Day 8 - Odd Job Day

On Tuesday, Major Peter Rowe (Salvation Army), who had hoped to be with us for two weeks, will be heading home for health reasons. Thank you Peter for ALL you have done to help us accomplish the project.  God bless you and have a safe journey home!

We all want to take a moment to thank those of you at home for your prayers, comments, and personal emails.  Our trip and our work are going very well thanks to God's blessing on the work and your prayers for safety and support.  Please continue your prayers, especially for:

• Spiritual strength and protection for the mission team and HATS mission staff
• Continued personal health and safety for all involved here, both Canadians and Haitians
• Successful completion of our projects
• Blessing upon the overall mission project and its efforts
• Unity of purpose and spirit for all

Please also continue your comments and emails.  Nothing gets team members excited like hearing of a comment or email for them, and your words are a tremendous encouragement.

We actually had a bit of rain overnight last night, and a couple of very light showers during the day. That combined with the cloud cover made the temperatures very moderate and quite comfortable to work in, which we are very grateful for. We're at a relatively quiet point in the construction cycle, with the Haitian workers doing most of the work preparing the apartment. They've been finishing off the posts and started pouring the headers (beams) by working late (after dark) tonight. There are a few more beams to frame up and pour tomorrow. We've been able to fill in some gaps and chinks with mortar, but otherwise the work has to take its own time at this point.

In the meantime, we've been dividing up into small workgroups of two to four people and rapidly knocking off a whole list of smaller projects.  Some of the projects we've completed or worked on today include:

• New table (picnic-style) for the orphanage dorm
• Rennovating a small storage room to be a new laundry room with running water and drain for the wash ladies (currently they haul water from the tap to a large wash basin outside)
• Blocking in the generator room (almost complete)
• Digging out and pouring a cement pad for a new shelter/hut for the security guards
• Repairs to the screens in the gallery (porch)

We'll be wrapping these projects up within the next day or so we hope, which will be just in time to start framing the roof of the new apartment.

Today was the first day back to school here after the Christmas / New Year's holidays.  The kids from the orphanage as well as the other community children all looked very sharp in their school uniforms.  Unfortunately, the normal start-of-day routine at the school was thrown off a bit due to a rain shower and the usual confusion of a new term.  Here are a couple of photos for now - we'll have some more probably tomorrow when things start to get back into their normal school rhythm.

Part of the school program includes providing a very nutritious lunch made from a rice/soy/flavoring mixture obtained through the US Aid organization. Several ladies come to the school each day to cook the rice over some cookfires in the porch of the kitchen area:

With school back in, things were pretty quiet around here, especially during the morning. The Newell kids spent some time catching up on homework and journals, as well as a bit of down time. Heidi unpacked what she thought was "really the last" suitcase of donations (until we found another one later...), helped with Alex, and took care of some of the laundry in addition to helping with homework and supervising the kids.

Although Gerry didn't appreciate them all that much (grin), Erin is loving the mini-mosquito-tents Dickie sent down. She's taken over one and set it up right next to Grampie (Gerry) and is loving being out there. Aidan has one of the regular tents right next to them. They both love organizing them and "customizing" them by adding towels or sheets for shelter from the sun:

Being right next to Gerry works out well - both Aidan and Erin are definitely early-risers. This morning Erin surprised Gerry by getting up so quietly at about 5:30 a.m. that when he woke up and went downstairs to the kitchen she was sitting there by the door (Marta, our cook, was already there) looking expectant and waiting for him!