Bonsoir! from Haiti

Hey everyone! we're having a great time in Haiti so far. Internet access is spotty, so this is kind of two posts in one. A lot's been going on, and we're excited to tell you all about it.

The Haiti boys (Jordan and Adam) are back from another tiring day of foundation building up in Foison. We are dust and sweat covered but we’re having an awesome time. We’re a little late on updating everyone so we’ve got a lot to talk about.
Our trip started out with about 26 hours of total travel time. We arrived in Port-Au-Prince (PAP) at about 8:30am after flying from Seattle to LA to Miami and down from there. In the Miami airport we met up with the mission group from Virginia that we’ve been staying with for the first 10 days. They are awesome and we’ve had a lot of fun hanging out at the team house and working with them. There is one other intern here (Kester) along with Adam and I. We arrived at Bruce and Deb’s house at about 7pm after battling the red hats at the PAP airport, sneaking oversized carry on bags onto the Tortug Airlines flight to Port-De-Paix, crossing a river in sinking boats, and a 40 min truck ride with Pastor Chrisbon over some of the bumpiest roads we’ve ever seen. What an experience.
Since then, we’ve been hard at work. The very first day we got the opportunity to survey a section of river where we will eventually be designing a dam for an irrigation canal. We finished the surveying on Thursday thanks to our brand new Nikon total station. Other than that we’ve been working with the Virginians on the foundation of a new school in Foison, a small village in the mountains about 10 miles South of Bruce and Deb’s house. That has involved digging holes; gathering, rolling, carrying, shoveling, throwing, and smashing huge boulders; tying rebar to make foundation columns; carrying and mixing cement. We’ve also had plenty of time playing with the local kids. Around the team house itself, we’ve put together emergency tents that were just delivered, moved building supports, attached a dipole radio that can communicate with the rest of the world, eaten delicious food with the Robinsons, toured Bruce’s previous projects and shop, and explored the area around the team house. We also got to go to the local outdoor market and bakery with Deb. A couple nights ago we attended a Haitian funeral, which was a very interesting experience. We met our first real opposition at a work site where we were building the base of a culvert. A man was throwing a fit that made a lot of the Haitians stop working. It was decided for us to leave the situation and so we went to a pastor’s house nearby. It was a nice drive back to the house with the pastor through the Haitian countryside.
We have loved getting to be a part of Bruce and Deb’s ministry so far and hearing their vision for the future of this remote corner of Haiti. So much of their vision has already come to life, and we’re very excited to see what other amazing things will happen here in the next few weeks. We’ve been very busy, but we’re having a great time. Please keep us in our prayers, especially that God would comfort us from homesickness, would give us strength to complete our tasks, and would be with us in developing our team unity.
We hope you’re all doing well, and we can’t wait to hear about the things God is doing with the other teams. Much love,
J&A
Note: The above blog entry was written several days ago, but we were unable to post it due to power and internet issues.
Today was Beach Day!
The week long mission trip of the Virginians is coming to an end, so we got to celebrate by spending the morning at a beautiful beach near Bay De Mustique. It was a beautiful sunny day. We got to swim, snorkel, and play all morning. We found Nemo, dove for sand dollars, and Adam even made a treasure map. All in all, it was a great day enjoying God’s creation.
Haiti is an all around beautiful place. Each little town is different. There are tropical beaches with white sand and turquoise waters near, harsh deserts with cactus and all things prickly, huge rocky mountains, lush tropical jungles, vast banana and mango farms. What an amazing place.
The Virginians will be heading back to the US tomorrow leaving the 3 engineers to continue working. We had a great time getting to know and hanging out with them, and we will miss them. But there’s plenty of work still to be done. Every day is a new adventure in Haiti, and we’ll do our best to keep y’all posted on our activities.
Peace,
J&A