for Yesterday – in a blink of an eye it has now passed. What is done is done. We return to Haiti with joy and anticipation for what God has in store for us and the communities around us.
Z is for Zzzzzzzzzzz’s – not enough of them.

We were warmly welcomed, here in Haiti, by our team, at the airport, a very welcome sight. Never to miss an opportunity to be wise with our time we also used the trip to pick us up to pick up the canter truck, that was in PAP for repairs; and I drove the pick-up home!

There is evidence of the hurricane Tomas in our area and on the way from Port au Prince home, to Grand Goâve; but not as much as we had feared. We are blessed that the cholera has not migrated to this area, however, continued prayers and diligent cleanliness remain vital.

Week Twelve ending October 8th

2010-10-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

Prayer Requests

School children and the school teachers - classes start at our school, this week
Always our construction team
Jenny is away on PAP at another mission
Our preparation for our break in the states - we pray that we will leave with all our tasks completed

Mike's Bit
This week has been a week that feels that little was achieved , but we have been busy all week and feeling that each day needed a few more hours!

We have finally commissioned a welder to fabricate solar panel housings and battery banks so the power situation at the volunteer house can be alleviated. We have also final got the materials to allow the carpenter to add mosquito netting to all the windows in the staff house, with job will start during the week. We had agreed on Monday but he came in at 6:30am(!!) to say he would not start till Wednesday!!

I worked with Jeanson and we finally installed the windows in Luses’s house. Remember the Tin Framed house that was put up by the Ardmore team? That house! We are now left with the installation of the front door and this project will be completed. Luses is very grateful for the house and is very pleased to see us each time we come over to his corral.

We took Jenny to the airport for her short break and used the opportunity to visit a different food store. The selection was different but not as varied as our usual store. It was closer to the airport, a lot closer. We also used the time for hardware shopping as well as to purchase some more chairs for the staff house and volunteer house.

The well at the volunteer house has had the concrete platform formed. Now we need to install the solar water pump and set up the community water distribution.

The work on the well at Luses’s community has started. This did require the local community to clear a path for the drill rig to drive up get to their location and the rig itself had to ford the local river. It is planned to have a hand pump on this site.

We were pleased to see that our mission was highlighted in the current CBF newsletter. Thank you to the Atlanta team for keeping Haiti in the news. Go to http://www.thefellowship.info/ bottom right click on CBF’s magazine page 5 is about the mission in Grand Goâve.

School started today 11th October 2010 – I was disappointed that the first six classrooms were not sufficiently completed to be used with semester. The school has had to rent classrooms elsewhere in the community. However, the construction continues daily. The foundations for rooms 7,8 and 9 continue to be dug, the krepisaj/Stucco for rooms 3 and 4 were completed and the team worked hard on room 5 and have started room 6 today, Monday 11th.

Brenda's bit
I too look back at a busy week; most of which was spent learning Creole. Thankfully I have a teacher who patiently corrects my pronunciation and is so encouraging. I am understanding more, though I can sometimes loose the thread of a sentence when one word confounds me; then as I try to remember it’s meaning, the conservation has continued without me.

Our house becomes more homely each week as new additions are added. Mike added the bathroom fixtures of towel rail, toilet paper holder, soap and toothbrush holders to the bathroom on Saturday. He does this for relaxation - he enjoys doing this sort of thing! These small improvements make such a difference. We picked up the last three bedroom cupboards and these completed the bedroom sets, we think. We were able to get a few paintings, while in Port-au-Prince, so the white walls are now off set with some vivid colors.

We were at the market on Wednesday - it felt just like this!

We love the blue of this picture

Now on the dining room wall - great for offsetting the white.

The school site viewed from the soccer pitch

Photos (at last)

2010-10-08T19:31:00.000-07:00

Please view these photo only. If you want copies please ask first!

The photo upload was not as I expected, sadly they are now out of order, sorry about that!

This lad always asked to be picked up when I visited this Rubble House construction site

The volunteer house

Done all without the use of a pair of scissors!

Kevin adds the inner wall to the Rubble house cage.

Port-au-Prince

Brenda with Ernst, our language guide

A big tap tap

VBS

Tin framed house donated by Volunteers of America - South East

The view from the volunteer house

For our friends is Stuart - if you want to move here the local crew can help! This is on the side of the road between Port and Grand Goave.

Staff House front door

Community well being drilled

Rubble house filled with rubble!

The roof pour of room 6, at the school

Tin House floor being poured - The Ardmore team

The Ardmore Team, ready for a days work

Dish on scaffolding - it too did not improve the signal

The Ardmore team bolt the tin house together

College kids

Mike doing Creole studies, with an audience

More of the clinic at Kay Luses

I just love this lad's expression

Tori Wentz and the Ardmore team on site at a mobile clinic. All walked in about 1/3 mile from the road

Tim Brendle, friend, mentor, all round good guy

Siloe School construction - these are rooms 3,4 and 5

The first Rubble House, looking in from the back door

The first Rubble House, inside - Tori, Steve, Tim, Ernst

The first Rubble House, looking at the front door

We took this puppy over to the Volunteer house to see if we could get better reception - we didn't!

Brenda supports Tori on her first mobile clinic

HIS Ministries provided mosquito nets - we are assisting with the distrubution

VBS - Esaii prays with the children

The view from the roof of the volunteer house

Pouring the roof - apart from the mixer it is fully manual process; completed in a half day.

Two great workers - Andy and Bondidias, they run the cement mixer

A community well being drilled

A taptap, in front of us at a traffic jam

Brenda supports Tori. This was Brenda's first mobile clinic in Haiti

Please view these photo only. If you want copies please ask first!

The photo upload was not as I expected, sadly they are now out of order, sorry about that!

Week Eleven - ending October 2nd

2010-10-04T18:57:00.000-07:00

Prayer requests

The start of the new school year, 11th October
Continued safety on the construction site
Self Help Group – four Haitians are now in Ethiopia for three months training and education

Brenda’s bit
I am writing this on Monday morning, refreshed by a relaxing Sunday. It was a well deserved day off as last week became quite an arduous one; we had volunteers with us until Friday. Then we had the long trip into Port-au-Prince to take them to the airport, which we combined with other errands. One errand that was only 7 miles from the airport of which took over 2 hours to complete. We journeyed to an area northwest of Port and had a long wait in traffic crossing a bridge, each way, that was being repaired. We arrived back in G.G. just in time to host a supper for 17 visitors. The visitors were a combination of a medical, economic development fact finding and Haitian CHE/EKS trainers. Madame Moise excelled, as usual, with her cuisine and Jeanson was able to do a quick turnaround of the guest house to accommodate them all. We had an interesting evening discussing possible avenues of ministry in the G.G. area and it was good to connect with experienced missionaries within our CBF partnership. The following morning we were up early to cook a breakfast for them all and see them on their way.

We were sad to see the Pamona team leave, they were a loving group and tears were shed, particularly from the children as they loved the Vacation Bible School It was run for them by 2 ladies on the team, for an hour or so each day. I know that the team was disappointed to leave the rubble house unfinished. They had quite a few periods of heavy rain which slowed progress and they also had a larger than usual house to complete so it wasn’t so unexpected.

One of the hardest parts of living abroad is leaving the family and not being around when important events occur. The passing of my Uncle Michael has been such a time and I am so sorry that I could not attend his funeral last Friday, in the UK. He was an extremely well loved and skilled Ear Nose and Throat Surgeon and his modesty over his achievements were an inspiration to me. He lived a long, happy and fulfilled life and I am sure he has already heard the words “well done my good and faithful servant”; but he will be greatly missed.

One of our blog questions has been “What sort of laborers build the rubble houses?” They consist of a small team of paid Haitians workers, the family of the house being built and the family of the previous rubble house. The US Volunteer teams work alongside the Haitians. It is hoped that the current Haitian crew will become familiar with the construction process and may be able to become team leaders of additional teams so several homes can be built at one time.

Mike’s bit
Electricity
Great news! We are back on line. It took a few days longer than both Moise and I had hoped, however, the batteries are in a much healthier state and the noisy generator does not need to be run so much.
Well drilling
The well at the volunteer house was completed on Friday. This is an exciting project as we hope, when it is complete, that the well will provide water to three communities as well as the volunteer house. We hope that the second location will be drilled before the end of the week. This location is across the main river and the drilling rig will have to ford the river and drive along a track made just for the rig to get to the site.
School construction
The school construct continues. The foundations are being dug for the 7th,8th and 9th class rooms, this will be one building. This will run parallel to the river, along the back of the school property. Classrooms 1 and 2 have the krepisaj/Stucco finished and rooms 3 and 4 are being worked on. It was sad to see a mango tree had to be cut down, as it was in the middle of room 7 and as the new buildings are built around the corner another tree will have to go. We have been assured that the school will plant new trees and, when we come back in 10 years, after we leave we will be able to meet under the shade of the new trees that will have replaced the trees that were cut down.
Siloë Clinic
The tin framed house, at Siloë, has been ear marked for Jenny’s medical clinic. Work on the krepisaj/Stucco was started this week. This is also an exciting project and should provide extra space for Jenny.
Weather
The English always talk about the weather! This last week has been wet! Grand Goâve had the weather systems that were associated with the tropical depressions that have been in the Caribbean / South USA areas. We “just got wet” and were spared the high winds. At times like this we realize how truly blessed we are. Many, many of our Haitian families had to weather the rain in their home made tents, divert water away from their “homes”, and hopefully not into other “homes”. After any rain storm there is a lot of trash that floats from the corners, walls and trash piles into the streets. The community tidies up this trash but often it is put back where it came from - the corners, walls and trash piles by the side of the road.
Election time
Haiti is having a national election in November. Grand Goâve, like so many other towns, is caught up in the political vote canvassing. Posters are appearing all over town, parades are taking place and street banners across the streets are popping up. The locals are wearing tee-shirts of their party affiliation. Our local politicians have set up work programs for the benefit of the communities they serve and we have had some streets cleaned and drains dug. The town does look neater. The street wall and gate of our house were adorned with the posters of one candidate and Tikamie, our security guard, was not happy – even though he seems to like the candidate – after ripping off the posters he then had a excited discussion in which I was able to hear that the “missionary had no vote so don’t put posters on their wall”. The political rallies are street shows that move through town with a lot of noise. These rallies are accompanied with many motor cycles all using their horns to announce the arrival and departure of the candidate as the walk through the town. I a msure the enthusiasm for the the politicians will rise as the election nears.

Week Ten - ending Sunday 26th September

2010-09-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

Prayer Requests

Water well drilling
Start of school semester, coming up soon
Pastor Pascal recovery from minor surgery
The Pomona team and their work here
School construction

Brenda’s bit

As we write up our latest entry we are half way through an 11 day visit with a team of volunteers. They are from California and Louisiana, and are a very loving and hard working group. They are building a rubble house, which is literally a house made from the rubble of an old home (actually the rubble from 4 homes is necessary for the one new one). Each rubble house is currently unique. After one is finished there are adjustments made for improvements; this latest one for example is the first to have indoor plumbing. We are working in partnership with Conscience International in the constructing of rubble homes and it is an exciting venture with immediate benefits to those needing to move out of the now rotting temporary tent homes.

On the home front we said goodbye to Tori, who has been working here, in Grand Goâve, as a nurse for about 6 months and we welcomed Jenny; who comes to continue and expand Tori initial medical response to a long term self sustaining venture.

We are still settling into our house and making small improvements almost daily. Jenny has moved into her permanent bedroom and we hope her ‘armoire’ will arrive this week so she can hang up and put away her clothes. We still haven’t got doors inside the house and Jenny and I have impressed on Mike the need to get the windows covered to try and keep out the unwanted bugs and tarantulas. Yes, tarantulas!! Mike has killed a number of them since I have been here. They are black, hairy and about 4 inches across. We are not looking to have one bite us but we have been told they will not kill us as the wives tale says they will!

Mike’s bit

Communication is so key to any relationship. As one of the coordinators living amongst Haitians that speak a different language it is even more critical to listen and affirm what you think you heard is in fact what was said. Add to this the need to understand the connotations of any phrase or sentence and the phrase “Communication is so key to any relationship” really hits home as to its importance.

I had a tough communication week! I have learnt, again that God gave me two ears and one mouth. I should listen twice as much as a speak. For the people who know me; for me to stop talking it must be a God thing! He has blessed me this week with a peace in the knowledge I have gained and while it was not fun at the time I hope it will help me moving forward.

This week has also been a power week – electric power….

Nearly two weeks ago the Church received a very large power bill; they only have one or two lights bulbs and the amplifier for their main Sunday service, so it was obvious that others had spliced into their power lines. The church immediately removed the cable from the meter, cutting off all power supply to the whole site. This was not brought to my attention until the Friday evening. We had been running very low on the batteries and we had had to run the generator a lot more than usual and I was getting concerned there were issues with the inverter itself. The plan was to rewire the cable to go directly to the Siloë kitchen as a single continuous wire and then negotiate with EDH on the outstanding bill.

So this last week Moise and I purchased the necessary wire and we ran it from the street back to the kitchen. We were able to reconnect the power and it was a real delight to see how much current we had available to charge the batteries, now that we were able to use all our power and it was not been sliced to the local neighborhood.

Our joy was short lived.

On Friday night a tree fell on our power line and resulted in the cables shorting and melting 10 to 15 feet of cable either side of our meter. We are now back to using the generator to keep the batteries powered and hope that EDH will fix their side of the cable this week and we will fix our side at the same time. We still have to negotiate the payment of the huge bill but we should be able to get the batteries back to full power every 24 hours without having to run the generator for so long, each day.

Today we had to locate the right cable to be used to replace our side of the meter! Grand Goâve has two hardware stores; we were looking for 12 or 10 gauge wire and were quickly disappointed. However, Moise did some asking and some choice second hand cable was brought out. A suitably thick wire, twice the length than we needed was traded for some cash and now we wait for EDH.

Hopefully next week I’ll be able to report that all is well on the power front!

A day in Grand Goâve

2010-09-20T19:04:00.000-07:00

This week begins as our kitchen, at the staff house, “kay chief”, is finally completed with a cooker and a fridge. Now we realize what it takes to set up a house again. We have begun to miss all the kitchen things that are “of course in the drawer”, that still need to be purchased. The working kitchen has made a huge difference to our typical day . It means that we can start the day with breakfast in our own dining room instead of a 10 minute walk to Siloë, where the school and volunteer kitchen are situated.

So we wake, usually around 6am, if we haven’t already been woken by the street noises. It is already very warm. We have slept with a fan cooling us all night. We to put on the coffee, take a cold shower, there is no hot water in the house, anyway, and dress. This week I am trying to include bible study at this time; but it can get over looked if the phone goes or if we have to leave the house very early. Moise our Project Coordinator will come and collect the Siloe keys at around 6.15am. These keys are for the Siloe kitchen, clinic and store. This is a new arrangement as we used to always be ‘on site’ early to have our breakfast. This may change when our next set of volunteer come in, tomorrow, as they will take their breakfast at Siloe and we may need to go and help them prepare. Jeanson, our volunteer coordinator will, we hope, take on the breakfast responsibility but we need to be sure he understands an American breakfast.

Breakfast here, with or without the volunteers, is usually cereal and fruit juice. A couple of times a week we plan to cook a bigger breakfast of pancakes and bacon or scrambled egg and sausage. The teams doing construction appreciate a heartier breakfast. This gets us to about 7:15am. Teams then completes the dish washing, the first of the day – this can take up to 30 plus minutes and needs to be done with care as we do not want our teams to get sick, if we can help it. It is now 7:45 am.

At sometime during the breakfast process Mike has to remember to pick-up the ice for the drinks cooler – the ice comes from a local street vendor that provides the ice six days a week. We just have to remember to pick it up, if we don’t , she gains a block of ice, that day.

Currently, after breakfast, Brenda prepares for her one on one Creole lesson with Ernst. This can be a whole day, but usually by 3:00pm her brain has had enough and it’s an “early finish” with some home work, if possible.

Mike has a variety of meetings and projects to complete during his day. If there is a meeting he tries his hardest to have the meeting in Creole, Jeanson helps with the translations, when needed. The first meeting normally starts at 9:00am, this allows Mike some time, if possible, to return to the Staff House, where our office is, to do some administration. The meeting ends at 10:30am / 11:00am and Mike carries on with admin. Receipts and balancing the books is a task that needs to be kept on top of! Communication with the various e-mails is best done swiftly as there are always e-mails coming in and they can get lost!

Mike may have had to “pop to the bank” – our bank is in Petite Goave, 20 minutes away and if the bank is busy, it may take up to 90 minutes in the bank itself, however, this usually only takes 30 minutes.

Lunch is at 12:00

Back to 7:45 am - If there is a team of volunteers they will be taken to the appropriate job-site by Gesner or me. Jeanson and I will have previously planned the necessary tools and hope that we haven’t forgotten anything. Sometimes the job- site may be a 10 minute ride and a 15 minute walk – to have forgotten an important tool can be very frustrating, especially if the transport has already left the drop off point! Before leaving Siloë we need to be sure the team have enough water, bug spray, sun tan lotion and hats to be sure that they are ready to work; that they have used the toilet, and that the right people are getting on the transport. Once the morning process has been done a few times this process speeds up and the routine flows.

Back to Lunch – Lunch is provided by Mme Moise. She and her team cook for the Haitian construction team; the volunteers and staff are just added to the numbers – real Haitian food, cooked for Haitians, daily – the portions are hearty and the food is good; often with a Creole sauce. Beans and rice with an additional side of either meat or fish, served in a Styrofoam clam shell plate. The meat can be chicken, beef, pork or goat. The fish can be sardines or fish from the local market, caught in the bay.

We encourage the teams to rest during the hottest part of the day to be sure that they are fit and ready for the afternoon’s task. Some teams like to use the lunch time for Bible Study. Finding a shady spot one of the team prepares a topic or verse for discussion or reflection.

The afternoon starts about 1:30pm

The team is taken back to their job site. Depending on the work and the stamina of the team the work day ends at about 4:00pm, the teams all return to Siloë where they can recharge their water bottles, rest and wait for supper. Supper is served about 5:30pm and the dish washing starts about 6:15pm. It gets dark about 6:30pm and we like to get the teams back to the volunteer house around 7:00pm. Before they can be loaded up for the trip back to the volunteer house they currently need to fill 5 five gallon buckets of water so they can shower etc. before they go to bed.

For an early shower the facilities at Siloë are still available but you may not be first in the supper line! Supper is prepared, again, by Mme Moise and her staff, this time they are only cooking for the volunteers and the food is Haitian American, it is always good and often there is enough to have a bit extra; eating to keep strength and energy levels high is a good thing, because the next day it is ALL used up working in the Haitian heat.

Back to the afternoon starting at about 1:30pm If there is no team the staff continue with meetings and project work. The staff return to the Staff house at the end of the day, any time from 4:00pm to 6:30pm, and prepare the evening meal.

We are currently getting to know each other’s routines so the evenings may be a board game, computer correspondence, reading books, chatting or quietly sitting outside star gazing. Brenda and I turn the lights out at 10:00pm.

Our beds have mosquito nets and some of us burn the mosquito coils too to keep the critters at bay as we drift off to sleep; resting for the start of a new day.

Our Sunday Worship

2010-09-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

The church was structurally damaged in the earthquake, although it did not fall down it cannot be used. Previously the local church had taken the roof off and it is stored for future use.
We worship outside under tarps, on the grounds next to the church and school buildings. We have been blessed with good weather since I have been here so I do not know what happens if it is raining!
Our worship service starts at 9:00 am. All takes place in Creole, of course. At the moment Brenda, Tori and I are the only people that are not local.

The service starts after Sunday school. There are two classes, one for children and one for adults. At the start of the service the register is read out of the attendance, how many boy, girls, ladies, men, and number of visitors. Each group also record how many bibles were brought and the amount of collection received.

The children then recite their memory verse to the whole congregation and that is followed by the adults reciting their verse.

The Haitians love to sing, their hymn book is split up into several sections and if you own a book, most do not, you need to listen carefully to not only the number of the hymn but the section of the hymn book that it is in. Hymns are sung in French or Creole. I have been told that they sometimes sing in English but that has not occurred since I have been here.

We sing two or three hymns back to back. The music is from an electronic keyboard and Jeanson, our music director, plays notes until one of the notes matches the lead singer of the current hymn, then knowing that note he then fills in the rest of the notes with chords and the tune if he knows it.

There is a microphone too and both the microphone and the keyboard are turned to the max to be sure that everyone can hear. If the lead singer feels so inclined the hymn’s chorus may be sung three or four times at the end of a hymn. Clapping and additional words can be added to the hymns as the congregation feel lead to do so.

Our church sings beautifully, there are many great voices and their singing is very uplifting.

There are repetitive responses that are interjected into the service at any time, in the US it may be that the pastor would say “God is Good, all the time” and the congregation would respond “All the time, God is Good”

We have a time of prayer. This is done first by the lay member praying for the general well-being of the community and praises for being here on a Sunday and then the congregation have the opportunity to pray out loud their own praises and petitions to The Lord.

A collection is taken up while we sing another hymn and this is followed by the reading of a Psalm. Most weeks the congregation reads a verse followed by the Pastor, back and forth. This wee k we all read the whole of Psalm 96.

This is followed by a hymn and then the sermon; another hymn and the blessing closes the service. Most Sundays the service is about two hours and we all greet each other at the end of the service with “God Bless You” “Bondye beni ou”.

There are about 100 people that attend church, including about 10 to 15 children. What is always remarked by our volunteers is “How do they keep their Sunday clothes so clean and well pressed?” The Haitian community really to dress for church, every Sunday, and the clothes they wear are always clean, pressed and looking their best. Shoes are clean, most men wear ties and many wear jackets. Ladies wear dresses or shirts and blouses.

It is an open air service so we have people that will walk through and no one minds, children will get up and walk out and sometimes their friend may follow. Goats, chickens and dogs come and go as they please and of course carry on their business clueless to the fact that they are in the House of the Lord!

Children sit at the front of the congregation and do their best to remain as quiet as possible and do a remarkable job, few fidget, most pay attention.

Our church currently does not have a permanent Pastor. We have a guest pastors preach or lay members preach. Once a month a Pastor from CBH will preach and offer Communion.

While the service is long, by our standards, the time goes by quickly. Brenda and I work hard to try and understand the sermon, it helps if we are quick enough to understand the bible verses that are read, and this week it was Mark Ch 4 verses 35-41 Jesus calms the storm. The main theme of the sermon was that we can rely on Jesus for everything.

Week Eight - ending Sunday 12th September

2010-09-12T15:19:00.000-07:00

Posting by both Mike and Brenda
Prayer requests

Huge praise that three of the four Haitians that applied for US transit visas were granted. The will be going to Ethiopia to see the Self Help Group program functioning and for training.
Prayers for the four candidate application to be reviewed swiftly and that she too is granted the transit visa.
It is hoped that the first six class room of the school will be completed in time for the start of the school semester, on October 4th. This is a big undertaking and will require good team work.
Brenda’s Creole lessons and Mike’s continued use of the language
The drilling and water projects that are being discussed this week.

Mike’s bit
This week
It has been a different week. Most weeks are different from the week before and this was no different! Tim has gone, Brenda is here and I am adjusting to the change. We also have no teams here this week.

The house has some more plumbing completed and there is more furniture in the house but it is not yet complete. Things are shaping up; I am trying to keep the ball rolling. Some weeks roll slower than others!

Moise has made contact with the CHE/EKS coordinators in the north of Haiti and we are looking forward to the first meeting with the coordinators within the month, here in Grand Goave. This has great potential as a transformational program. The program develops the local communities to see the values and personal attributes of their neighbors and that together they can change their own communities from within. It has had great success elsewhere in Haiti and we can’t wait to see if its potential can be realized here too.

Tori has been working hard to assist the Self Help Group (SHG) candidates in them obtaining their US transit visas for the travel to Ethiopia. By the end of this week we had three of the four visas approved. Tori continues to work with the US embassy to have the fourth visa application reviewed.

I worked with Ernst, Jeanson and Makinley to complete the walls for Luses’s house. Sorry, I forgot my camera again. On Friday we fabricated the windows for the house and they are currently being painted I hope to have them installed this next week. This of course assumes that the weather is good to complete the painting and that we can schedule the time to do the installation. The family that is getting the house is very pleased to see us when we work on their new home and they enjoy interacting with us as the progress is made.

The satellite communications are working, finally. It was a struggle to move the equipment over to the volunteer house and set it all up on that roof to prove that there was no change in the readings; however, the technical helpdesk, in California, did access the equipment and permanently changed some settings. After moving all the equipment back to the staff house, and back to the roof, it is now functioning.

The construction of the school continues and next week the first five rooms will start to have the inside walls, ceilings and floors completed. It is hoped that these, plus the sixth room will be completed in time for the start of the school semester, on October 4th. Please keep this in your prayers.

Tori got the Self Help Group team prepared for the US embassy interviews. She also was in Port on Friday for the second interviews for two of our candidates.

Tori completed a clinic at Mt. Sinai. It had rained hard the night before and the team needed to return for the canter truck, as the pick-up could not make it up the mountain!

Brenda’s bit
I have completed my first week in Grand Goave. The week has passed by very quickly and I am getting used to the new routine. I am very grateful to Mike and Tori who have made a big effort to make me welcome and comfortable. I am also very grateful for all that Tim did prior to my arrival to get the house more like a home. I am able to sleep well in our bed and during the week a wardrobe arrived to complete our bedroom furniture. The rest of the house is clean and slowly acquiring the furnishing and fittings to complete the transformation from house to home.

I have concentrating on learning Creole for most of the week with Ernst, my very patient teacher. I still have a long way to go before I can participate in and understand conversations, but hope to make further progress this coming week. On Thursday I was honored by an invitation from a group of church ladies, to enjoy a day at the beach with them and their young children. It was lovely to have a change of scenery and get away from concrete buildings and dust to enjoy the brilliant blue sea with a group of new friends, even if we could not really talk to each other!

Week Seven - Ending Saturday 4th September

2010-09-06T19:37:00.000-07:00

Posted by Mike & Brenda!!

Prayer request

Thanks for Brenda’s safe travels and arrival, back together with Mike.
Thanks for Tim Brendle – he is a lamp to our feet and a guide for our hearts.
Thanks for the Haitian community – their ongoing support for Mike and Brenda during this time of transition.
Brenda and Mike’s Creole lessons / learning continue day by day, increasing in their fluency and ability to communication with the Haitian community, in their own language.

The week’s events

It was a very busy week. I was both sad to see Tim Brendle go and glad that he was returning home for a long, well earned, rest. Tim has worked tirelessly the whole time I have been here. He is definitely an inspiration to us all. It was good to see the senior members of the team come to our home, on Tuesday evening, to give a personal “Goodbye” to Tim.

As Tim’s departure was at the end of a month it seemed appropriate that I took over the books at the end of August. In order to understand the process more fully Tim spent some time working through the month end processes, with me, to be sure it all made sense. We will truly find out at the end of September!

On Tuesday I got the beds from the furniture store, four beds and three sets of headboard connectors!! Luckily we did not get the mattresses until Saturday and by then there are only two beds that need to be occupied! The last set are meant to be picked up this week.

Tim flew back to the US on Wednesday. The trip into Port-au-Prince got held up, due to traffic, and we ended up seeing areas of the city that I doubt I’ll see again. We went up and down many, many small streets, in an attempt to bypass the hold-up, Tim, and the rest of us were getting a little concerned that we would not make it to the airport in time, but , Gesner, our driver, did get us there and Tim made the flight. As we were in the city we took the opportunity to do some more shopping. I had miscalculated how much money I needed so opted to withdraw some more from the bank. I will now try to make sure I don’t have to do that again! It took nearly 3 hours of queuing for a 15 minute transaction! We put a deposit on the drilling of two water wells in Grand Goave, one is a community well at our Volunteer house. This will be a solar driven pump. We will set up water tanks on the roof of the volunteer house that will be used to provide water for the community of approximately 300 people. When the sun shines we are hoping to pump up to 6 gallons a minute. The other well is for a community just outside Grand Goave. It is being drilled in the same community where we built one of the tin framed house. This well will be a hand pump as there are too many mango trees blocking the sun. They currently draw their water from a spring at the river, however, every time there is bad weather their spring requires to be re-dug.

We had a strange EDH power bill that required some investigation at the local EDH office and while I tried to do the talking Ernst, my language guide, ended up in the conversation a lot more than I did, but we sorted it out and everyone was happy. I did a few more things to the house, as Brenda arrived on Saturday. There was the continuing upgrading of the plumbing; actually cleaning the house a bit more thoroughly than I had before and the preparation for the chance that we would not find the mattress shop and that Brenda may have had to sleep on the floor, with me!

Tori completed two local clinics, one at Glase and the other at Siloe, our church school. I was able to complete two hospital runs during the Glase clinic for patients that Tori felt needed doctors to assist. One older gentleman was so sick that he could hardly walk to the car with the assistance of his sons. The other was a young boy who had gashed his knee very badly and needed stitches. The lad was very brave as Tori cleaned the wound, he did not cry out or complain.

I continue to work on my Creole and, at times surprise myself how well I do and then have conversations when I realize how much more there is to learn; I continue to be encouraged by the community to learn and that is a huge boost for me.

A simple, but great thing is that I can now sign all my e-mails Mike and Brenda Harwood. Brenda and I use the same PC so, look out, we read each other’s e-mail. Brenda is still the only Facebooker but while our communications are slow I am not sure how much Facebooking she will be able to do!

Brenda’s bit…..

Well I am finally here and life is very different. It’s great to be reunited with Mike, though I have a strange feeling of déjà vu as if we are newly-weds again living in a big house with very little furniture; just as we started out in South Africa 23 years ago!

Haiti isn’t quite as I expected. The devastation isn’t quite as bad as I feared, but it is still overwhelming in some areas we drove past. So many buildings are still leaning precariously and so much trade happens on the road side; in the space between piles of rubble and slabs of concrete. There are few smooth patches of roads so we had a long bumpy ride, on Saturday, from Port au Prince to Grand Goave. Mike had purchased our new mattresses before picking me up, from the airport, and they were strapped to the roof of the king cab pick-up truck. There were 4 mattresses and 4 boxes covered by a tarp and it was amazing that we only had to stop once to re-secure them as we had to transverse some pretty large pot holes and ford a river close to Grand Goave as the bridge is unsafe to cross, due to earthquake damage.

Compared to Palm City we are living very simply. We have cold gravity showers, running water which is not safe for drinking, tiled floor with no rugs and no glass in the windows. Everything is dusty, no kitchen and no a/c. Compared to our neighbors, though, we live in a palace, we are safe and dry.

Everyone has been so polite and friendly towards me. I am beginning to learn Creole and the locals are encouraging and obviously pleased to hear my attempts at communication. One day I hope to complete a whole sentence, but it will take a while! Today, Mike was asked if I would like to go to the beach with the ladies from the church on Thursday morning; this should make for an interesting outing as I am not sure if any of the ladies will speak English and my Creole is barely on the basic level, but I appreciate being included.

On Wednesday Mike, and others, is moving our satellite dish from our house to the volunteer house to see if we can get an internet connection through the satellite dish. It is frustrating that we have such a slow or non connection for much of the time, especially as we are sharing a computer. Internet time is limited. I hope to reconnect to Facebook and load some photos but it is impossible at the moment.

Google maps are amazing

2010-08-30T13:34:00.000-07:00

Looking at the satellite image of Grand Gôave I realized that you can zoom in enough to see our town quite clearly.

The image is before this year, so you cannot see all the blue tents that currently have so many people in them.

Church School (and church)
Google coordinates 18.428124,-72.767738
Geographical coordinates +18° 25' 41.25", -72° 46' 3.86"

Have a look around the town. You can see how close we are to the river, and the sea. We have had a sea breeze perhaps three times – when the breeze comes in from the sea it is very welcome, but that is rare.

There is a large cemetery in the middle of the town.

We are Grand Gôave, we are the smaller of the two sisters. If you look to the West, along the coast you will see our larger neighbor, Petit Gôave.

Week Six - Ending Saturday 28th Aug

2010-08-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

Posted by Mike
Prayer Requests

Please keep us all in your prayers that we all listen to the Lord as He guides us through the transition.
Travel mercies for Tim, as he returns home and for Brenda as she arrives in Haiti.

This week
It was an administration week. We had visitors from both Atlanta and Cap Haitian. We all met in Grand Goave for our Six Month Review meeting. The meeting lasted most of one and into the next; was long but useful. It allowed a number of items to be aired, discussed and plans made to move forward. The opportunity for the home office, field and long distance staff to meet face to face and talk things through was invaluable.

While I did not have any official Creole lessons this week I tried hard to engage my language skills when at all possible. I believe that I understand more Creole, however, I do need to be sure that I am not making assumptions on what I think I heard. I need to explain, in Creole, of what I have heard to confirm that it is indeed what was said!

Our Volunteer count was small. We had the company of Victoria and Keri. These ladies were with us for two weeks. They were able to work at both construction and medical; assisting Tori in two local clinics this week. They left early on Sunday, after a complex rearrangement of flights, due to an airline change that they had no control over. I think that after that experience we can all agree that cheapest flights are not always the most cost effective option. The ladies were good humored about the changes even though they have college classes stating on Monday morning about 12 hours after they got in to Dallas airport.

I drove up and back to Port-au-Prince twice this week. On Tuesday we picked up our Atlanta colleagues from the airport. We used the trip to also change Victoria and Keri’s ticket. It was a good thing that Tim was with us as him language skills persuaded the lady behind the desk to make the change, or at least the part out of Haiti to Miami. The second trip into port was for meetings and the return flight for our Atlanta colleagues. On this trip in Tim took the opportunity to show me some of the important places in Port-au-Prince that he has used while he has been here. Also worth noting is that I had a night in a hotel that boasted an air conditioner – cool air all night.

While we were in Port-au-Prince, the second time, we took the opportunity to carry up the first installment of mosquito nets and a number of bucket filters to the Convention Baptist d’Haiti (CBH). We are hoping to take up an additional number of mosquito nets on future trips to Port. The mosquito nets were a donation from HIS Ministries and the filters were a donation from Texas Baptist Men.

On Saturday we continued to work on the house. In the morning we carried our satellite up a tower, on the roof, to see if we could get better reception. We did get better reception but still not enough to get the modem to “kick in”; this remains a frustration for us all.

{insert photo here!!There is not enough bandwidth to upload photos - It should be a photo of the satellite dish on the roof, on the tower}

In the afternoon we picked up 2/3rds of our furniture, our house is becoming our home. While it took two trips to pick it up it is amazing what the furniture store was able to pack on the Nissan pick-up. While we were doing the furniture run Victoria and Keri were doing some more plumbing for the staff house. Tori can now boast a real shower in her bathroom too.

Matt from Conscience International arrived this week. The organization is building Rubble Homes in the Port area and here in Grand Goave too. Matt was “commuting” between sites. Conscience International has hired a local crew to build the Rubble Homes. CBF will be working together, with CI, to see how we can utilize our volunteers in this building process; there has been a lot of interest in churches working on these houses.

Next week it is a week of change. We have no volunteers, Tim Brendle is leaving, on Wednesday, and I will be picking up the responsibility as the coordinator.

Brenda is arriving on Saturday, and not a moment too soon. We have struggled being apart for this long – it will be over 7 weeks when we see each other again. I am sure that within days of us being together the seven weeks will be a fading memory but I will think twice about this sort of arrangement another time. God put us together 23 years ago and we kind of like it that way!

Week Five - ending Saturday 21st August

2010-08-22T18:38:00.000-07:00

Posted by Mike
Prayer requests

Please pray for all of us, in Grand Goave, we will be a large group as we receive our colleagues from Cap Haitian and Atlanta. We are gathering for internal meetings and visits this next week (24th-26th). As we complete all our business please pray that we will seek to continue to hear God’s voice in all that we do and say. Please pray that the people around us will see Jesus through our lives as we live them, daily.
Please always have all aspects of my language skills in your prayers
The official change over from Tim to me, this week. I will be in charge and Tim will guide me from the back. I know it will not be easy and I will make mistakes – I need to be humble, learn from the experience and try to live on the positive successes, each day.
Continued safety on the construction site.
Thanks giving that Brenda and Clare had a safe journey back to Florida, from the UK.

This week
The majority of my time was utilized as the Volunteer Coordinator, working alongside Jeanson. I would work with one team, Jeanson with the other; at times the team was split three ways and Tim helped out with team coordination with the third team.

There were two teams from Texas Baptist. The team of 16 from College Station and another team of 3. Together they required a lot of management.

They were are very loving, hard working and productive team. During the week we accomplished a lot, however, due to their enthusiasm we were kept on our toes to keep up with the supplies and projects needed to keep them occupied.

Tori completed two mobile medical clinics, doing return visits up the mountain to places they had visited last week. The demand had been so high that the last clinic had not been able to see all the people that had queued. Tori and the team were able to see all that had been given a number from the last visit and a few more patients as well.

The construction team completed the following –

Assistance with the roof pour – the pour was done in one shift and used 250 bags of cement. Moise had recruited a number of local day laborer the Volunteers kept the cement mixer with a supply of sand, gravel and cement. The only two non manual items used all day was the cement mixer and the concrete vibrator, to remove air from the concrete, once poured in place. The task was well orchestrated and fast.
Moved a significant number of large rocks to the edge of the next foundation of the school
Covered the sides steel framed house at the school with mesh – this will be used to apply a Haitian stucco, we are not sure how we will finish the inside but we have several ideas. Cost and final use of the building will probably have a part in the final decision.
Covered the sides steel framed house at Lyes with tin. This house will have a plywood interior to complete the walls. Both these steel houses were a gift from Volunteers of America (Southeast), out of Mobile, AL.
Cleaned the Tool Room and rearranged it to use the space for effectively. This was a very pleasant surprise and a very welcome one. We were able to enter the tool room and find a specific item without having to look for more than 30 seconds!
Actively engaged with the local children – children the world over do not need language to enjoy each other’s company, something adults could learn from! The team had three teenagers with them and the local children soon tracked them down. The children had great fun trying to spot the children’s parents amongst the rest of the group. Coloring, basket ball, and other ball games were popular as were hand games – the Haitian children had better rhythm and won the majority other those games.
Volunteer house plumbing & electrical. Each team that works on the house make it better to the next team.
Staff house painting, plumbing, electrical trouble shooting and assistance in moving our satellite dish around the roof – more on that later. Our staff house is starting to feel like a home. While we are still sleeping on the floor week by week things are done and arranged that I feel it is better each week. We now have two water tanks on the roof. This allows us to store up to 300 gallons. The electrical system is bit by bit being trouble shot (!) and things are being corrected.

Throughout the week I had Ernst with me and all that I did, interacting with the locals I would endeavor to speak Creole, and, if I was not understood on the second or third attempt Ernst would help me out and then, out of ear shot of the locals, would correct my Creole. This was frustrating but a good practical way to continue to solidify my Creole.

I finished off the week with a very full day in Port-au-Prince. The team needed two vehicles to get to the airport, safely. The teams had come in in two batches and the large group had been misplaced half their luggage on the way in, so when they arrived they fitted in the single vehicles that had been sent to pick them up. On their return to Port, however, even though they were leaving a large number of trucks two vehicles were needed. We were up at 3:45 am. I drove the pick-up, Tori came to make sure that if I got lost she would be able to help me get back to the right place. We followed the Canter truck all the way. Jesne is a very good driver and if I was separated due to traffic he would pull over and wait for me. Driving in Port-au-Prince was an experience. I had to have my wits about me, have eyes on the side of my head and be quick with the accelerator and the brake. After dropping off the team, at the airport we got to go grocery shopping. While that may be mundane, to most people, it is a note worthy point in our lives in Grand Goave; in fact this trip was my first trip outside the area since my arrival. I actually got the pick-up into 5th gear!!. Two of the team are staying two weeks and we were told that they have ticket changes. The people at the airport told them to go to the ticketing office in down town Port-au-Prince. We had a wild goose chase looking for the ticketing office that turned out not to be open on Saturdays!

The road that we drove up and down two or three times was quite a site. The buildings ranged from completely collapsed to perfectly un-harmed. Sometimes the extremes were side by side. How the city can plan to clear it all away to re-build must be are real nightmare to work out. There were street vendors all the way up and down the street selling most things and in a few side streets that we drove down it was obvious that commerce was taking place. Car repair shops, welders, and tire shops were very visible and all active in traffic.

We made use of one of the repair shops as the Canter brakes were fixed/maintained. After paying up for the repair we were able to make our own way home as Jesne had a stop on the way back to purchase of re-bar for the school construction.

We got back at 4pm; approximately 100 miles in 12 hours. Jesne arrived back at 6pm having only done a minor detour for the steel.

Brenda and Clare, flew in to Florida, on Friday evening. On their trip they used, a car, a bus, a plane, a train and a car. I am sure that they walked a lot too. I was able to skype text them on Saturday evening and found them tired but happy to be back in Palm City. I am not sure if living in the house with the hurricane shutters still up will be very much fun for two weeks but it does mean that Brenda is closer to arriving in Haiti.

The countdown has started for her arrival, here, on 4th September. Tim Brendle leaves Haiti on September 1st and I will miss him, a lot. We continue to make the staff house a home. This week we started the purchase of furniture. Hopefully there will be bed for Brenda before she arrives. We have agreed with a local carpenter on the process to install/make and install all the internal doors in the house too. At the moment there are only doors at the front and the back of the house – all rooms are open so there is little privacy; doors will make a huge difference.

At the start of this week Tim was able to release the satellite communications system from customs and he set it up quite quickly, however after a call to the CA help desk it became apparent that we have clouds and/or trees in the line of sight of the disk to the satellite. This is not good – the trees are a) not on our property b) they are mango trees. You do not cut or trim mango trees here in Haiti! We are trying to think outside the box and believe that we need to hire scaffolding to build a tower to see how high it has to be to see over the trees and over enough that in six months it will not require a new addition to the tower! When we did get the signal working we have 54 Mbs – over five times more that either our local internet provider or our “dongle”.

With the pending change over from Tim to me there is some concern – Tim has been such a tremendous mentor that there will be a hole when he leaves.

We have a number of colleagues coming to town, this week, as mentioned above. We hope we have a good exchange of ideas and the plans for the next six months are God centered and God inspired.

Week Four - ending Saturday 14th August

2010-08-14T14:45:00.000-07:00

Posted by Mike

Prayer requests

Please always have my language skills in your prayers – and not always me – but the recipients of my practice; that they can actually understand what I am trying to say!
Continued safety on the construction site.
Thanks giving that my Mum and Dad had a safe vacation and returned home well, and I think, rested.
That the Grand Goave staff continue to serve with a servants’ heart and that the people we interact with do see Jesus through our actions.

This week
I worked directly with the volunteer group from Ardmore Baptist Church construction team, giving Tim an opportunity to complete office work and take a trip to PAP to start the processing of articles currently in customs. This week I was “boss”, driver, supplier and team “focus guy”.

Tim took the trip in a Tap-Tap – I will try and get a representative photo of a Tap-tap soon – think of a regular Nissan pick-up, (not a kingcab); put a metal hutch on the back, take the tailgate off and weld another 9 to 12 inches on the back (to fit three more people) then paint it with vivid colors. Now add 12 people in the back area, 3 on the back, and one or two in the front + the driver – you have a Tap-Tap! It drives as fast as they can go because the more trips they can do the more money they can make!

Tori had a full week of field clinics, 5 in all, and one of the clinics was at Siloe (home base). She had the Ardmore medical team, two doctors and two helpers plus Tori’s friend, a RN and the translators – a good sized group, seeing well over 100 people every day they were able to cover a lot of ground. However, Tori will be returning to at least two places next week to see people that did not get seen, as they ran out of time.

Monday "started" with our normal staff meeting at 9:00am – these meetings last about 90 to 120 minutes – they are run in Creole and I am involved and understand the general discussion points and Tim is sure to revert to English, as I am, if there is a point that needs clarification.

The Ardmore team related well with the Haitian youth and they were, at times, tough to keep focused but they did complete the building of the frame and roof of the second metal framed house. The house was donated by Volunteers of America Southeast, Mobile, AL. It was built for a family just outside of Grand Goave and all the materials had to be walked in from the road – the distance changed from 1/3 to ½ a mile depending on the day of the week and who was asking! Carrying 94lb bags of cement either distance is a long way! The family for whom we built the house were very much involved in the work and they fed the team with a number of fresh, local, food – it was all eaten and I think I can say none of them got sick.

During the week I had Ernst with me and we were able to continue with the language training. I would murder the language but get what I wanted across and he would then explain the right way to say it! It is still very obvious that I am thinking in English as I speak in Creole as I have my adjectives, nouns and verbs all in the English positioning. It is frustrating. When Ernst explains I can, most times, immediately see my errors. He is very positive and continues to remind me to pray, a lot. This week he did say my Creole is getting a good base.

After some work by the local water company we have a more sustainable water supply. We have an inverter/battery system in the Staff house, it has improved our lives now that we now have 24hr power – the fans in our bedrooms have definitely improved our night’s sleep.

Next week we have 3 medical and 16 construction. It is my understanding that they are all college age.

I have been here for a month, now, it does not seem to have been that long – I can only assume that that means I am still enjoying it and I am acclimatizing well. When the three of us arrived at Siloe, this morning, for breakfast, the school construction team were working on the roof I heard them say, with a smile, “the Americans has left and only the Haitians have come for breakfast.” The community here does make us feel at home.

The imminent departure of Tim does hold some concern for me as I will be The Boss on 1st Sept., however, with continued prayer, hard work and the community’s support I hope the transition will be smooth – I do recognize that it will not be perfect!

For the readers that are new to this blog thing I think that you can register as a “follower” and every time I post an update you are e-mailed at least I think that is what happens! Some might find that worthwhile – others may not! My brother Ian, and Anja, were the first to follow this blog – well done to Ian and Anja.

Week Three – ending Sunday 8th August

2010-08-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

Posted by Mike

Prayer requests

That we all continue to serve with a servant’s heart
Safety on the medical team as they drive out and conduct medical clinics in the surrounding area – five in five days.
Constant travel mercies as we drive around both locally and to and from Port-au-Prince
Mike’s ability to continue to learn Creole. Not to lose sight, nor will or to get despondent as he moves forward with the language.
Please prayer to Ernst, Mike’s language guide, to have the patience and wisdom needed to help Mike!

What is my diet?

It is sometimes hard to accept God’s bounty towards us when people around us are far less fortunate. I believe I am losing weight. It is very hot here and I am drinking about 6 to 8 pints of water a day without it feeling like too much. We eat three meals a day.

Breakfast is “American” – cereal, juice and if we are up early enough once a week we may get pancakes and bacon or eggs and toast.

Lunch and Supper are prepared by our local cooking staff. They prepare lunch for the construction crew and we eat whatever they are cooking for them. Beans and Rice, Maize and Beans, Sago/Millet and Beans – the meal comes with a Creole sauce, spicy and often with onion. There is meat; chicken, beef or goat. Some days we will get fish.

Supper is a more American style of cooking, pastas, stews and a like.

There is a lot of fruit. Mangos are in season, cherries, avocados are delicious, papaya, water melon and some local fruits. Our garden has 5 or 6 fruit trees of various types- I hope most of them will still be bearing fruit when Brenda gets here, in September.

Work

This week has been a week of consolidation with my Creole. I have high expectation of my learning and reached a plateau this week. Talking to Tim he says I should expect plateaus and not to be discouraged. I had three days of “class room” studies and two days working with Tim and my language guide helping me, as we tried to speak Creole during our work/administration tasks. We continued to work on the power in the staff house, scout out some possibilities for furniture too and engage, again, with the plumbing.

This week I have participated more with the volunteer planning with a review of the calendar and hope over the next few weeks to work closer with Chris Boltin on how to best plan the volunteer schedule. Next week will be a roller-coaster ride with two teams coming in. One for construction with 16 people college age volunteers and the second team of 3, for medical, again, college age volunteers.

Week three was the last four days of Harry’s volunteer team from Ohio. They worked on construction assistance, at the school, medical work with Tori and finished off some construction and painting at the staff house. Our team from Ohio left very early on Thursday. This gave all three of us our first break from volunteers in a long time. For Tori and I it was our first break. We were able to get some much needed administration and staff house work done on Thursday and Friday. The next team came in on Saturday.

We had a pleasant, short, site visit with Jenny. Jenny will be replacing Tori at the end of her assignment, in September. Jenny had a morning to drive down, from PAP, and see where she will be living. We enjoyed the fellowship and the exchange of information.

I have been frustrated with my language progress, however, I did get out and buy stuff on one or two occasions that required me speaking Creole and while I did have others with me I believe I did the majority of the purchasing, a good step in the process of getting out into the community and being understood. I continue to be encouraged by the community as I slowly improve my language skills and I have to always remind myself that I must not expect to speak Creole to Tim’s level until I have been in Haiti as long as he has!

The Lord continues to bless me and our work here. I remain positive about this opportunity and I continue to enjoy my Creole , even if Ernst makes me work hard!

Week Two – ending Sunday 1st August

2010-08-03T15:18:00.001-07:00

Posted by Mike

Week Two – ending Sunday 1st August

Prayer requests
They are the same as last week
• Safety on the construction site, Grand Guave, Haiti
• Constant travel mercies as we drive around both locally and to and from Port-au-Prince
• Mike’s ability to continue to learn Creole, at a fast pace; and have the courage to get out and practice with people that he does not know.
• That we all continue to serve with a servant’s heart

This week
Life is now getting into a rhythm. It is began to feel normal. I am very happy. I commented to someone that I have had to adjust what “normal” is and that “A good night’s sleep” is not necessarily the same as what it may have been only a three weeks ago.

This week I have continued to work hard with Ernst, my language guide, on my Creole. Some of the community will speak to me and are patient enough for me to get over what I am trying to say; outside the community, when the locals speak normally, they speak fast, and I am still quite unable to understand them. I am doing an average of about 5 ½ hrs a day of language “school” and when possible tie it in to small projects that I can get involved in – Ernst and I did painting one day while I learnt numbers – this was to help me at the shops; paint strokes and counting have a synergy and we got a few additional walls painted at the same time. I have realized that I would be lost without my hands; they are remarkably versatile at language when the need arises!

I am comfortable driving both the pickup and the canter truck vehicles around Grand Guave, the truck has an “interesting” gearing but I think I have mastered that. I guess that it may be better to ask the passengers if I am, in fact, a good driver!

The roads are not smooth and I have learnt you just have to drive in the middle of the street, remembering to look on both sides of your vehicle for people, bicycles and for motorbikes passing you in either direction, as well as other cars, trucks and animals! At night not all have lights!! There are construction rubble, construction sand and gravel piles and trash all by, or in both sides of the road to help in the slalom course.

On Saturday Tikami took me to the market. We walked there through the walkways in between the homes of the communities. These communities were both tent cities, homes that survived the earthquake as well as some more permanent housing that has been built since January. The market is laid out with stalls all over the place and small paths between them. There were people hawking goods as they walked. I saw a child selling four manky lettuces. Some people were up selling their goods with a true marketing spirit. I enjoyed walking around and seeing all the “action” of all the people, the noises, the smells and the other smells too!! Buying meat and fish takes on a whole new concept!! We were there to buy two wash basins and while Tikami did the initial purchase I was able to hear and understand the cost and was able to provide the right notes. This was a small victory for me.

Late on Saturday, Tim was able to track down the entry point for the water for both the bathrooms, that had been quite a mystery for us. Over the coming weeks we hope to have functional bathrooms – this will be a welcome development in the staff house.

There were three volunteer teams during the week. It was a blessing that there was never more than two groups at any one time!

• On Monday and Tuesday we team here, of 18 people; that were here for food and clothing distribution. It was well received by the community.
• Construction of the School – concrete mixing and the throwing of the beams is a very manual process with buckets of mixed concrete being passed in a bucket line to be poured 10-12 feet above ground. Some of the team ran wheel barrows and joined in with the bucket line. In the summer heat this is quite a task, even for the locals that are used to the temperatures.
• Electrical work on the volunteer house so that the volunteers can see without needing their flashlights at the end of the day.
• The construction of a structure on the staff house roof to cover the steps coming up from the back patio – there is a lot of water coming in during the rains and this will hopefully assist in keeping the rain out, when it is finished.
• Painting of the staff house – there is currently an on-going painting project to make the staff house a staff home, for the long term staff.

Brenda and I are pleased that we are able to remain in contact, via e-mail, and we both remain committed to this assignment. As I go into the community I realize how important language is. Haitians are a relational people and if I can’t talk to them I feel I would be missing a huge opportunity for communication, encouragement and understanding. I recognize that in the first six weeks I will not be fluent in Creole but I do see a good improvement in my vocabulary this week and my ability to construct better sentences that are understood!
With God’s continued guidance, the patience of the community and more hard work by me, the language will come. I look forward to next week with as much enthusiasm as I have the prior two.

I have been sent a link of a You Tube video made by the Winterpark Baptist, Wilmington, North Carolina team; that were here my first week – I haven’t seen it – internet connection - but I’m sure it is worth a look http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBFVoAzIaPY

Every day that we have state side volunteers here, in Grand Guave, it is a work day for the staff – we are VERY pleased to have the teams here as their involvement in this community is a constant lift to people. I am surprised that I get very little time to myself during the day and at the end of the day when I might make time, I am tired, hence my comment earlier, that I sleep well. I am also very surprised that I have not listened to any music since I have been here! I am also no longer "on the web" a lot. The only time I am I have a specific need and I get what I want; that in itself may take a lot longer than you may think and I log off.

Sunday afternoon we took our current volunteer team to the beach. It may be a half an hour drive down a very bumpy road but the beach is very beautiful. The place used to be quite quiet but now everyone knows about it. While the beach is not private, all the land to get to the beach is – and one property has become a rap disco place and their music can be heard a mile away, I’m sure!! The water was fresh, on the warm side and the corals are very close to the beach. We swan and Tim arranged so food for us, Sunday evening being “cook for ourselves”. I believe that everyone enjoy the break.

Week One - ending Saturday July 24th

2010-07-25T08:54:00.000-07:00

Posted by Mike
Prayer requests

Safety on the construction site, Grand Goave, Haiti
Constant travel mercies as we drive around both locally and to and from Port-au-Prince
Mike’s ability to continue to learn Creole at a fast pace
That we all continue to serve with a servant’s heart

General
I thought I would start the blog by using the e-mails I have been sending to Brenda, my wife, this week, however, when I pasted them together it was eight pages long – there is so much I want to pass on but I really think that that is too much!

To recap the assignment – I am here for three months, Brenda, due to prior family commitments will, sadly, only be able to join me at the beginning of September.

Brenda and I are scheduled to relieve Tim Brendle as the joint CBF Haiti Earthquake response coordinator. Tim leaves at the beginning of September so I have six weeks over lap.

It is our prayer that we will be able to commit to a long tern residency here in Grand Guave, at the end of our three month assignment.

CBF – Cooperative Baptist Fellowship www.thefellowship.info are the organization that are working with the CBH – Constitution Baptiste d’Haiti, here in Grand Guave.

Overall
There are five points in the CBF response plan, to be worked on over a three to four year basis understanding that the start point was the earthquake of January 11 2010.

Reconstruction
WASH program – Water and Sanitation and Health
Micro economic self help groups
Medical Clinics and primary triage (NOT long term medical care)
Mental Health

There are several other programs and partnerships that we may be involved in as the Lord guides us and we see where there is a synergy in the partners overall mission statement with ours.

Location and environment
We are located in Grand Guave. Please see previous Blog entry for the location of Grand Guave. While the initial staff and US volunteers were housed in tents, at the construction site; we are now housed in brick homes. This is vastly superior to the tents everyone were living in until the last week. The tents can reach 130F during the day. We now sleep away from the construction site allowing the staff some time out and an opportunity to work without too many interruptions, questions, greetings or being side tracked.

At this present time the staff house has electricity, but only when the grid is turned on – 6pm to 6 am – maybe, if we are lucky. We have water on to the property, and this weekend we finally got water into the house in the kitchen, but still nowhere else. All showers and toilet flushing is with a bucket and the water is currently collected from a well, down the road.

The volunteer house is better with the water into the house; however, they need to collect the water from the well to fill the tank, on the roof. The volunteers carry five 5 gallon buckets to the house, each day, at the end of the day, to refill the tank. The initial fill was completed by the Winter Park Baptist Church, NC, crew in the middle of a rain storm – getting very wet they realized that a full tank and free water was not something to be missed. The house has no power from the grid – EDH (the local FPL) does not reach that area of the town, however, we have supplied the house with a generator, so the teams can switch on the lights every time they run the generator.

We currently eat at the construction site – the school, run by the local Baptist church, is being re-built. Volunteers get their own breakfast and the lunch and supper are cooked by the local church volunteers – the food is local food, we all need to be prepared to be adventurous with our eating habits.

At the weekends or when the volunteers are not here the staff cook for themselves.

At the construction site we have a very well designed battery, solar, inverter, generator and local grid power system so we have 120 volt power 24 hours a day, though the batteries. The refrigerator, water cooler, water purifier and gas stove provide us with what we need. There is also an internet connection but that cannot be relied upon.

The construction site boasts flushing toilets and showers, both plumbed from the well to two 200 gallon head tanks.

Who’s who
There are several members of the community that work with Tim Brendle or Tori Wentz. I am sure that if I wrote their names I would butcher them, so I won’t start. From my count I think there are seven people that work directly with Tim or Tori.

There are, in Haiti, currently three staff, from the US, for the CBF response team.

Tim Brendle - He is the current CBF Coordinator. Tim truly does have a servant’s heart and a love for the people.
Tori Wentz – Registered Nurse . Tori runs the medical clinic and when she came back, last Monday, it was very evident that she too has won the hearts of this community.
Me – “in training”

Daily routine
The community rises with the sun – it rises about 5am so the community starts to wake at 4:30am. The cockerels crow and the dogs bark so there little chance of a lie in! We shower, with a bucket and a cup, and pick up the volunteers at their house at about 6am. Breakfast of cereal, coffee and juice. The volunteers will be assigned their project, by Tim, after a discussion of the current available projects and the skills of the team. At noon we have lunch; the lunch-break is often two hours as it is very hot at mid day so there is not much point working. It is vital that everyone drinks loads of water and ensures their water works are functioning – if they are not you are not drinking enough! The crew finish the day around 4:30pm 5:00pm, put all the tools away and have supper. Remember that we operate with the sun so as the sun goes down it is time for bed, or at least to return to your house.

The Baptist Church and the community
The community that we are serving had a church building that was structurally damaged during the earthquake. The building did not fall down but it cannot be used. The community took off the roof and they are waiting for funds and support to rebuild the church. We currently worship outside, under tarps in the “court yard” next to the church building. This community’s devotion to God; in spite of all the destruction around them is a true testimony to the faith of these people; and they sing beautifully.

The people here are pleased to see us; the projects that get done, by the volunteers are a huge lift to the community. They see that brothers and sisters in Christ do care about them and they are not forgotten.

Miscellaneous
Water is a precious commodity; drinking water – drinkable by the volunteers and the staff - is even more precious. There is a rhyme that my Mum and Dad used when living in Nepal – If it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down – this is a rule followed here too. We try hard not to waste water. However, we need to be sure we have clean hands when we eat and we do use a lot of hand sanitizer. We add Clorox, half a cap a bowl, to the washing bowl and the rinsing bowl, keeps the bugs away. Our wells are about 100 feet below ground and cannot be guaranteed as safe drinking water.

We drive around in a Nissan kingcab pick-up truck with a fabricated roof rack, for luggage. The majority of the time the volunteers will ride in the back, standing up.

The drive out (and back) to Port-au-Prince takes about 2.5 to 3 hours. The drive from the airport really brings home the extent of the earthquake disaster. There are so many tent cities and the tents are so close together. There are smells and sights that you do not see back home. As we drove along it can be quite a dampener on your spirits. The majority of the trip is on tarred roads although some sections it is hard to see the tarmac from the hole, the cracks and the fill.

What have I done this week
My primary focus is to learn Creole. I have a language guide, Ernst, and he is extremely patient with me. I have to say that 4-6 hours of lessons has been tough, I have been very surprised at how tired I have been, at the end of the day.

This week I have also been working with Tim on getting the electric system working at the staff house along with the water. We have had a lot better success with the power than we have with the water. Having said that we have got 200 gallons of water in the roof tank that was not poured in with buckets, but with the use of city water and a pump!

I have been driving. Haitian drivers would put Italian drivers to shame; the game of chicken is brought to a whole new level here in Haiti. While I drive in Haiti I have to be very defensive and let the Haitians have the right of way, even if I think I should be going!

If you would like to see what was done by the volunteers during my first week please visit their church web site at www.winterparkbaptist.org - go to missions and you will see a link to their blog - lots of photos for this week, I think I may be in one or two of them.

My thoughts
Brenda and I both feel that this assignment is a God given opportunity. I have been here for a week. I can speak a very little Creole, but a lot more than I could a week ago! I know I have a long way to go. I can learn more and Tim has assigned me to that task as much as I can, every day.

Haiti is hot; currently with the humidity it is also sticky. There are mosquitoes and bugs. The house that I live in is a beautiful house and once it has some internal doors and some furniture it could be a great home.

I am still positive, upbeat and remain committed to the assignment. I need to be focused on my language and make sure the Brenda will be comfortable here, when she arrives. Boy, I miss her.