Water.....

We all know it's important, and most of us have spent our lives taking it for granted (myself included), but let me just say, when the water runs low and the dry season stretches long, one tends to appreciate it on a new level!

We have not had a significant rain in many weeks now, and having exhausted the usual methods of replenishing the cisterns (a hose from the local water source, hiring water carriers, etc), the guys have had to "go big".  Big, in this case meaning a tanker truck called "The Well-Driller's Helper"....a beast of a machine that was called out of retirement to service on the front lines, with tires that would make guardian angels sigh and roll up their sleeves. :)

So, they spent hours trying to make her road-worthy again, and off down the trail they went.  Girard, a zone about 15 minutes away from us by UTV time, still has water, and after some negotiating and establishing a relationship with the keeper of the local cistern there, Brandon and Hans were able to start hauling.

When Julian came down for a visit, I got the privilege of riding along on one of the  trips over the mountain in the rumbling beast.  

I gained a renewed appreciation for people who can manuever large machines over small trails...and thanked God I wasn't driving! ;)). 

Ready to fill at the cistern in Girard.  The concrete structure here is the washing station...the cistern is up the hill a bit.

Connecting hoses, ready to pump.

Perspective shot.  Cistern in the foreground, hoses stretched down to the truck at the bottom of the hill.

She's full!  Time to wrap up the hoses and go home.

Safely back at the compound, they drain/pump the load into the cistern....what a wonderful sound! :)

Please keep us in your prayers through this season.  The guys estimated the truck to carry approximately 1,300 gallons per trip, and that is a nice amount of water, but a significant amount of weight to bring down the steep places in the trail, and there is a risk involved.  Please pray with us for safety for the men as they continue to haul, and also that the Lord would send rain.  Our neighbors are planting, and the seeds will produce nothing without moisture in the rocky soil....and we know that this is His concern even more than ours.

May you be blessed as you serve Him where you're planted. 

--Jell :)

New tires

This may not be as exciting to you as it is to me, but for those of us that travel up and down the hour and forty-five minute long trail in all weather conditions, this is exciting. It is a little depressing to load up a lady in labor or some other malady into the land cruiser and not even be sure if we can make it the whole way out on the slippery trail because of an overnight rain. But with new treads like these I think I could make it out almost any time we need to. I will say though that I think I spent more time in prayer while driving the trail with the old tires. :) 

David is working on taking the tire off the rim and I (Julian) am washing the mud off before we start. 

One step closer to hittin' the trail. You feel that excitement comin' on?

Finished! Let's go!

A Quiet Saturday....

......what a concept!  No knocks on the gate, no births or trips out to town or lacerations of any degree!  Unbelievable.  So, we decided to tackle a few of those "been wanting to get that done" kind of projects.

Mali and Kin took on the flowerbeds behind the house.  Looking good!

Some of the rest of us headed up to Elise's house to fix a bit of a problem with  her roof....seems the termites had done a number on one of the purlins and now the edge of the tin tended to flap in the breeze.

Gotta get it just the right length....

(And yes, it's exactly what it looks like...we talked Hans into the project, then hung out with the kids and watched him do the actual work. =)

I tried to figure out how to do Mika's hair...harder than it looks! :)

While Whit hung out with this cutie, who didn't love the camera.

Elise came out to check the final product, and was all smiles.  (That's her, in the red, ignoring me as I photo shoot her house. :)

Think it'll hold, Whit??

Meanwhile, back at HQ, some others had taken it upon themselves to work on the gazebo, a lengthy "short term" project we've been trying to finish.

Ellamae and Eugene helped mix...

....and Julian poured.  

Then we all wrapped up the day in our very favorite-est way....Happy Birthday, Kin!!!

Church benches

Thanks to the team from PA. we now have new church benches. They started with angle iron and planks and made some rather comfortable sitting devices capable of holding up to 12 people. Well this is Haiti you know. :)

Painting the boards 

Painting the frames

The finished product 

Lord bless you all. 

Roof is on!

After a couple set backs and rocks in the road, the roof is finally on the church!

First problem was my Haitian bosses made the church about 1.5' to wide. So we made a run to town for the steel to extend the trusses. Thankfully the trusses are steel, so they are pretty easy to repair. 

Now as of yesterday, thanks to a great group of guys we have here, the trusses are all up and the tin is on!

Now the next step is pouring the floor. So hopefully that can be done without to many glitches!

Donny

Church project

Since we are so terrible at keeping this blog up. I thought you all would enjoy a few pictures of how the church project is coming.  

The walls are just about finished and the roof will be going up shortly!

Lord bless you all in the coming year!

Donavon

The new church.....so far.

As many of you already know, the church project is once again under way. Several weeks ago the Bosses from Ti-goave came up and started work. They first finished digging the trench for the footer and then built the rest of the two foot thick rock wall for the foundation. Now they are working on laying the block walls. 

So far all the work at the site itself is being done by Haitions. But we have to keep all the supplies there for them so they can keep working. Donny and Hans and I have hauled many loads of sand and rock from the river bed and cement and blocks from here at the mission up to the building. Much of it we have been doing with the small machines, but we were able to use Don Weaver's truck as well, so I spent several days hauling 

with that. 

Rain has been somewhat of a problem as far as working on the church is concerned because it does not take much to make the trail too muddy and slippery to drive a truck of supplies back here. But we are still thankful for it bcause it means water for the gardens and water in our cisterns. 

All this for us right now means more work and more stress. But I've seen it over and over that God's grace is sufficient and He never gives us more than we can handle. And we are all blessed to have a great group of people here to work with. Even the Haition Boss has surprised Donny and I at how well we can work with him and how much patience he has with me especially when trying to communicate with him with my limited creole vocabulary. 

Hauling rocks with the bobcats. Although this kind of work is hard on them (I look at things from a mechanic's prospective) I don't know what we would do without them. 

Shoveling a load of sand on the dump truck took around 45 minutes.

A Haitian truck load of blocks on its way to the church almost got stuck turning around because of all the rain. 

The church from inside as it looks right now.