HAITI - Thursday Morning 4/11/13

Double Baptism!

Praise the Lord, we had a beautiful start to a beautiful day, baptising our own Marc and David in the ocean just north of the orphanage!  Pastor Jeff baptised Marc, and Pastor Vilbrun of the little church next door baptised David.  David's wife, Wowo and our entire team were in attendance.

This is our last day here, and we have the Haitian ladies in Bible class and our construction projects underway. We are busy and blessed!

 

HAITI - Tuesday 4/9/13

Meet our new Director! Sarah is a wonderful young lady with two years experience in an orphanage here in Haiti, and is the guardian of a special Haitian boy named Woodley, who has captured all our hearts. Sarah has an Elementary Education background in Special Education in the States, speaks Creole and loves working in Haiti. She has taken on a big job, starting up a new orphanage in Haiti, and we thank our Lord for her and ask everyone to pray for her in this new role!

 

 She and Bill set right to work today interviewing candidates for positions in the new orphanage.

 

 Meanwhile our teams continued the work started yesterday. Dariel and Paul spent almost all day upstairs straightening joists and getting everything ready for drywall.

 

 John and Reed tackled the bathroom tile.

 

 And Max built the shower base in the P1 house parents' bathroom.

 

 They were ably supported by Josh, Jeff and the others sifting sand and mixing mortar for them.

 

We couldn' find a slotted trowel, so Reed made one, at some cost to his blood supply. Ouch!

 

Meanwhile, out in front of the orphanage, Chad began work on the Mango Tree sign.  All it needs now is the lettering and a few more mangoes, and we are in business!

We are continuing with our Haitian ladies' Bible study this week, so today Charles Junior went with some of the guys to visit the community across the street with our usual invitation and to pray for those in need. We learned that one older man that Chad had prayed for and led to Christ on an earlier trip had passed away this last Wednesday, and Chad shared with us during 'Wow' time that at first he was very upset, but then realized where the man was, and his sadness turned to joy!

The team also got to visit the children today with gifts and food and got to renew their friendships with them. Tomorrow afternoon we will try to visit Pastor Felix, too.

Tomorrow will be an even busier day for us with all the construction projects, the interviews, the Haitian ladies class and visits with the children, but we feel God's hand leading us, and He is providing for us in every way. What a blessing and privilege to be able to serve our Lord in this land that needs Him so much!

HAITI - Monday 4/8/13

Rocky Start - Great Team!

This trip struggled a little to get off the ground (literally) but put it into high gear quickly! Only two team members arrived as scheduled on Saturday afternoon, with the others delayed in Dallas and over-nighting in Miami. Everyone got in early Sunday morning, and after orientation and a devotional led by Pastor Jeff, we got to the site at a little after noon and got to work.

 

The electrical work that wasn't complete due to lack of boxes was done, and we continued with the plumbing. The plan for this week also included tiling the first floor and getting the bathroom operational, so Marc can move in as security. As it turned out, the Lord also had other plans!  We discovered we have two experienced dry-wallers in the group (Reed and Dariel)!  So we are off to MSC again for drywall, and hopefully will get all of that done this week too!  That is a tremendous load off our minds and an important milestone toward having future teams stay at the orphanage.  Praise the Lord for answering our prayers and providing just what we need,when we need it!

Monday we started off with a devotional in P1 led by Pastor Jeff and our "music director" Dariel,

and then we continued with all our projects with the drywall team assisted by Josh and Paul and Jeff, putting in 2x4's along the walls and trusses upstairs to hang the drywall on, and filling in the holes in the concrete blocks where the floor tiles will sit.

They also went over the flooring above the storeroom and put in more deck screws to get it ready for tile.

Chad the Excavator decided it was too wet to start the P2/P3 foundations, so we will hold off on that for now; that freed him and Max up to attack our plumbing problems in P1. We are now all set in both bathrooms to go on to tile and fixtures.

Meanwhile John and his wife Ashley took on the wall in the DH bathroom, cutting out and drilling for the plumbing, and we now have that wall all set for tile. What a team!


We even found time to wire up the storeroom electrical, which required Max and most of the rest of the team to remove everything first, and then put it all back, including moving almost 50 bags of cement around in the process!

A very productive start! But the highlight of the day was the firming up of the plans to baptize David, and now along with him our very own Marc!  He had accepted Christ already, but had never been baptized, and so we will have a double baptism in the ocean near the site on Thursday afternoon. Praise the Lord!

Please continue to pray for us and for the children at the orphanage, with thanksgiving to the Lord for His timely provision for us, and most of all...

come be a part of this wonderful ministry!

HAITI - Thursday 3/28/13

Last Day! And what a day it was! The weather was clear for us until right when we were quitting at 4. The roof worked great in the heavy rain last night, and we were able to get right to work. This morning Burl connected the batteries to the inverter, we switched it on, and we had power!

 

 

 

Not only did we have power, it was strong enough to run a skill saw just on batteries. Awesome! Then we tied in the generator, and it worked perfectly through the inverter too. We now have electricity!

The Haitian ladies came for Bible study again, not quite a full house but almost a hundred. And of course, we gave them a small food gift on their way out.

 

After they were gone we tackled the plumbing. We filled the tank on the roof to the brim, opened the main cutoff, and after finding and fixing a few small leaks, filled the tub. Everything worked great, including the tub drain, one of our main concerns. We now have water!

After that it was a lot of details and clean-up. Aden led the younger guys in screening the porch door and putting molding all around it.

Alvin moved the scaffold around and put the birdsnests on the porch.

Hunter, Burt and Ebb decided at the last minute to go ahead and start the wiring in the storeroom. We still need a lot of boxes to complete everything, but it will be easy to finish on our next trip. Donny got all the first floor doors hung, hand cutting the trim. Then everyone pitched in and cleaned up everything. Beautiful!

What a great team!

But the best news has been saved until last! We have continued to work on our Haitian worker David since the beginning team in January of last year, encouraging him to come to church and to accept the Lord. This afternoon we teased him a little about having a bathtub full of water and being able to baptise him. He laughed, but a little while later he came to us and said he was ready to make a profession of faith and be baptised!  What a WOW moment! We talked it over and decided that since we didn't have a pastor, we would have him baptised by the Haitian pastor next door, who comes to all the Bible studies. It turns out that David and his "wife" are not married, so David agreed they would get married before he is baptised!  We will have a wedding AND a baptism! Hallelujah, praise the Lord! God is truly present in this place and His Word is not coming back empty (Isaiah 55:11).

Come join us soon and be part of this amazing ministry, and you will be wow'ed too!

HAITI - Wednesday 3/27/13

Tonight it is pouring rain, but the front that just came through has cooled everything off, so we give thanks to the Lord for that and that the rain came at night and not while we were working. Not only that, but the rain will help us see how good our new roof is, and the work that we did today to make the water tank slab watertight. Donny and Alvin pounded and cut and caulked with Hunter's help and basically put a "roof" under the tank! 

We had our Haitian ladies this morning, and Charles Junior to lead them. Ebb gave them a short Easter devotional, and the singing was again divine. Ebb was glad to see his favorite, Blaise, who came with a neighbor and only needed a cane, not her new wheelchair, so her hip is on the mend, praise the Lord.

Burl and his trusty assistant Ebb wired the circuit breaker box and tested all of the DH wiring and it all checked out fine. Tomorrow they will fire up the inverter and we'll see how that works, too. Then we will be ready for drywall and plaster!

The younger guys got to start work on the slab under the water tower where the generator will have its home. After building a retaining wall, they started digging the foundation trenches for the next building in line, using the dirt to fill under the tower. This will help us week after next by getting part of the trench done where the backhoe can't reach easily. They were helped out by Ives and our security guys, who love a good workout!

 

Meanwhile Donny and David worked on getting the doors hung.

And Donny finished the screen door he started yesterday.

All it needs now is some screen.

What a productive day in every sense! We are again so thankful for the Lord's sure guidance and provision. We have everything ready now for the next team's work. What we really need now is some drywall hangers. The Lord has always provided everything we have needed - are you a part of His plan?

HAITI - Tuesday 3/26/13

Today there was so much going on it was hard to keep up. While Lou went down into town for supplies since we couldn't get them at MSC, the team divided up and went to work putting in the remaining two windows, the frames for the doors, finished work on the plumbing, and pulled the home runs and did other electrical work. While Donny and Alvin put in the door frames,

Burl and his young crew pulled wire,

And Hunter continued strapping down electrical conduit.

Ebb followed along installing plugs and switches in the boxes.

We also finished with all the plumbing lines, Donny built a screen door for the porch, and Hunter installed the light outside the front door. Tomorrow we will hang the doors and finish the electrical, and Donny and Alvin will put in the flashing for the water tank slab. Then we can fill the tank and test all the water lines. No lack of stuff to do here. Our biggest problem is running into each other!

No matter what construction is going on, though, we like to spend at least Tuesday morning walking the neighborhood and inviting the Haitian ladies to their Bible study on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. This time it was Romano guiding our three young men and Ebb around for an eye-opening experience. Then after dinner we divided up sacks with 100 lbs of rice and 110 lbs of beans into 200 one gallon plastic bags to give the ladies on Thursday. We are expecting another fantastic worship experience with them this week.

The work is progressing, but there always seems to be more to do before we can move the children over. Rainy season is coming soon, and we need more volunteers to finish in time. But we know the Lord is in control, and His timing and provision are perfect. Please continue to pray for us, and for more people to step out in faith for this work!