Tuesday, March 31, 2009

We're into day 6 here at the hotel. Things are going pretty well. Bijou is being a good little puppy, with some isolated break-outs of barking. She has scared the crud out of almost every employee here at the hotel by coming around a corner and barking at them. She's really good in her crate in the room when the cleaning crew comes in - no barking at them.
We saw Barbara W. from our old days in Cap Haitien. Barbara facilitates adoptions of Haitian kids to US homes. She hasn't changed much. It was good to see her.
We went out to the house yesterday to check the progress. I'm posting photos at the end - I'm not even going to try formatting them this time! (Lazy & the internet is so slow). On our way out to Thomazeau, we listened to "Jive-Bunny and the Master Mixers". Some of you can appreciate this (Rick & Steve?). If you haven't heard this you should check it out. And imagine JT dancing to it.
Bobby went into the village while we were there and the truck was confiscated by the police. He called JT and JT went into town to the rescue. He came back with 3 police officers, including the chief inspector of police of Thomazeau. As JT put it, "They became our friends". They came out to see where we are located and JT wanted to make sure they know us. They were very nice and told us to come visit anytime and call if we need them. BTW, the truck was confiscated because Bobby forgot to pay the insurance on time. It expired the previous day. I guess there's no grace period. JT got the truck back since the police became our friends.
We are going to the villages to do food distribution on Friday and Saturday. We had more relief funds and we wanted to give it out in conjunction with the Easter holiday time. Things are still very rough for folks here in Haiti.
Our home congregation-Providence Road, gave us $600 to purchase Bibles in French. We went to the Haitienne Bible Society today and were able to purchase 152 French Bibles (OT & NT)! Thanks PR! These will be distributed during the April 6-11 preachers' conference here in PAP.
Tim contacted Clean Water for Haiti and they invited him out to visit/observe on a weekday. They concentrate heavily on bio-sand water filters. They commented that the need & demand is great in PAP for bio-sand water filters. Clean Water is within 1 hour's drive of us. As soon as we have transportation Tim will schedule a visit. They also gave him another contact in the PAP area for working towards clean water for the population. Bijou's first walk on the property Front/Side View of House
Note how much plastering & Painting since the 27th
East Side View of House
Tim & Bijou on front porch Upstairs Bathroom - progress! Kitchen Downstairs Bathroom Master Bedroom Window Installation
Living Area

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Arrival in Haiti

We arrived in Haiti on Thursday, March 26. We are happy to be here! Bijou made under the bed her "puppy cave"
We went out to the property to check on the progress of the house. It doesn't look like we'll be able to move on Tuesday, but they keep telling us it will be possible.
Right: This is the carpenter who is building all the doors. The front door is pretty fancy!

As you can see there is quite a bit left to be finished in order to move in. Please pray for the progress!

We don't have the container out of customs yet either. We got word yesterday that there was a fire at the customs office, so this will delay the progress with the container.

We are sure that God has some lessons for us in all of this, so we are trying to keep our eyes open and be quick learners!

I've never done a blog before, so maybe as I go along I'll learn to format this a little more nicely!