Today's an important day here at Haiti Arise. One of the teams has been working at preparing the slab of the new technical school on the compound. The old one was destroyed in the earthquake one month after it was completed, after two years of construction. Because of funding made available, the new one, which is earthquake proof, and twice the size of the other one, is well under way and the target is to have it completed this year. Yesterday I helped tie rebar and today all hands will be on deck for the pouring of the concrete. It's an electric concrete mixer and I think we may have more than one in operation, but it's going to be quite the job and will take probably four days to complete. The team from Prosser, WA leaves tomorrow and the team from Nelson, B.C. on Tuesday, so we're working at full steam. Only one team will be working this afternoon as the team from Prosser will spend their last afternoon at the beautiful beach down the road.
Chris and I had a 6 AM prayer meeting at Marc and Lisa's house yesterday and it was so good. Last week I was feeling really stressed, trying to figure out my role and responsibilities, because, although we have a job description, there is nothing left behind from previous team hosts to indicate what they actually did so we can just pick up and continue. We're truly finding our own way. Having a discussion with Marc and Lisa about expectations was really helpful and I felt a huge release and freedom to set priorities and truly go with the flow when everything changes suddenly, which is often :) Nothing happens as it should so I'm learning to just relax in the situation. Dad has the responsibility of ordering construction supplies, bottled water, and any odds and ends required here at the compound. He's now driving quite a bit, taking the truck to go shopping. Believe me, shopping here is not fun. One of the guys who went shopping with Dad said that the type of screws they were looking for to use on the construction site (and you can imagine how many screws for the size of building) were not to be found. They went to 3 hardware stores in the town of Grand Guave where we are, and then into the next bigger town of Petit Guave to more hardware stores and all they found were screws that this guy said haven't been in use since the 1950's. So, one day someone will be making the 40 km, 2 1/1 hour trip into Port au Prince to find them. It's pretty mind boggling for us North Americans to think that we have the convenience of Home Hardware or Home Depot, etc to run to and they're fully stocked with all that we need.
Chris and I are each with one of the teams at their evening debriefing and I love that time. There is always a thoughtful, inspiring devotional time, a great sharing time with some real openness from the heart, and a meaningful prayer time to end. Getting to know the people on the team that I'm with is really a highlight and I'm going to miss them when they leave Tuesday.
Chris had a nice birthday celebration. I made a couple of big wacky cakes. They don't have cocoa here so I used packaged hot chocolate mix. I used the same in the icing. The cake was great, and the icing a bit crunchy because the sugar in the mix didn't dissolve in the icing. Oh well. Chris was pleased and everyone enjoyed it anyway. Cake is a special occurrence here.
I want to close because I can tell they're getting organized to head outside to pour the concrete. We both send our love.
Hey Kathy, there is a USB drive in the office that has some info on it that might be helpful for you and Chris. I made it up last year while my Chris and I were there. You can ask Lisa or Geanne where it is.
ReplyDeleteTHanks for your blogs they are great.