"Hey guys...Don't do that in your mother's car"-Bruce Robinson (Team Haiti)

This week we made a road trip 50 miles south to Gonaives. It took us about 4 hours to get there, and we had to drive another hour to get to the dam we were working on so it was a long day of traveling. About halfway through the drive we had to cross Twa Rivie, a pretty big river. Water was literally covering the hood of the Land Cruiser the whole time, but we made it across safely. Once we got to the other side, Bruce stopped, rolled down his window and said to us, "Hey guys...don't do that in your mother's car." The lesson from this experience: Buy a Toyota, they can do anything and don't break. Anyways, we went to Gonaives on Thursday this week to help a friend of Bruce's figure out some ways to improve an irrigation dam. So we made the drive and showed up with our equipment to make some observations.

Our work this week has been very random, so we'll do our best to get everything down. We finished putting up the basketball hoop now that the court is ready to go. Kids have been playing on it almost non stop since we finished it. There is another missions team coming from Virginia tomorrow to run a soccer camp for 100 Haitian kids ages 9-12 tomorrow. We've spent a lot of time cleaning and organizing the shop and team house for their arrival. Jeff and Jordan went with Bruce one day to visit a worker who has been sick for some time. We have had some car troubles so Tuesday and Wednesday we were limited to within walking distance of the shop. That just meant we went out on a hike to a nearby dam to try and rework the canal gates on it. We continued working on a foundation and Bruce and Deb's house. One more engineer arrived Tuesday afternoon from Virginia. While Part of the team was gone at the airport, the three of us spent some time having a Bible study on the roof of the team house. It was awesome to finally get some free time to hang out. During an afternoon soccer game with the kids, Jeff twisted his ankle, but he iced it and stayed off it for a few days and is now almost back to full strength. It did buy him a few rides in the front seat of the Land Cruiser though. And Friday, after almost 3 weeks of bugging Bruce about it, we finally got to go to the beach again. We had a great time playing in the surf and soaking up the sun. That's pretty much been our week. We're finally all ready for the soccer team to arrive. Looks like Amber posted some pictures for us of the cement pour last week. Enjoy.

Hope you're all doing well. God's Grace,

JJ&A

Haiti Photos

Photos of the Haiti team on the marathon concrete day:

Mache nan limye Bondye (marching in the light of God) Team Haiti

So, it's been a week...what could've happened in Haiti...?

First off, we forgot to say...Happy 4th of July!!! Hope y'all had awesome celebrations. Ours definitely lacked fireworks, but had plenty of fire. haha. We had a small American flag to wave patriotically, and we sang every patriotic song we could think of. Including, Bow Down to Washington. I mean, Huskies are pretty much synonymous with America right? haha By the way, we had a 73 year old Haitian man named frere Augiste wave the flag for us as we drove down incredibly bumpy roads standing in the back of the truck.

The work week was also pretty busy for us. On Tuesday, we built a tin roof over the front porch of the team house and cleaned out a storage depot. The roof looks awesome and Bruce was very impressed with our work. Wednesday was an extremely important day around the shop. There was a concrete pour going on for the roof of the new office building. Literally, everything around the shop was put on pause so that everyone could help out. They got out the diesel cement mixer, and carried the concrete in buckets up stairs and ladders to the roof of the second floor of the building. The roof is poured and leveled bucket by bucket. This processes took all day, and was very hard work. Our team was tasked with loading the mixer with sand and gravel. A few of us got to take part in the bucket line. And, of course it started raining...so we all got soaked with rain and covered in dust and concrete.

Thursday through Sunday we got to go to a Haitian run spiritual life conference called Beraca near Port-de-Paix. This conference is run by Bruce and Deb's partner church organization. It is a time where people from all over Haiti come together to meet and worship. There were 6000-7000 people in attendance, and church services were held morning and night with about 4000 people at each one. We did have a small amount of work to do-designing a new amphitheater for future conferences, but overall the conference was a great time for us to rest and hang out as a team. We played some epic games of Risk and Monopoly, got to sleep in, played basketball and hung out with kids, and got to watch the World Cup final. Congrats Spain! We had a great time learning new songs in Creole and worshiping with thousands of Haitians. It was a really cool experience for all of us.

...And now we're back home enjoying one final night of hanging out and relaxing before we get back to work tomorrow. It's been really cool to check up on how some of the other teams are doing. Ecuador, that's terrible! We totally feel for you. We'll keep you all in our prayers.

God's Grace,

JJ&A

Blan! Blaaaannn! (Team Haiti)

More "blans" (White people) are here! And our team of engineers has more than doubled. Jeff made it here safely, along with another familiar face, Josh Kennedy, Reed a high school student from Georgia and Michael a physics major from Whitworth in Spokane.

Our first day with everyone here, we went out to a new job site to do some surveying. This particular place has a huge pumped water system that supplies irrigation water for 700 people. For those that may not know, surveying is basically taking digital data points with some cool instruments and using them to make a 3D map of an area. From that data, we can then design a solution to the problem. The existing system was washed out by hurricanes a few years back and now it's totally out of service. Our task was to survey the area and exiting pump system to 1) design a newer, better system, and 2) determine whether the existing equipment could still be used. It was a long day out in the sun, but we got everything we needed. We then had a nice lunch of MREs (Army food), picked up the bags from the airport that came late, and headed home for an awesome dinner with the Robinsons. After dinner, we had a great devo lead by Bruce and Deb, and then went home and had some time to hang out, play cards, make gatorade, etc...

Today, we went to Pastor Chribon's church again. It was really hot out, but church here is awesome. Every Sunday the pastors ask if there is anyone in the congregation who is new and wants to accept Jesus as savior. This time there were a few new believers there, which is amazing to see. Haitians also love to sing. There is always a lot of variety in the worship music. Some songs are done in Creole, some in French, some songs are sung by choirs, some are solos, some are duets. You can definitely hear an African influence on the musical style. It's very interesting for us to try and sing in a different language and still be in rhythm. And of course, Sunday means lunch made by Madame Chrisbon. Sooo good! New favorite items on the menu were breaded, fried cheese balls, and pasta salad.

Also this week, We worked on building a basketball court, pouring cement at Bruce and Deb's house, tying more rebar. Adam and I also got the priveledge of going deeper into the mountains than Bruce has ever gone before to find a new spring. It was quite the adventure, but we found the spring. We had to do a lot of off roading in the Land Cruiser, hike through a jungle, and climb halfway up a mountain to get there. We also took a little time to climb farther up the mountain. We reached a peak, and the view was amazing. We could see all of northwest Haiti. What an incredible experience!

We're all doing really well. Thank you all for prayer and support. Hope all is well with the other teams and at home.

God's Grace,

JJ&A

Haiti: Mangos are delicious!

Hey everyone! It’s been an awesome weekend down in Haiti. The mission team from Denby Pres in Virginia left for home Friday, leaving the 3 interns behind. We spent most of the day Friday working on creating a digital 3D map of the surveying data we took last week. We’ll start the actual design of the dam and canal soon. On Saturday, we got some good rest by sleeping in until about 8am. Bruce had a few tasks for us that day, but they were quick and easy. It was mostly just bending rebar and connecting some new parts to a car battery charger. We’ve had two visitors this weekend from a company called Protos that works with Bruce on many of the water projects. Martine is Belgian, and Julie is French. They’ve been working with Bruce on accounting stuff. We have definitely managed without his supervision though. With our spare time, we like to play with the neighborhood kids, start soccer games, explore the beautiful Haitian countryside, hang out…There’s always stuff to do here. Church on Sunday was an awesome experience. Everyone dresses their absolute best to worship the Lord. We went to Pastor Chrisbon’s church in Post Metier this time. He gave on great sermon on the 5^th Commandment. After church, we got to accompany Bruce and Pastor Chrisbon to Madame Danielle’s house to pray with her for her family. It was really cool to see how the church community will come together to support each other in times of need. And, of course, Sunday afternoon was spent at Pastor Chrisbon’s house where we had a marvelous feast prepared by Madame Chrisbon. So good! Then Sunday afternoon we went to visit a Toutoun, a man who works for Bruce, and his family. And we spent Sunday evening eating amazing mangos and popcorn and hanging out with the Robinsons. What a great weekend!

This week is going to be really busy for us. Bruce has several projects he wants us to start working on. Wednesday we even get to travel up into the mountains to find the source of a river to see if we can use it to supply water to the towns below. And the rest of our team arrives on Friday, and we can’t wait for them to get here. We’ve got plenty to do until they get here though. We’re doing great! Hope everything’s well on the home front.

God’s grace,

J&A

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

Haiti Team has arrived

A message from Bruce Robinson:
Jordan and Adam are here and we are very impressed with them. The whole team’s bags are supposed to come in the morning. They are going to start working on an irrigation canal survey and design in the morning.

More later.

In Christ,
Bruce

Deputation 2010

Get excited! There are only 6 weeks until the 2010 Deputation teams take-off! The teams will be serving in 7 countries this summer. Please join me in praying for each team as they prepare for the summer.

Team Thailand: Emma, Jessica, Victor, and Dan

Team Kenya: Eric, Megan, Drea, and Barclay

Team India: Sarah and Katie


Team Haiti: Adam, Jeff, and Jordan

Team Ecuador: Kellie, Allyssa, Mandi, Jamie, and Erica

Team Dominican Republic: Mary, Megan, and Meredith

Team Bethlehem: Alex and Trey