Day 5 - Saturday - 21 June

Well, we will soon be off for today's work.

We are an hour behind EDST because Haiti does not do daylight savings time.

It occurred to me that I have reported on everyone but Dan. What is there to say? He is quiet, hard-working, hard-playing with the kids, and Jane, he may fill up the journal you gave him before he gets back. Just looked around the corner at him, and he is busily, steadily writing. Nothing makes a good writer like practice. I told him how I wished I had journaled in my younger days -- details of so many adventures, so many high and low points have been lost. Oh, well.

Thank you all for your prayers and comments and Gracias, Luis, for your kind post.

Supper last night was tamale pie with fruit jello, and apple spice cake for dessert. My blood sugar is doing great anyhow! We are using it all up. It does not appear that all of my e-mails are going through, so some of you may be getting repeats. Sorry.

We are praying for the Mayes', for Don Harvey, and for a good and worshipful Sunday in the Park.

Deborah, how you found those citations in the Message that are so timely and meaningful to us is truly amazing, and makes us believe even more that God is in charge, and He will give us what we need. Thank you.

More this evening.
.....
Today we went to Mayette, and had a fairly easy day. We were amazed at the amout of concrete work that has been done here. I come from Appalachia, and have experience with many privies, public and private. The one here is made of concrete, has four stalls on a side, but no doors. What a stunning valley and mountain vista!

We built forms and gathered rocks, and carried sand, gravel and water to help mix the cement. The Haitians filled in the forms with the rocks and concrete, and now there is a complete set of stairs going up to the top of the 12,000 gallon cistern. Unfortunately we had misjudged and there was about $15 worth of concrete left. Pat M suggested we build a landing outside one of the church doors. Bruce said go for it, so Pat grabbed a couple of the boys and soon there was a 3x3 foot pad outside the church side door.

Mayette is where most of our DPC contributions have gone. The roads going to it are hard to walk, much less drive. We will see how the worship services are this morning. The pastor can pray well, from what I understood. He also sent his bountiful thanks to our congregation for the gifts we have provided. He is really blessed, he said.

We drove past the church that Josh Levy had worked on. It seems to be complete now, except for the two end walls. Some problems there in completion. That one is not on our list.

When we finished our work at Mayette, we returned to our compound, where some went to build blackboards of masonite and plywood, some of us did laundry, and then Becky and I worked on "The Jesus Film." Bruce was hoping to show that tonight, but last night the interns had set the system up and the sound was incredibly garbled. I had no idea what was wrong, so this evening we troubleshot it and got it working properly. It was a case of - if you have something, that doesn't mean you have to use it. Becky was a great help in keeping my head on straight and making sure all the little pieces got back to where they belonged....sometimes I drift a bit. The blackboard team glued together 16 blackboards.

We ate at Bruce's as usual: chicken tetrazini, spinach souffle, bowls of pineapple and apple spice cake and shortbread for those who needed more carbs! After dinner, as usual, we gathered on the porch with Bruce to review the day, to read some Bible verses, to learn more about Haiti and the mission history, and of course, to pray. Tonight, we met in the dark, because the moon was coming up later and the sky was studded with dazzling stars. Later, some of us stayed out to look at the Milky Way, until the moon came up and washed it out.

The patron saint festival reached its climax tonight (I hope!!!). Music continued to about 4? Sunday morning -- bone penetrating music. I use the term music very loosely here, because it was the same four chords over and over and over again. As the night progressed, some of the players went flatter and flatter. I was delighted when they played Auld Lang Syne, and the crowd noise abated, but then the loud band picked up again for two more symphonic-length works using three of the same chords and one different one. Afterwards a keyboard and a guitar were playing, but I could barely hear them in my deafened condition. I guess the guy with the big amplifier went home!