Haiti Trip Updates

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Wednesday, 3/10/2010, 9:00pm - The last photos

We just uploaded the last 2 photos that will go online during the trip. The first shows a group photo that we took this morning when we left the Ruuska Village Orphanage. It includes all the current volunteers, or at least those that were awake at the time we left. The second shows us enjoying a nice dinner out at a real restaurant.

Wednesday, 3/10/2010, 5:00pm - Back in the USA

We are in Fort Lauderdale, checked into our hotel rooms, and cleaning up in a real shower for the first time in over a week. Our flight back to Lewiston doesn't leave until 3:30pm tomorrow, so we get back home later. But, better late than never.

There were no issues with any of our travel today. We left the orphanage at 8am, had an hour long drive to the airport, got through all the check-in and security checks with no problems, then waited about 3 hours to board our plane. There were strong headwinds coming back to Florida, so our flight got in a little later than scheduled, but we are glad to be back in America.

Tuesday, 3/9/2010, 6:30pm - Our last work day

We only worked from 6am until noon today. We spent the first hour finishing up the digging on the third foundation. Then, we spent the next couple hours on a beautification process. We cleared out the rubble from a couple areas inside the orphanage compound. You can see the before and after pictures in the new pictures posted tonight. There is also a picture of a foreign chick(en) in Rick's bed. Yesterday it laid an egg in his bed. So, after he snapped this picture he kicked the chicken out of his bed and turned the mattress on its side so it wouldn't leave another egg in his bed.

We got cleaned up for the last time in Haiti, then spent another afternoon in the back of the pickup truck driving through the city. We have pictures of some of the traffic, the collapsed capitol building, as well as some other destruction we saw along the way.

Tomorrow morning we head for the airport around 9am to begin the process of leaving the country. We should fly out around 12:45pm and arrive in Fort Lauderdale around 3pm. However, we are on "island time" so the flight could be delayed a little.

We will post an update tomorrow night when we arrive in Florida. Thank you all for your prayers and support as we've been here. It has been a great experience that has affected us all.

Monday, 3/8/2010, 6:30pm - A few photos

Since there was nothing new to show from our work today I decided to post a few photos of the houses around the Ruuska Village Orphanage. These are directly behind the area where we have been working. From what we have heard no one died in these homes, but the families have been displaced.

Monday, 3/8/2010, 4:30pm - Finishing up

We were sort of on our own today, since all the bosses were out of the country back in the US. So, we did some work on the foundation of one house that a group before us had begun. They piled up all the material they removed (rock, dirt, gravel) on top of the foundation. So, we cleared all of that material and then worked on digging on the trenches for the footings, as they had not dug down deep enough. We have about 2 more hours to work on that tomorrow morning. After that we will have to find some small work to keep us busy for the rest of the day, as that will be our last work day before we head out Wednesday morning. It has been a great experience, and we have gotten a lot of work done, but we are all definitely ready to start heading home. Our old bodies are all sore.

Sunday, 3/7/2010, 9:00pm - Joe is a rock artist

One final update for the day to add a description to the four pictures posted today. First, we finished the second foundation digging and the pictures show the two foundations that we have dug. The large pile of rocks in between the two is about half of the large stones that were dug out of the footings. The other picture is of the trench that we cleared of rubble for water drainage. In the final two picture you can see Joe's latest work of art. He took one of the large stones, created a nice flat surface to work on use an angle grinder, then fashioned a carving tool out of a screwdriver and made a decorative rock for the Ruuska Village.

Sunday, 3/7/2010, 3:30pm - Bye to the Churches, hello new workers

Jake and Kindra Church left first thing this morning to begin their two-day journey home. The people that took them to the airport brought in four of the eight new workers that came in today. Two guys and two girls showed up in the late morning and jumped right in to help us finish the work on the second foundation preparation. One is an ex-Navy guy who is a very strong worker. The other guy is a younger college kid who was eager to help as well. One of the girls grew up working hard labor with her father and jumped right in helping us with the manual labor. The other young girl is the daughter of missionaries and speaks French, so she started getting to know the young kids here. Later in the day four other ladies arrived. They will be here helping to organize things around the orphanage like the clothing depot and other storage areas, as well as spending time at the other location working with the young orphans.

Since we finished up the second foundation around lunch time and no one is left here to tell us what to start on next we decided to take care of a water drainage issue. So, we cleaned out the rubble from the drainage canal that runs out of the back of the property here since the monsoon season will be here soon and we don't know how long it will be before the footings get poured in the new foundations we have prepared.

Since today is Sunday we decided to work a shorter day. So, we only worked from 6am until about 3pm. Later in the day Pastor John will be doing a Sunday service for all of us here, since there is no church that the English-speaking people volunteering here can attend and it has been quite a while since someone has done a Sunday service here.

Saturday, 3/6/2010, 7:30pm - A slight change of plans

We got up at our usual 6am this morning and got to work on the second foundation preparation. We worked until 10:30am and then Barbara got news that the baby she had been waiting for a passport to take out of the country was ready to go. So, we put on clean shirts and jumped in the back of the truck because she wanted us to go see the Baptist Haiti Mission today. It ended up being about a 3 hour drive each direction while we rode in the back of a pickup truck over very bumpy roads. We all agreed that we were more sore from the ride than from any of the work we've done so far. While we were a little frustrated to have spent 7 and a half hours of the day on this trip instead of working, we were very thankful for the experience. We got to see a lot of Haiti and we took a lot of pictures. Tonight I have posted more new pictures than usual to show a variety of what we saw today.

We did have a great compliment today. There is a group of Haitian workers here rebuilding part of the wall that fell down around the orphanage compound. Apparently, most of the American workers that come in don't work very hard, but they commented that we are a hard working group of Americans. They were quite surprised because we usually beat them to work by and hour and work until after they are done. They aren't used to seeing Blancs (Whites - that's what they call us) that can work in their heat.

Friday, 3/5/2010, 5:00pm - A lot accomplished

First, most of us had a much better night of sleep last night and woke up refreshed for another day of work. We started working at 6am again and completely finished digging out the foundation on the first house and then moved on the the second house after lunch. We learned a few things doing the first excavation, so we are trying a new method on this second house and have already made some pretty good progress. We didn't leave the orphanage today, so there aren't any stories to tell from outside of here today. Kindra spent another late night doing paperwork with Barbara. For those that don't know the entire team here right now is Jake and Kindra Church, John Stroupe, Joe Schacher, Rick Cooper, and Brad Wickett. We haven't heard any word of any revival, but we are really not leaving the orphanage at all while we are here, so we don't have any contact with the outside community. Aside from all of the digging work, Pastor John has had a chance to put his welding skills to use to do some fabrication work while here. He did some modifications to the water purification rack to add a locking system for the batteries (since anything not locked up disappears here) and he is also making some repairs to one of the metal benches here right now. We'll post a few more pictures tonight showing the completed work on the first house that is now ready for a new foundation.

Thursday, 3/4/2010, 7:30pm - A hard day's work

Today was a good day of work. We started at 6am and worked off and on until around 4:30pm. As the day goes on and the heat gets worse we find that we can only work in shorter bursts, then you need to take a rest and get something to drink. We have almost completely finished removing the old foundation and will probably be able to finish that one up tomorrow and get started on removing the next foundation. Kindra has been able to help out with the paperwork in the orphanage office. Her and Barbara have been pulling some late night shifts trying to get caught up on all the paperwork required for adoptions here in Haiti. We were able to take a trip to the other orphanage location in the afternoon today and we got to spend some time holding the little babies that are waiting for adoption. There are some pictures of that trip on the photo page that you can view by clicking the link at the top of this page. The internet connection here is very slow so we can only upload a few pictures each night. However, we are very thankful for being able to keep in touch with everyone using the internet and our computers.

Wednesday, 3/3/2010, 6pm - All together now

Travel went well this morning. God definitely intervened and allowed us to get through the check-in for our flight in record time to make our flight. The line to check in on Spirit Air was so long we may have missed our flight, but someone came up to us and said anyone going to Haiti could move over to a special line. We cleared through all the security with no problems and it doesn't look like anything was taken from any of our bags or containers. After clearing we were picked up by Barbara and Kyle and we came back to the orphanage. We got our gear unloaded, changed into our work clothes, and jumped in helping with the demolition of one of the old buildings that was destroyed in the earthquake. We spent the entire day trying to remove the old foundation by hand and we still have quite a bit to go tomorrow before that will be ready for the new footings. We may not have any of the supplies here yet for new building, but there will be plenty of preparation work like this to keep us busy for the week we are here. It is likely that our time will just be spent laying the groundwork for other teams that will come in to do the new building projects. Pray that we stay strong, as we are already feeling the effects of working in this heat and humidity.

Tuesday, 3/2/2010, 7pm - Update from the second team

It was a good day of travel and we are now out to dinner in Fort Lauderdale. We leave for Haiti tomorrow morning at 9:45am.

Monday, 3/1/2010 - Update from Jake Church

It was very warm today, and very hard work. There is a lot of work to be done while we are here on the footings and possibly the foundation. I highly doubt we will make it much further than that. The work will be very manual and the ground is difficult to work in.

Today we spent most of the day working on a single side of the demolition and preparation. It is not done yet. Surprisingly the footings on the concrete that is there is very strong. It is actually the lack of concrete that causes the structures to fail. I think it will be ok though. I am hopeful that we will have the remainder of the demo done in the next couple days. I think that the most effective and important work for us to plan on doing is build a good foundation. There are a number of tools here, and I am confident the materials that we need for this portion are either here or can be acquired. Kyle is very knowledgeable and has a great deal of in-country experience. Everything we need is here as long as we are ready to work.

There is a Hatian work crew here that is working on the wall. They are very nice people, and I have had a lot of fun working around them. They are very interested in interacting with us. I haven't met someone that isn't christian yet. The people are working very hard but the work is also very hard. More about the people. It seems very safe, and in spite of past stories I am growing comfortable (though guarded). We were walking to one of the other sites and were able to talk and interact with the people.

Plenty of mosquitoes, and the sun is very strong. You are going to need good sun screen. I got a little burned in an hour or so. My neck is a little sore because I wasn't good enough about staying on top of the sun screen.

There are many things in this country that are very concerning. A lot of poverty, destruction and overall poor lifestyle. There is so much to worry about here I was a little overwhelmed. But the thing we can do is start the process of rebuilding Haiti in this village and fellowship with God's people here.