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.
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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!

Day 4 - Friday

Dear Lord,

Please bless our work here. We are so insignificant against the great crush of need here. Lord, these people have only Christ as their hope, because there is none in this world. Amen.
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I tried to post this prayer before we left this morning, but it did not go. I am writing more now.
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The past two days were merely warm-ups to get our muscles stretched and our bodies acclimated to the heat. Today we went to a new church site, and with pick and shovel and 40-pound tampers, we moved dirt piles into the concrete sections of the foundation. Several of us were involved in selecting rocks of the right size - 5 to 10 pounds and loading them into wheelbarrows. I think we moved over six bucket loaders full of dirt. Four were dumped there while we were there, and we moved a bunch more before. My twenty years of sendentary work were obvious, but none of us could keep up with the Haitians working beside us. We were working directly in the blazing sun, and used up twice as much water as on previous days. We rested in the shade of an acacia bush. These things are quite well-armored with thorns -- thorns that easily pierce sneaker soles, and soles of leather shoes. We invested some time removing these from our shoes. Some now have strange rashes showing up (not heat rash).

Today Mason went with Bruce into Port de Paix, and attended a meeting where they made up 2/3rds of the white people there. The poverty level, access to water, and tourism in Haiti were discussed there. Lots of people know Bruce, Mason says. Bruce noted it was a productive meeting because his improvement programs are being written into Haiti's strategic plan. Mason was chosen to go because of his knowledge of French and rapidly increasing Creole vocabulary.

Mason and Kester are spending a lot of time talking to the kids, and being friends to them. All the kids got into a soccer game. Kester today noticed one of the kids who was helping to build his church had blisters on his hands, and got a pair of gloves that would fit him. Maria worked like a fiend today, inspiring some of the Haitians to redouble their efforts to make it clear that a mere girl could not keep up with them. You go girl! You know, I keep using the word kids here, but we brought with us young people who know how to show their love of God to others and who know how to work. I am so thankful to have been able to see them on action. They are not kids any more!

We finished up the work day by planting a pair of Adelia crasopanthia palm trees. There are 29 of these trees left in the wild. They are only found in Haiti. Bruce is trying to bring them back. We made sure the kids were involved in their planting. In one of the pictures above, you see Mason collecting fertilizer for the palms. They will remember and want to see them when they come back.
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From Pat M: Christien, Wendy and Kiernan - we miss you very much. Thank you for responding to Sandi's message so quickly Xtien. The hard work here is very satisfying. About sixty per cent of the Haitians are on the verge of starvation, and the greater percentage may be on the verge of starvation of the soul. I think we are making a difference both ways.

Kiernan, Pap pap - Kisseroo number four. Looking forward to having bumbleberry pie and ice cream with you. Love you!
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Supper last night was meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn. Peach shortcake was for dessert. Absolutely delightful, again. We can feel our bodies soaking up this nourishment after being worked beyond our norms.
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Tomorrow we will go to Myett, the church that DPC sponsored, and put on a door and some concrete steps. An easy day!

Day 3 - Thursday

Our bags arrived last night! We were happy to get so many missing things, including Iris' letters for us. Oh, Bruce's supplies came thru all ok. It does not appear that anything was stolen. We had real coffee this morning, thanks to Deb. Haitian coffee is really good. Starbucks can stay out of here -- they don't stand a chance. Today we go to paint the outside of the pastor's house.

It has occurred to us that this must be a real vacation for Deborah, with so many of the troublemakers so far away 8^). Eventually I will mature to the point where I stop making jokes like that, but not yet. We miss you all.

Our condolences go to John and Betty Mayes on the loss of Steve. We are far from cards and postage here - this will have to do until our return.

I will try to post some pictures as soon as possible. The land looks strange, with huge Christmas cactuses, opuntia, cholla, and another cactus I should recognize, but don't. There are mimosas (orange and red!), bannana trees, and mangoes (142 kinds), aloes and agaves, some of which are in bloom with creamy clusters of bell-like flowers. [These turned out to be Spanish bayonets.] Birds? Several unknown kinds - I did see a flicker species yesterday. There is a bird about the size and shape of a chicken, although it flies well, with a parrot-like squawk. I have no clue of what it is. I think it is black, but it was in silhouette, so I am not sure if there are other colors (confirmed it is all black).[Thanks, Dan Aring - it appears to be the Cuban crow.]

More this evening. Bless you all.
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We are back early today. We pretty much ran out of work. The Haitians need to catch up with us on the pastor's house. We finished the top sections of the walls (nine feet) in each room, painted the door frames marine blue, installed door frames in the two visitor's rooms (we painted those with enamel yesterday)and painted most of the outside of the house a beautiful sky blue. The boys played soccer over lunch with some little kids. Tyler, with help from Mason, finished up his grinding and started some Haitians painting the metal doors at the church. Bruce got far enough ahead on his list to put up some aluminum quarter sections to complete the church roofing. He said that had been on his list for years. He is really pleased with the drills we bought him. Thanks, John Fleming!

We did not do many different things, just a lot of the same. We have a lot of discusions about the buildings and the plants (some I have never seen pictures of, even). It is hard to turn down some of the requests we receive, but charity is not built on guilt, it is built on love.

Kester is going to try to download some pictures from his camera tonight so we can post them. We will see how it goes.
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Here are some words from Sandi M:

Iris, I am so proud of you for going to the Church in the park. I want a full report. You really wouldn't like the 2 inch cock roaches we have seen in the bathroom. But it is better than the latrine out back of the pastor's house yesterday. We are keeping the bathroom counter clean just for you. Erica, thanks for checking the blog. This is certainly a wonderful experience and I have met many children here. I hope you are having a positive attitude each and every day. I will call you when I get back. Iris, you can buy a mosquito net at the surplus store on Grandby street in Norfolk. Just use some deet bug spray. It makes for a nice smell. Kiernan, we have seen many children and adults riding their donkeys to the river or to the spring to get water and they are carrying things on their heads. They are carrying water, sticks, coal, laundry to take to the river to wash and sugar cane. And Kiernan, they go down to the river to take a bath. By the way, I want to be Kissaroo number 1 just for a little while. Christien, Wendy and Kiernan - pap pap says he loves you all. Mason is too busy talking in Creole to stop and say hello. The letters of encouragement and prayer have been wonderful to read each day. Love to all, Sandi

Day 2 - Wednesday

Church at LaBousse:
We are off to paint this morning. More later (maybe much later).

Please pray for Maria and Sandy, who are suffering from sinus headaches and other pains. Inconvenient bother!

We just prayed as a group for Don Harvey. He will be in our thoughts today.
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PM - We are reading your messages here as a group, and we really appreciate them. Thank you.

Most of us woke up about 4:30 this morning as the roosters announced false dawn. We laid there, relishing the cool breeze. We had banana bread and coconut bread for breakfast. Our suitcases with our food, etc. etc. may arrive today.
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Today we went five miles east of Bruce's to paint a pastor's house in LaBousse. This team can paint! I am not sure we ever will again when we return! Coat after coat went into concrete and wood. We will be back tomorrow to put finishing touches on the central room and some door frames, then we will be painting the outside of the house. We do not have to worry about running out of work, or doing busy work. Bruce has job after job lined up here.
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I have not been able to take many pictures -- it takes two hands to hold onto the truck, but Kester has. The rest of the time, our hands are occuped with work. We have learned Bruce is an excellent driver, and that Land Rovers are incredibly tough!
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Deb is an excellent cook and we are looking forward to dinner, after lasagne, green beans, and lemon chiffon cake last night.
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Dinner tonight was chicken and rice, with Haitian garlic bread, and fruit salad with Haitian mangoes on the side for dessert. Delectable! We sat and learned from Bruce for about an hour after supper. He read us some Bible verses and prayed with us (we are doing a lot of praying here - forgive me if I do not report it all). Speaking of prayer - pray for our digestive systems, some of us may have picked up a bug, or maybe it is the newness of this.
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We note that many of the Haitians work, and they work HARD. Their return is that they remain alive. It is a polite society, but the rules are very different than ours. The richness they have is in their belief in the afterlife and in the diginity they posess in their lives in Christ.
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You would be proud of our kids! They work without ceasing except when they are talking to the Haitians. Mason expecially is a good interactor with the locals (he knows French). Tyler was a hero yesterday, working by himself for most of the day with a grinder - an intense and filthy job. Bruce seems to be happy with our work. We realized we are the FIRST team from DPC, because Josh Levy came with a Presbytery group. Hopefully we will not be the last (hear that, Tufties and Marshalls?).
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There was a soccer game and festival of the patron saint at the Catholic church up the road last night, very loud and boistrous. They shut it down a bit after nine, though. Thank God for sweet refreshing sleep!
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Thank you all for your posts here; everyone gathers around, and I read them aloud. It reminds some of us of times around the radio in days past.

That's all for day 2.

Day 1 - Tuesday

Pictures from Port de Paix:

We got off to a slow start. The boys were up until 4 AM talking to 30 High school kids from "The Amigos." They are from all over the US and come thru Miami on their way to 8 week mission trips in Paraguay, Nicaragua, and other points south. There is a stream of them all thru the summer. The boys were troopers, though, and were up at 6:30. We had a good breakfast at the hotel, then missed our shuttle because Sandi's jam jar had been "inspected" by TSA and she had to clean the mess out of her suitcase. They were nice enough to leave a note! Caught the next shuttle - all ok.

Check-in was confusing, but we patiently worked through it. I think we are all tired. While waiting to load, we worked our way through customs and immigration forms in French and Creole, but not English. We never were quite sure whether we had more than Gdes 100,000.00.

A Haitian Christian apostle was working on two young women in the airport -- converted one and went to work on the other.

I called the church to report our progress, but only the FAX answered, so I left that report on Rev Dail's voicemail.

Nice flight to Port au Prince - Air France folks were very kind to us. Had an interesting sandwich for lunch, with turkey, eggplant, mystery veggies on wheat toast.

We landed at Port au Prince (PaP) and Theodore met us to whisk us through immigration and customs. Stepping outside with our three baggage carts, we were descended upon by crowds of redcaps. Despite our protests, they took control of two of our carts immediately, while Fred manhandled the third despite three guys hanging onto the handle, until he looked behind and saw five more were in hot pursuit. Pastor (Dr.) Dave Schmidt from the theological seminary in PaP came on the scene to rescue us, fortunately, and fought off the onslaught. Someone had shown a $10 bill and a bagful of money, and a small feeding frenzy started -- more! more! me! me! Even Pastor Schmidt was buried beneath the melee briefly, but he quickly brought the situation to a simmer.

Our baggage was now in two pickup trucks and we headed off to the local airfield where yellow shirts descended upon us to claim a hand in carrying or wishing our luggage inside. A more manageable situation here, with well placed "Non, merci" driving most away. Dave selected two guys to help us out.

We put our baggage on a belt where it was run through an X-ray machine with no viewing capability. Rescuing our stuff on the other side, we found confirmation of our ticket purchase had only that moment arrived. A few administrative issues, and our bags were collected, and tied shut. (Some had been opened and rifled on the way into PaP -- mine were not even closed back up.)

We waited and waited, one plane then another were called for Port de Paix, but were not ours. Frere Lamour, the driver (a good man!) called Bruce and we were comforted to know he was at Port de Paix airport waiting for us. The weather here is hot, but about the same as Newport News when we left. The trip to Port de Paix was exciting, in a high-wing two engine prop plane that barely cleared the first range of hills. We bounced around over the ranges and under the cumulous for something over an hour, then turned to follow the river and suddenly down on the dirt strip at Port de Paix. The airport there is built like a fortress, with the waiting room outside under the trees. The trip to Passe Catabois was very bouncy! We forded the river in the Land Rover, with water above the floorboards. Off-roading is done on the roads here! We were glad to make it to Bruce and Deb's compound and to meet Mike and John, two engineering students working on a survey here. They are our house-mates. Cold showers are great! We were all ready to hit the beds after dinner.

That is all for Day 1 (I think).

Day 0 Comments

Reverend Dail sent us these pictures:

At 7:30 AM, we asembled at the church and divided all of our tools and stuff, so none of us would exceed the weight limit. Interesting.
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In two hours we will be assembling at Newport News Airport and flying down to Miami. If you want to send us any messages today, please enter them under the comments for this day. We will put up another thread (if possible) for each day. We hope to give a brief summary of the day's happenings and there will be a place to comment on each day's posting. Thank you.
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Hiromi O'Keeffe, Jan Spruill (with a bag of sugar goodies), the Vollmers, Mr. Little, Jane Martin, Dick Gray, and Rev. Dail came to the airport to see us off. Rev. Dail read us a passage, Colossians 3:12-17, from the Message version, which was clear even to the younger members of the group. It was meaningful to us all. She also sent us off with a prayer for our success and safety. She and Jane Martin then went to the Norfolk airport to see Kester off on a later flight, greatly contributing to the peace of mind of that young man's parents, and to the delighted suprise of that individual.

An otherwise boring wait for the plane was made more interesting when we found the ticketing agent could not over-rule the TSA agents. With too much bug-spray and suntan lotion, one of our bags went from line to line, missing the cutoff for our flight, until Ms Vollmer rescued the offending material and all was well. We jumped on the flight, fastened our seat belts, and were off...to sit for 30 minutes on the tarmac for an unspecified delay. Then we were airborne to Atlanta, to be refreshed by free beverages and Gourmet Pretzels (complete with eating instructions).

You may not know that peanut butter is a terrorist tool, but Kester lost his since the agents could not figure out if it was a gel or a liquid so confiscated it anyway, just to be safe. (I think they were hungry.)
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Here we are in Miami, assembled again as a team. Some are already asleep. I rejoiced as I watched us interact among ourselves and others. We are off to a good start, though some will be dragging tomorrow.

Good night, all.

Prayers

I wanted to start this thread with a prayer by our pastor, Reverend Deborah Dail. Here it is:

The DPC Congregation is praying for you as you travel to Haiti today, as you serve in Haiti and as you travel home.

"Gracious and loving God, we thank you for calling each one of us into ministry. This day we thank you for calling these ten individuals to serve in Haiti. We ask that you would pour out your Holy Spirit upon them as they respond to your call. Grant them your divine protection as they travel and work. Bind them together as a team. Grant them patience with one another as they travel, live and work alongside one another. Help them to appreciate and learn from their differences. May their spiritual gifts, talents and resources complement one another so that they may accomplish all that you would have them do in your name. We pray that they will be an encouragement to Bruce and Deb (our missionaries in Haiti) and to the people with whom they will serve. May the work they accomplish and the way they go about their work bring you all glory and honor. Help each person on this team to grow closer to you, Lord God. Protect them physically, spiritually and emotionally throughout their journey and mission experience. Bring them back to us so that we may, too, grow from their experience and be empowered in our respective ministries in the future. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. (posted by Rev. Deborah Dail)

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