My day in Haiti, By JJP

A day in the life of a White man in Haiti!

So my morning began with a bunch of roosters crowing at 4:45..or so I think. I don’t get a cell phone signal and have put my watch away because everywhere I go people like it and want it, so losing track of time is the norm around here, and I can't say that I mind. There’s no real running water except for the tank on the roof that is restocked with water from the rain or by hand from the well. I took a shower, which was cold, but with it being 78 degrees and humid last night it felt good. The guys were all up early and made pancakes, which by the way we have been able to eat really well since we’ve been here(and I thought I was gonna lose all this weight from sweating and eating nothing but beef jerky!). Anywho, after breakfast we packed up and headed over to the orphanage to get started on building the temporary church. A few of the guys went shopping at a place called Eco-Depot, the Haitian version of Home Depot, only about a 16th of the size and less materials. While mon frère(that’s my father in French) got started on getting the wall started, I helped a couple of the local construction men raise and mount the cross on the ceiling of the school. For the life of me I can’t remember their names, but they have to be the hardest working men around. There were a handful of men that showed up for work today, however we had nowhere near the work for them, so they ended up sitting around the vast majority of the day and making fun of all of us, and me for my sporadic and somewhat incorrect French/Creole.
I thought the heat wouldn’t be such a problem here considering I used to live in Houston, and work at Caterpillar for 3 years, but it sucks the life outta you. The heat itself isn’t so bad, but the sun reflecting off the concrete gives you the feeling of being in a weber charcoal grill. After getting more than 75% of the church built I came back to our compound to take some Aleve and restock on the sunblock. After I got all set I went to head back and everyone decided to take a break, I suppose I might have been the ring leader on that one, oops! So after a nice recharging of the batteries, both literally (power tools), and figuratively we went back to the orphanage to finish the construction of the temporary church for tomorrow.
So we’re using the power tools in the heat, which seems to deplete the batteries twice as fast, so dad sent me back to the compound to cool them off and charge them. I ended up helping an elderly woman that was on the corner trying to sell some good with a wheel barrow full of stuff back to where we stay, she was more than grateful. When I got back, Marie was reading a book and I decided it was my time to sit down w/her and discuss life. We had a wonderful heart to heart and I wish that she were able to be cloned, all would be right with the world. I won’t say exactly what we talked about, but I came away from it with an even better perspective on life then what I went in to it with having seen and lived what I have for the last 3 days. Our talk seemed to last forever, but in reality it was only an hour, I probably should have paid her a psychiatrist’s salary, but I promised instead to go home and talk to the people of Caterpillar to see if they would sponsor the school so the girls can learn and grow up to do something better for the people of Haiti.
All in all, it was another great day, the church got finished, I made more friends for life, and I learned that the life down here has shown that we as Americans live way to structured, and take way too many things for granted. I’ve learned so much in the short time I’ve been here and hope to learn all that and more in the days to come, and not just how to play Spades ;)!
Until I write again, God Bless!
Jacob J.

Temporary Church/Shelter Up!

Greetings from Bon Repos, Haiti!

This will be a short post by Josh as will be posting about our day later. However, we have a few pictures that we'd love to share with you all. We had a successful day culminating with the completion of the Church & shelter for the children. Everyone was pleased as we will be able to utilize it for Church service tomorrow. We also mounted the cross salvaged from the previous Church/orphanage and it is now firmly cemented in place on the corner of the existing school building next to the shelter we constructed. Enough with the typing, on with the pictures!

This first picture shows the process of building the trusses. We demonstrated to the Haitian workers and then let them at it!


Raising the support posts to mount the trusses to:


Hammering away:


Viola! Completed. The salvaged cross can be seen in the upper left in its new home!