Haiti March 14, 2012

I flew into Port au Prince yesterday, and Chuck from WI came in about 3 hours later. Simon picked me up at the airport in a taxi, and we went to get the Ford, which I keep at Quisqueya Chapel in Port. After we picked it up we went to exchange some U.S. money to Haitian currency, and then we bought enough groceries for us for a couple of days at the mission house. By the time we finished, it was time to go get Chuck; then we drove up to Z’Orange.

When I called Simon on Monday, he told me that the well wasn’t working, and that Pastor Do had told ‘someone’ about it. Not knowing who that ‘someone’ was, I called David Heady, who is head of Global Outreach in Haiti–they dug our well. He said he was not aware of a problem–if he had been, he would have been there that day (Monday). He said he could get a crew up there by Wednesday. But, to my surprise, when we arrived on Tuesday at the mission house they had already been there. I called David, and he said they would have to come back on Wednesday. We had a turkey sandwich and a cold coke, and went straight to bed.

This morning we had our fresh cup of instant coffee and did our bible studies, and I started planning our day. I knew last night was not the time to plan the day because the day hadn’t arrived yet–if you catch my drift. In Haiti, you usually have to be very flexible, and it’s a good thing I am, because I had thought we would go to Port and buy some supplies, but when I called David and he said he was coming I wanted to be here. Before he came we had time to do a few things around the mission house. His first crew came with a big truck with a boom on it and started dismantling the pump. A little bit later, David came with a truck and a big generator behind it. They started about 9 a.m. and finished about 3 p.m., with a short break for lunch. We have water now, Hallelujah!! It is hard for us as Americans to even imagine not having water coming right out of the tap in our house–imagine not having any water, period, and to get some you must walk hours and carry it back in a 5-gallon bucket. I want to thank Global Outreach and David Heady for all their hard work in this country. They have put in over 300 wells and, more than that, they maintain them. The service they gave us was better by far than what you would get in the States.

Before David and his crews came, I went out and prayed over the well. I prayed that God would give the workers wisdom on how to fix it. When they were putting the pipes back in the well, they dropped some sections down into it. I wasn’t there, and David came and told me they had a problem. By the time we went back out where the men were working, they had been able to connect back up to the pipe to pull it up. David said that was a miracle, and that he has had to fish for pipes like that for 2 weeks sometimes, and sometimes still not be able to get them out. I told him I had prayed over the well that morning–God can fix anything.

While they were finishing up, I tried to start Gabriel and found the batteries were dead. We tried charging them, but they wouldn’t take a charge. I looked closely and saw that one of the terminals was loose and touching a piece of metal, grounding it out, so I tightened that, and it still wouldn’t charge; but I saw a spark and saw that there was a short in the battery charger, so I fixed that. After about an hour of working on all that, I was able to get the truck started. Then I decided to check the differential fluid, and I started in the back. To my surprise–not!–someone had stripped the threads on the bolt. After Chuck and I worked on it for over an hour, it finally came loose, and we discovered that it didn’t need fluid. After checking all of the fluids, we cranked Gabriel up and let it run for a while. My plan was to never do any more mechanic work in Haiti–I think God is still laughing!

Tonight we will have another early night and try to do what I thought we would do today. Does that make sense? It’s not supposed to, I’m in Haiti!