Progress...

Bonswa…

Today we focused on getting the septic tank and drainage lines completed. We started by capping off all of the open areas where the lines feed into the tank with concrete and then moved on to filling in all of the holes. The final activity was to form in the hole on the top of the septic tank, which will be used for pumping it out in the future and pouring a concrete collar on it. The final, big task will be to fill in everything and level off the area.

After dinner we drove out to Pastor Pierre Paul’s site to assess how far along it is. The pad for the house has been cleared fairly well. We asked them to make it a little more level. We were also able to assess what the prevalent sun, storm and breeze directions would be for the placement of the house.

Now we are waiting to hear back from the leadership of ESMI and MNA as to whether or not the design of the house is acceptable and how the home is going to be funded. If that information comes in by this weekend we should be able to start construction next week. If you are praying for us please pray that decisions will be made quickly and effectively.

Thanks...

Day Six of May trip

Bonswa…

We got off to a fairly early start today. The sky starts to light up around 4:30, not to mention the neighborhood also starts coming alive. Today Chris and I, with the help of Julian and Guercy finished the main drain lines to the new septic tank. Tomorrow we will cover them all in and can call this project completed.

We were also able to do some odds and ends kind of jobs around the compound getting it ready for the next team. Tonight we went back to downtown Port au Prince for dinner and drove through some areas that I haven’t seen yet. Still more devastation and mayhem.

Arrival of backup

Today was more of a run around and planning day. We started the day off picking up Chris Kerslake at the airport. Chris will be my back up for those trips that I cannot lead here. He is from Chicago. As is usual in a country like Haiti today had its unplanned events. On the way to the airport we got a flat on the van. Fortunately (by God’s grace) the tire went flat right in front of the pick up gate at the airport so we were not late picking up Chris.

From the airport we went to a lumber supply house (I will never complain about Lowes or Home Depot again) to get some prices on materials so that I can do a rough estimate for the home that we have been asked to build. We also picked up the supplies needed to finish the septic tank lines that we will be working on today (Wednesday).

Back at the Oasis compound Chris and Guercy went to work putting in some new light fixtures and I took on the task of cleaning our supply room so that it is better organized for when the teams arrive.

In the afternoon the contingency that was doing the Disaster Response training out at Calico came to the compound and we gave them a tour of the facility. We then loaded up in the van and drove out to Mirebalais, which is about a two hour drive. The Great Commission Alliance and Mission to North America are working with the mayor of Mirebalais to build a new city to house the people that have left Port au Prince and moved out there. The mayor has donated the property and the GCA/MNA teams are almost done building a guest house there to host construction teams. The next plans are to put in some roads, a church, an orphanage/school and a medical clinic.

On the way up to Mirebalais is snapped a picture of one of the tent cities that has sprung up on the outskirts of Port au Prince. The current desire of the government here is to relocate about half of the population of Port au Prince out to places like this. As you can tell there is a lot of work to do to make these places sustainable.

Experienced in Construction?

The home will be built on a hillside overlooking the bay. I have been reviewing the materials at www.shelterhaiti.org and am leaning toward a stick and frame structure.

SPECIAL NOTE: for those of you reading this that have some construction background please take a look at the above files, which is a quick work up of what I am considering. We would like to target a 12’ x 20’, single room structure. I would like your thoughts and ideas.

David Short's Sunday

Last night we had a thunderstorm roll through at about 2:00 AM. It rained so hard that our patio on the second story got flooded. I would guess that we had 3-4 inches of rain. As we drove out to the property that we are going to build on we could see standing water all over the place and a lot of areas where mud has starting washing onto the roads. The people of Haiti definitely need your thoughts and prayers as they enter into the rainy season. In another month the hurricane season starts and it will get even worse.

We started today off with church. As always the service was vibrant and joyful. Today they included a baby dedication ceremony. After speaking for a while about the dedication each of the babies were handed to a leader in the church as they were prayed over.

After church we headed out to the property where we will build our first house. The church is pastured by Pastor Pierre Paul and it is located in Merger, which is about another 15 miles out of town. The church has about 500 people in it.

We stopped by the area where they are holding their temporary church services. This is the same compound that the medical team used on the last trip for their clinic. The rain last night was so bad last night out here that it nocked down the tent that they were using for their church service. I gave them some recommendations for bracing the structure in the future that might help it stand up better. There are about 60 people staying in this compound.

We also spent about 2 hours in a meeting this afternoon with a local church leader (Pastor Mani) who is over 10 churches in the area and 4 of those pastors. They were asking us to help them with their churches and we directed them to begin the process by starting to work with Dony St. Germain who is the head of El Shaddai Ministries International and who I am working with here in Haiti.

Tomorrow we meet up with Arklie Hooten (MNA) and Pastor Dony as they prepare for a 2 day workshop with about 50 pastors and 50 deacons from the area to teach them about disaster response in preparation for the upcoming hurricane season.

Thanks...

David Short's first account of the 4th trip

Bonswa (Good Evening)…

Yesterday (Friday) I flew down to Miami and spent the night on the floor of the airport. I met up with our new host/translator Pastor Guercy Meme. He and I will be working together on all of the trips going forward.

On our way out to the Oasis compound I noticed that there seems to be a lot more debris showing up on the streets. I have been reading through the recovery materials being prepared by the government and NGO’s and it has been determined that one of the significant issues of the recovery will be the management of the debris.

We also saw quite a few fuel trucks lined up at the port waiting for fuel to be made available. We needed some diesel and stopped at six service stations before we found some in bottles at a roadside vendor.

Guercy and I spent some time after dinner planning our approach. Apparently we have about 137 churches that we will be helping to rebuild. Over 75% of these have pastors whose homes were damaged or destroyed. We will start with a pastor’s home so that he can serve his church better, then we will do the church, then the members. I have been tasked with coming up with the basic design and build plans. This should be a fun opportunity to use my construction and project management backgrounds. Tomorrow we go to church and then start assessing the first property to work on.

Thanks...

Arrived at Disaster Response Workshop in Cabere, Haiti

Have been here for several hours. Chuck Garriot is giving a presentation. Chuck was a pastor in Oklahoma City when the bombing took place. He currently ministers to PCA members who are in congress. Chuck traveled seperately from our group. The members from our team begin presenting after lunch. Topics include; Preparing for hurricanes, Overview of effective communication systems, setting up a warning system and evacuating, assembling after a hurricane, how God uses suffering for redemptive purposes. There are approximately 100 pastors and deacons present. They are very gracious, grateful for our coming to help them. Language barrier with most. Some speak English. Dony St. Germaine of El Shaddai Ministry (our partner) is the organizer and translator for the event. Tomorrow afternoon we will tour Haiti visiting our volunteer relief camps in Carrefour and Mirebalais.

Arrived in Atlanta 30 mins early. Trouble finding vacant gate for deboarding. Meet up with the rest of the team at the gate at Ft. Lauderdale @730. HUGE layover

MNA Team flies to Haiti for Disaster Response Workshop

By invitation MNA and El Shaddai Ministries will host a disaster response workshop for nearly 100 Haitian church leaders; pastors and deacons. The MNA team will arrive in Ft. Lauderdale Sunday evening. Flying into Port au Prince early Monday we will have two FULL days of training as we seek to equip churches in ways to respond to natural disaster through early warning systems, mobilizing churches, addressing the spiritual implications of suffering, and providing basic medical training as it is related to natural disasters. I will attempt to post to this site regularly so please check out what's happening. Thanks for your prayers-for the people of Haiti, for our families, and for our presentations and teaching. Grateful for the opportunity and know we will learn from our brothers in Haiti so that together God would be glorified in our efforts to provide response to those in need.
Thanks for your prayers.
Curt

Haiti Trip #4: May 7 through 23, Pre-trip

Hello again...

I have the opportunity to lead another team to Haiti to continue doing Disaster Response work for Mission to North America (MNA). I leave tonight and will be arriving in Haiti tomorrow morning. The first week will be meeting with some of the leaders from El Shaddai Ministries International (ESMI) and MNA to do some basic planning for future trips and ongoing recovery activities, participate in a disaster response seminar being given to some pastors, travel out to Mirebilais where MNA is working with the Great Commission Alliance to build a new community, and hopefullyeet with some of the NGO's working in the area to build our relationship with them.

We will also be getting the Oasis compound in Carrefour ready for the team that will be arriving on the 15th. This team will be the first one to start working in the community. We will be rebuilding one of the churches that was damaged in the earthquake.

As usual I will try to send out daily emails with some pictures. If you would rather not receive these emails let me know and I will take you off of my list.

David Short

Oasis Compound ready for use

David Short, site coordinator's last daily log for third team on site:

Bonswa...

Today is that bittersweet day of the trip...tomorrow we head home, how sweet it will be to be back with my wife and family. But we will be leaving behind our Haitian family.

The generator has not yet arrived, but we know it will arrive exactly when God wants it to be here. We did get all of the electrical setup and ready to connect when the generator does arrive. We even got our Internet satellite and wireless router set up.

A lot of today was focused on putting together the finishing touches and putting everything in storage for the next trip, which looks like it may be April 24 through May 8 with a team of 35 from the Iowa area.

This will be my last entry until after I get back. Thanks again for putting up with all of my ramblings. I know that the Haitian people sincerely appreciate your thoughts and prayers. Now that the Oasis Compound is ready for use we will start focusing on work in the community.

Another Good Day...

Bonswa...

Another good day. Both the construction and medical teams have been awesome to work with.

Each day way have started the day off with singing and a devotion. Today Marty did the devotion. He shared from John 13:4-15, which is about Jesus washing His disciples' feet. He ended the devotion by having us take the te to wash each other's feet. It was quite a humbling and encouraging time.

Today we (construction team) went out with the medical team to visit their clinic. The have been working at a compound in a city farther West from here. The compound is owned by a private individual who has let a Church of God congregation come in and set up a safe place to be. The medical team has been able to see at least 100 people each day.

After visiting the clinic the construction team went to Gressier to look at one of the churches that we will be rebuiliding on a future trip.

We continued on out to Leogaine, which is where the epicenter of the earthquake was. 97% of the city was destroyed. A lot has been done, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

From there we returned to the Oasis compound and got back to work. It looks like we will be able to leave with all of the second floor of the compound building completed, which means our next trip(s) can start focusing on working on the churches in the community. We have all of the air conditioners installed (we can't use them until the generator arrives), every room painted, all the electrical switches and recepticles replaced, and the plumbing working. Tomorrow we will finish with upgrading the lights and ceiling fans and doing some final clean up activities.

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.