It has been a very busy last day here in Deye Mon.  Everyone has been working hard to finish up all the loose ends and pack up everything. Sorry, no time to upload any photos.  :(

The construction team finished the roof and gutters for the house and school office.  The ceiling of the house was replaced.  Most of their day was spent packing up the shop and making an inventory of everything that is staying here.  They also packed up a truck of tools and supplies to take back down the mountain.

Liane had her final sewing class (with help from Whitney) and bid a bittersweet farewell to her students.  The ladies all finished their quilts and were ecstatic at their success.  They each received a certificate and one lady even picked up Liane in a great big bear hug to thank her.

The medical team gave worm medicine to every student at the school today.  They also registered all of them and recorded their weights.  Amy taught the basic hygiene seminar to all the students with the help of various interpreters.  Andrea saw over 50 patients today in between packing up the pharmacy and helping with the school kids.  All the older students received vitamins today as well.

Tonight the mission house is a flurry of activity.  Everyone is busy packing their personal items, bagging up coffee, packing team items, cleaning up, helping create various inventories of kitchen equipment, household supplies, misc. tools, etc. etc. etc.

The plan (and we all know how tentative that can be) is to finish packing up and leave Deye Mon tomorrow morning.  We will eat a packed lunch on the road and hopefully arrive safely at our overnight location in Port-au-Prince in the early evening.  Thank you for all your prayers for us these final days.  We have two long days of travel ahead of us.  Please keep praying for safety and energy as we travel home.  God has been so good.  We praise Him for His promises, provision and presence.

Tuesday Feb 26

Today was another busy day  in Deye Mon Haiti.  Here is a bit of how we all spent our day.

Bud, Thomas and Andrew worked hard to finish up the roof.  After replacing rotten beams all day yesterday, they put on the metal sheeting today.  It has been a messy, hot job.  But God held off the rain for three good days of work, and sent a wonderful cool breeze too.

Mark worked on spouting for the new roof.  The roof not only will help protect the house from further water damage, but serves as a collection site for rainwater.  There are no wells in this part of Haiti.  So rainwater is precious and roofs serve an important role in collecting it.

The medical team of Andrea, Heather and Sue saw over 90 patients today.  There were more serious cases today, including some sad stories.  They prayed, helped where they could and left the rest to the Lord.  Pastor Herve helped interpret for the clinic and the education seminar.  Jaclyn (wife of Pastor Wilfred) helped with registration and in the pharmacy.  Denel was another translator that helped with the clinic today.  Rene spent the morning counting pills for the clinic and Amy did the education seminar in the morning.

Whitney spent her morning as a gopher for many different groups all doing different tasks.  She and Rene spent the afternoon painting.

Joe and Steve fixed a door on the church this morning, worked on the roof to the school office and other miscellaneous tasks this afternoon.

Jeff, Kent and Allison finished up the desks today, with the help of several local kids.  They loved putting on the hardware and using the drill to tighten the bolts.  The desks have been moved into the classrooms and look great!

Liane and Amy spent the afternoon packing and doing inventory at the mission house.  After four weeks of hard work, there are a lot of supplies to pack up, store or move to a different location.

So ends another busy day for Week 4.  Tomorrow we plan to see the school children at the clinic, Liane has a final sewing class, and the packing up will begin in earnest.  We appreciate your prayers so much as we work to finish strong and complete many loose ends that need to be done before we leave Thursday morning. (Sorry for only one sideways photo, but the internet is not cooperating.  We'll try to get more on another day.)

Praises to God for His Abundance on the First Day of Medical Clinic

Our devotions this morning reminded us to look for the abundance of God and fill our minds with praise.  So we offer the following praises to God for His abundance:

We praise God for His abundance in providing Pastor Moise and Ruth for a few hours this morning to help get the clinic started. 

We praise God for stretching our time so we could see all 115 people with only one medical provider.

We praise God for the many donated medications to treat the people who came to the clinic. 

We praise God for the help of Pastor Wilfred and others who helped translate, especially since we were unsure if we would have any translators at all.

We praise God for keeping the rain away all day so we could work on the roof uninterrupted. 

We praise God for steady, encouraging progress on the desks.

We praise God for our little Haitian helpers.

We praise God for the cool, breezy and beautiful weather today.

We praise God for all the ladies in sewing class who finished their quilts today (about half of the class) and for all the people who helped provide supplies to make the sewing class possible.

We praise God that Tom didn’t fall through the roof.

We praise God for playtime with the school kids during their recess as they examined our work and pulled us to take a break and play with them.

We praise God for the help of interpreters to conduct two education “classes” about basic hygiene, hand washing, water safety and proper toileting.  All 115 people who came to the clinic heard this information.

We praise God for ibuprofen.

We praise God for no major injuries or sickness.

We praise God for prayers from home.

(And finally, we would like to wish Diane Basinger a Happy Birthday from her brother, niece and many friends.)

Liane and one of her sewing students rejoice at the completion of her quilt.

Andrea talks with a patient at the clinic.

Sunday Morning Worship Service

This morning, like the teams who came before us, we attended the worship service at the church.  A few of the highlights:  Pastor Herve', Pastor Moise and Pastor Wilbur spoke; two groups of Haitian women sang special music, Heather did impromptu special music (singing a hymn) and Allie and Tom organized a group to do a painting of Jesus to a recording of "Jesus Paid it All".  This afternoon we are resting.  Some are taking much needed naps, some are going on a hike up the mountain, others are counting pills for the clinic tomorrow with the school children.  Thank you for your continued prayers for safety, energy (especially for those who have been here almost a month) and completion of many projects before we leave.

Group Picture before church

The painting in progress...

Finished painting

Project Update - Student Desks

One project that several teams have worked on is designing and creating desks for three classrooms at the school.  This has been mentioned in several blog entries and we thought those of you back home might appreciate a bit more description of what this involves.

First, long metal bars were purchased and hauled up the mountain.  (This is not as easy as it sounds.) Often the metal must be cleaned with a wire brush before it is cut into pieces and welded together.  It is a long, hot, arduous process. 

Steve welds the metal frames together for the desks.

Next, boards must be cut and created for the seats and desktops.  This has been done by previous teams.  The boards must be stained with a couple coats and then the desktop pieces are varnished for a smooth writing surface.  The welded frame pieces must be painted and dried – which is a tricky process since they have many different surfaces. Finally, the rails along the bottom of the desks (which hold 4-6 desks each) and the frames must be drilled for assembly.  This project was a bit of a challenge yesterday.  Since school is starting Monday, we cannot assemble the desks in the classroom.  However, since there are 4-6 desks all hooked together, we weren’t sure that we could get them in the classrooms on the second floor of the school once they were all together.  So we assembled one in a classroom and brought it out – successfully.  This hopefully means that we can do the final assembly outside the school and move the desks into the classrooms.

Kent works on assembling all the prepared pieces for the desks together.  When complete, there will be about 5 desks on one set of rails.

This is just one small example of how a project in Haiti involves many people, all doing different jobs, as part of a team.  It is a reminder of how we are all parts of one body in Christ.  “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”  1 Corinthians 12:12 

 

Week 4, Day 1

The “Pampered” team arrived last night, tired, dirty and ready for some horizontal sleep.  After an introduction to life at the mission house in the evening and a wonderful hot meal of spaghetti, we headed to an early bedtime. 

This morning we received our “marching orders” from Captain Mark and assigned weekly chores for everyone.  Bud, Andrew and Tom spent the day on the roof.  They tore off the old, rusted, leaky tin and put on a nice, new, green tin roof.  Jeff and Mark helped balance each other over a steep part of the church roof to scrub it and paint it. Andrea, Heather, Ruth and Sue worked to organize the pharmacy area, count out medications and prepare for the clinics next week.  Joe and Steve were hard at work on the welding, designing and making more parts for the student desks.  Kent and Allie worked on assembling the desks for the school.  Whitney, Rene, Amy and Sue stained and varnished desktops and seats.  They also painted ceiling boards, desk frames, a door frame and a bathroom.  Liane made a fantastic potato soup for lunch and enchiladas for supper.  (We all think she should put together a cookbook for us!)

In other big news for previous teams, the railings for the new school steps are painted and one is installed and ready for Monday.  We are impressed and humbled by the hard work of the other teams who made those new steps a reality.  All in all, we are busy, productive, laughing a lot and enjoying each other’s company.  We are excited about the chance to join the local people at church tomorrow morning and meet more of them.

Shout Outs:

Joe says:  “I love you, Joyce!”

Andrea says, “Happy Birthday, Eric!  I love and miss you, Noah and Anna.”

Whitney says, “Happy 1^st Birthday to Brielle, sorry I couldn't be there!”

Rene says, “Kayla don’t forget to pick me up!

Kent says, “I miss you and love you, Tammy!”

Amy says, “We made it!  Thanks for the prayers!”

Liane says, “Shout out to all the St. John ladies who helped with the sewing stuff and love to Lynn.”

Sue says, “Love you and miss you to George, Eric, Chelsea and Asher. Chelsea – Monita says hello.”

Heather says, “Diane – I love the Snickers!  You are the best!”

Bud says, “Love you and miss you, Chelsea and Asher.”

Steve says, “Earlene, I love you.”

Allie says, “To Stacy Michelle – Modrel was asking where you were today.  And then he wrote your entire letter in English on the chalkboard.”

Sue, Ruth, Andrea and Heather count out medications for clinic.

Local boys were fascinated by Kent & Joe installing the railing for the new steps.

Friday February 22nd

Hello again,
Sorry for yet another short post but we just wanted to let everyone know that everyone from the week 4 team has arrived here in Deyemon safe and sound. They have been fed, and are currently getting cleaned up and settled in. Thank you all once again for you continued support back home, your prayers are most certainly important and we ask that you keep them coming as this week will be very busy trying to finish all our projects up, especially considering wednesday (our last work day) will be mostly spent closing the house and packing. Love and miss you all!