This week a team from Grace Covenant church in Camas Washington has been here working on our Base Camp # 2. Their church just recently purchased land here for a Foursquare orphanage close to our base camp so we have also spent some time with Pastor Bellande who will run that orphanage and the children who will eventually be living there. Those children are currently in a home way up on the mountain that is pretty difficult to get to. You may not know this, but our church (New Hope Diamond Head) purchased land for another orphanage in Jeremy, Haiti back in the fall of 2009 just before the earthquake. I hope to get out there in the next couple months to show you that property as well.
This week we finished the roof on the bunkhouse and the showers in the bathrooms and should be ready to have teams stay there in a week or so. Still very rustic (even for Haiti) but it will do fine - allowing us to handle about 24 more short term missionaries and do so much more for the Haitian people. Tomorrow we receive another team from Pacific Coast Valley church and continue our work on finishing the second base camp. And we say goodbye to the Grace Covenant church team. Sunday Pastor Guy will announce the new water distribution and this coming week we will have a small "grand opening" ceremony so the community can start using the system.
Caught a bad cold this week (how do you do that in a sweltering hot climate ?!?!) but I'm taking it easy today to recuperate and be ready to receive the new team tomorrow. At least it gave me the time to write this and send off some photos.
Below are photos from this past week. Our Haitian labor crew is great. In the photo below are Jackie on the left (he is our translator and we call him "Hollywood"). Next is Mackanson - a very tall strong man, but seems to have a very tender heart. He hurt his arm the other day and when he came to work it was bandaged. We prayed for him and he was very appreciative. Kneeling in front of me is Blanc (his nickname). White people like Aaron and I are called blanc (white). Blanc (the Haitian) is lighter colored than the other Haitians so they call him Blanc. Next to me is Jackson. He's a goofball, but also has a tender side. Today I left the job site early to lay down because I was sick and Jackson told me through the interpreter that he would pray for me. Kneeling next to Jackson is Johnny. He's the youngest (not sure how old he is). But he's a hard worker and easy going. Then comes Jacob who is very quiet and doesn't say too much. Jacob plays the base guitar on Sunday at church. Aaron on the end loves to work alongside the Haitians when they are digging or shoveling. I tried to do that a couple times, but the Haitians won't let me. They call me "boss" (which also means carpenter so it's a little confusing!) and they don't want the boss digging or using the tools with them.
If you ever have any questions or want to know more about a particular subject, please email me back and I'll try to answer as quickly as I can.
God bless
Mark
Finishing up the roofing on the new Base Camp # 2 bunkhouse. Two of our Haitians with the team on the roof (although I think they would rather be on the ground !!)
Water distribution !! Three faucets with James 7:38 written in French above. French is the "formal" language of Haitian and most Haitian understand it even though they speak Creole most of the time. The wall with razor wire is the wall surrounding the church property. May seem like a lot of tight security (and it is) but this is very typical in Haiti. If you have any money at all, most people try to build a wall around their property something like this one.
Blanc and Mackanson backfilling the electrical conduit trench. They do this all day and in the 90 degree heat !!
Our wonderful Haitian labor crew !! They are the best !!
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