Second Full Day

Our second full day on site continued to go well. Most of the team focused on continuing construction of the apartment - the walls (external and internal) are taking shape and the layout is much clearer to everyone now. Bob and Karen drove in to St Marc to buy supplies to build a new table for the orphanage. Some of the guys worked on adapting some of the desks for the kindergarden class to better fit the children. Erin ran craft time for the kids, while Aidan continued to work with Grampie on some of the mortar work then played with the boys (JJ and Moise). Kate went back and forth to the orphanage visiting the kids. Heidi spent some time on email updates, organizing donations, and spent time with the kids and Karen. Tim and Jim worked on the computers (thankfully we received an upgrade for our Internet access late today, allowing the new laptops to be set up and generally making things work much better).


Here's a shot of the apartment at the end of the day - you can see the rooms taking shape and the walls rising. Tomorrow the missions team will take a day off to visit the beach while the local workers pour the various support posts/pillars and let them set.

We've been thankful for a bit of an overcast yesterday and today. That's kept us out of the full force of the sun which, combined with much more moderate temperatures than we had last year (low thirties), has made the work much more bearable.

The new tire swing was a huge hit - the kids were lining up to have turns and generally piling as many on at a time as possible:
Dieunel is very comfortable with the Blancs on the team (and especially the camera!):

Tifi is one of the special needs children at the orphanage. She often doesn't let a lot show, but was actively enjoying craft time and getting to color:

Heidi has been spending a lot of time getting to know the kids. All of them are quite used to digital cameras, and love to have their picture taken (then look at the results) and play with photography themselves:

Around lunch time everyone tends to run down a bit anyway. Colton decided he was tired enough that he struck a "Take me now, Lord" pose:

Our newest addition to the orphanage arrived late yesterday. He cried for the first while - we think it was the first time he had seen a Blanc, and look what he walked into! By this morning, though, he had already relaxed enough that he lit up when Ben went to visit him, and allowed his picture to be taken. Later he went to Karen and gave her kisses, too. A note from Ben: "This is Ben and his new grandson Judel, a foster child for Ryan and Natalie." While Judel was crying yesterday, Ben noted, "Judel is one of the lucky ones, he just doesn't know it yet."

Everyone is raving about the food. Marta and Germaine, our cooks, do a wonderful job. We've enjoyed home made pancakes for breakfast today, mac and cheese, rice with sauce, fried chicken with salad, wonderful bread, and exceptional chicken noodle soup. (So much for the Haitian diet plan we were counting on as we indulged over the holidays!) Kate has been raving about the food in general and the bread in particular - she wanted to order some from Kijiji when we got home... ;)

Karen has expressed her thankfulness that the work is going so quickly and smoothly. We're all very pleased with that. Gerry asks that everyone continue to pray for health and protection - we've had no real mishaps thankfully, but a couple of the guys have fought some minor stomach upsets and/or head colds that have slowed them down a bit.

Gerry does have a bit of a bone to pick with Dickie though (Karen's brother-in-law, who along with her sister Sandra work year-round to support the mission from Canada). Dickie obtained some new mosquito tents for the team to bring down, and Gerry was the first to use one: