Day Five

Good Evening...

Today was another productive day. Jim and Dick got all of the wiring set up for the air conditioners. We will be installing five of them on the second floor, which will be predominantly used as our dormitory and dining room. Since they got that done the started going through the building and replacing the switches and recepticles with the new ones we purchased.

Marty and Gene finished the men's restroom, fixed a few more leaks and got the bathroom for the Haitian staff set up.

Franz finally got all of the needed parts to get the satelite dish set up for Internet access. He should be getting it locked in on the service provider later tonight or tomorrow. El Shadai, the local Haitian church planting ministry that MNA works with here in Haiti has a radio broadcasting station in Les Cayes so they have the technical staff to get this set up and running.

The medical staff had another good day. They have encountered a lot of cases of malaria. Here they are after a long day of work eating their dinner on the porch.

Tomorrow we hope to get all of the air conditioners installed and some ceiling fans installed. Still waiting to hear something on the generator.

Thanks for all of your support.

David Short's ongoing account...

Bonswa...

I have often heard that your third day on a trip like this is usually the day that you hit the wall. Well we hit it today. We still accomplished quite a bit, but we were all moving a little bit slower.

We got all of the drains on the roof set up so that they will now drain properly. It shouldn't be too difficult to get them set up to collect into 50 gallon drums at some point in the future.

Jim and Dick got busy with pulling all of the electrical wires for the air conditioners. This part should be pretty well done tomorrow and we will start installing the ac units. At least this part should be ready when the generator arrives. We ran out of 90 degree elbows and Jim ended up working with one of our Haitian hosts to heat up the conduit over a fire and make our own.

Marty and Gene continued to focus on the plumbing work, fixing leaks first and then getting the sinks in the men's
bathroom set up.

Gillian, one of the guards here at the compound was put to work painting today and quickly knocked out 3 rooms and a hallway. One thing that I have definitely learned about the Haitians it is that they are very hard workers. It is certainly a priviledge to work beside them here.

We were also able to get started cleaning up some of the grounds which will help in making the compound more comfortable. We also took the opportunity to go out into the street market behind our compound and it was quite an eye opener. We walked through the intersection of two streets where the garbage was filling up the entire intersection and smoldering. The vendors sitting next to the heap were calling out to us asking us to clean up the mess because they couldn't breathe. Their thought was that since we wer foreigners were there to solve these problems. It looks like the further away from the main streets that you get then the less you see of any foreign aid.

Once again we thank you sincerely for you prayers and thoughts...we definitely feel them.

Progress...

First of all...a correction on yesterday's post. Jim and Dick worked on the air conditioning and electrical and Marty and Gene worked on the pump.

As of tonight we have running water. Marty and Gene were able to get our shopping done with Franz...one of our hosts. They slammed through getting the pump working and then they had to run around finding all of the broken pipes and disconnected faucets followed by a lot of mopping. But it all turned out well with both the women's and the men's bathrooms having functioning showers and toilets. Tomorrow the should get the shed built around the pump, filter and tank.

Jim and Dick cranked on getting everything ready to install the air conditioners. They were able to find some scaffolding so that they could run the conduit around the outside of the building. They also put in an extra breaker box to power all of the ac and ran all of the conduits through the walls. Tomorrow we should be able to start putting the ac units in the windows. Unfortunately we won't be able to use them until we get our generator. The prognosis on the generator is Wednesday...keep praying.

While the guys were doing all their work I focused on the women's bathroom. I was able patch the door where the termites had gotten into the frame, replaced the toilet tank, applied two coats of paint, got the shower going and washed down all of the tile. We have one room completed...tomorrow we should be able to get the men's bathroom set up and painted.

The medical team shared that they had a good day and accomplished a lot. Tomorrow we will continue the plumbing, painting and electrical as well as install a satellite dish for an Internet connection. Franz will be setting up wireless and leaving two laptops here for team members to use while here.

Day Three Continued...

Bow Dye Bewiw (Lord Bless You)...

When we got back from church we had another great meal and then got starting getting ready for the week. The medical team took over one of the rooms and spent the rest of the day sorting out all of their equipment and materials and basically setting up a pharmacy.

The construction crew took the divide and conquer approach. Jim and Dick focused on getting the pump and tank up and running. We got quite a bit in place and after a supply run tomorrow we should be able to get the water running in the building.

Marty and Gene focused on laying out the electrical plans for getting some of the air conditioners set up in the pastor's room and dorm rooms. I spent the day organizing our supplies and being the general gofer guy (go for this, go for that).

Tomorrow things should get pretty busy so ease keep us in your thoughts and prayers. The temperature is getting up to the upper 90's with the humidity about the same so we are all pretty well drenched by the end of the day.

At the Base

Day three

Bow Dye Bewiw (Lord Bless You)...

We had another great opportunity to attend church. The church was
overflowing again and had at least a thousand attendees. The service
started at 7:00 AM and went to around 10:30 AM. When we arrived there
was something already going on, which we found out later was actually
the Sunday school class. And I have a hard time making it to Sunday
school at 10:00... :-(

Day two...

Bonswa...

Our team made it all here. The first of us made it at 9:40 AM and the last group arrived at the compound at around 6:00 PM. One more person gets in tomorrow. We have 5 us here to continue the construction of the compound and there are 18 team members from across the country (and one from Australia) that will be doing a medical clinic throughout the week.

For those of you that followed our last trip...the septic tank cover has been completed.

We will be going to church tomorrow morning at 7:00 and then spending the rest of the day getting everything staged for the week.

Another team from the Ohio area

Hello Again... from David Short (MNA Haiti site-coordinator)

Today begins our third trip to Haiti. This trip is comprised of 5 men from the Ohio Valley area. We will be focusing on getting the facility in Carrefour ready to use by future teams. We will also be hosting a team of 18 medical personnel that will be travelling daily to Leogaine.

Updates to follow

David Short's final report as he returns from work with the Tennessee team in Haiti

Bonjour...

I made it home about 12:30 AM Thursday morning and as with all of these kinds of trips Laura and I stayed up until 2:30 catching up. God, in His incredible sense of humor, woke us up with a call at 7:30 AM from Julie (our very pregnant daughter) letting us know that she was on the way to the hospital. She was 5 weeks early at the time. Laura and I were at the hospital yesterday until around 9:30 last night.

Levi Samuel Barr arrived this morning around 1:30 AM. He is a healthy premee weighing in at 5 lbs 10 ozs and measuring 18 inches. Mom and dad (and Nonny Laura) are doing well. The next 48 hours are critical for the development of his lungs so please be praying for him.

I sill be pushing our pictures and videos from the trip up to the Flickr server as soon as possible. My next trip is March 27th so I will send more emails then. We do have 7 of us lined up to do more construction and a medical team of 18 coming down. Please keep all of this in your prayers.

Praise God...

Our supplies made it here around 7:00 this evening. We were able to
get everything unloaded and in a secure storage area. Apparently we
had to pay a tariff to the government as well as multiple bribes to small government officials in order to get our own, donated supplies.
When Doudou gets a chance he will add up all of the fees and let you know how much we had to pay. My request is that you contact your senator and assembly person and let them know what is really going on down here.

Today we continued with plumbing, electrical, and more cleanup. There is an abandoned pool on the grounds that we cleaned out and we were able to get some more of the plumbing out to the septic tank in place.

Day 7...

Bow Dye Bewiw (Lord Bless You)...

Today was a wonderful day of rest. We left for church at 6:30 (yes, that is AM). Church started at 7:00 and ran until 10:30. We probably had close to 1,000 people at the church and I would have to say one of the most moving worship services that I have ever been to. The Haitian people are so loving and friendly...even in the midst of the most devastation and poverty that I have ever seen.

After church we rode around the area to show the team more of Haiti.

I continue to thank you for your prayers and thoughts. Our host here is Pastor Lionel Moril. He has been married for 7 1/2 months and they have a baby due in about 6 months. The church that he pastors is about 25 miles from here and he has asked us if we would pray that God would provide a vehicle for him so that he could get to his church more easily.

I hope pictures of the devastation never get too old, but I do not believe I will ever be able to truly give you an understanding of it's enormity without coming here.

May God Bless You and your loved ones.

Day 6....

Bonswa...

Well, we are on the downhill side of this trip. We are hearing rumors that our truck and supplies may be showing up tonight. Today we spent most of the day cleaning the windows and walls of the dormitory rooms to get them ready to paint.


We also did another hardware run and will be able to get the roof drains all set up tomorrow.

The team has made a lot of friends so I suspect there will be some sadness when we head out on Wednesday.

Work and play on-site

From David Short, on-site coordinator, Day 3 of Tennessee team's work

Bonswa...
Well we made it through another day without our shipment. We were still able to get quite a bit accomplished. The electrical team has been able to map out most of the circuits in the building. This should help a lot when we get the supplies here. We also started tearing down the existing pump to see of we can make it work. We will test it tomorrow. We also did some more work on the plumbing.

We also took advantage of the time to clean off the roof and check out the water tank for the gravity feed. Our plan is to reroute the roof drains to some collection barrels to supplement the cistern.

We were also able to get in some frisbee and soccer (with a tennis-type ball we found on the roof).

Today the temperature was 93 but the humidity made it feel like 101. So far it is getting more humid each day, but no rain yet.

Thanks again for all of your thoughts and prayers. The team is great.

Udate from team restoring the relief site in Carrefour

Bonswa...

Well...the Tennessee team made it here today without a hitch. Today it was in the mid 90's. No rain yet, but it is starting to cloud up every afternoon, which usually is an indication that the rainy season is on it's way.

We have not heard yet what the status of our trucks is so please keep praying for them.  Since the team got here after 12:00 we started the work day off with a great lunch...quite a feast.





Since we did not have the construction materials we spent the afternoon assessing the facility to determine what we can do without the materials.  Our first big project has been to do some work on getting the sewer line to the existing septic tank ready for some repairs.

We also put our new banner up at the compound...




Well that is it for today...tomorrow should start getting pretty busy.

Teams heading to Haiti this week

From David Short, the MNA site coordinator for the construction teams in Haiti:

Hello Family and Friends…

It has been a while since I have sent out an update on Haiti. We are finally at a point with our progress that we are sending our first construction team to Haiti. We have 10 men from the Chattanooga, TN who are scheduled to arrive in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Thursday, March 11^th. I will be heading down there tomorrow night with an arrival in Haiti of 9:45 on Wednesday morning. We are still praying that the supplies that we shipped out from Miami will be there waiting for us.

Our focus for this trip will be to start retrofitting our compound in Carrefour to receive future teams. The locals have named this facility Oasis. Mission to North America (MNA) has 45 teams that are lining up to come down to help rebuild churches and homes once we get this facility up and running. Here are a couple of pictures of the facility that we took while we were down there.

We already have 8 men signed up for our next construction trip, which is March 27^th through April 3^rd. Our hope is to have the facility completed by then and start sending regular teams around the middle of April.

On the medical side

A couple of shots from a group of doctors from Charlotte, NC, that took a recent trip to Haiti with ESMI, providing medical relief and a great account of their work at http://morethanmedicine.wordpress.com/