Report on children’s program

by: Annette Meyer, Jackie Doss and Michele Quillo

Each afternoon after school, we’ve had a children’s program under the mango tree just inside the church compound, we sang songs (in Creole), presented a Bible story, shared scripture, and handed out candy and small gifts. Due to our construction schedule, our bible stories, which were translated by either Pastor Harry or Simon, were kept brief. Over the four days, we’ve shared the creation story, Noah’s Ark, the Ten Commandments, and a salvation message with a challenge to pray to receive Christ. The prayer, with all the children’s voices in unison, was quite moving. Adding to the excitement of today’s bible story, we were entertained by 15-20 Haitian workers who made quite a production of carrying roof trusses right alongside our new pew benches that were overflowing with children. We surely appreciate the donations from friends and co-workers and how we were able to cram more than 300 Beanie babies, in addition to Matchbox cars, pencils, handmade bears and jewelry in every crevice of our luggage. As the singing attracted more and more children, we were comforted to know that we would have enough gifts for each. Thank you to everyone who provided gifts, monies and prayers for our trip.

Report on construction team at work site

The men really had a productive day today. They finished seventeen trusses today and put up nine of them. You will see the progress in the photos.

Report on the van

The van was running pretty well until the last two days. We now have to stop and start it about a dozen times each way to the work site. We are just praying that the Lord will show us how to fix it so it will at least last till we receive His gift of the Land Cruiser.

Brother Chuck’s report

Today the traffic was really bad both ways. I have been driving the team down to the work site in Gabriel and Karl has been driving the van. We got to the work site a little before 9 a.m., and Simon and I had to leave to go have Gabriel inspected. The only reason they wanted to inspect it was because they didn’t think a 1972 military truck could still be running. Fast Edy (Haitian that handles all my paper work) had it set up so all I had to do was drive up and the inspector would do the inspection. There were hundreds of people around and I pulled up right in the front blocking the entrance, but that’s where Fast Edy told me to park. Immediately policemen were telling me to move and I was telling them I was waiting on the inspector. The inspector finally came and told the policeman that it was okay. The inspector told me to turn my lights on, and that was the inspection–I passed. I praise the Lord that Karl and Will had fixed Gabriel’s lights last year. It was kind of strange–after the inspector told the policemen that it was okay for me to park there, they started telling me how much they liked the truck.

From here we had to go to Batiment (hardware store) to order some materials for the work site, and also for the mission house. After we placed our order, we went to a tile store and bought some tile for the mission house bathrooms, so we could lay it before we put the commodes and pedestals for the sinks in. We loaded up the tile and went back to Batiment to get those materials. Some of the materials at Batiment were sheets of tin and clear plastic for sky lights. We tied it all down and headed back to the work site. We had left the work site at 9 a.m., and now it was 2 p.m. Simon and I had not had time to eat lunch or even get a drink. We had either been ordering material, loading material, or driving in traffic–mostly driving in traffic. I was beat, and all I wanted was to get to the work site so maybe I could get out of Gabriel for a few minutes. We got within 5 minutes of the work site. I had paced myself, and knew I could make it; my back was killing me. About that time, a guy behind us started blowing his horn, and I told Simon I thought he was trying to pass us. When I turned onto the road to the church–I could almost see it–and this man behind us jumped out of his car, came up to the truck, and told me the tin and clear sheets of plastic had fallen out of the truck. I told Simon to jump into his car and go back to find where it had fallen off. I just knew that either someone had stolen it, or it had been run over, but praise the Lord when I got there Simon had it all to the side of the road. We picked it all up and made it back to the work site in time for me to rest for about 15 minutes. It was a long, hard day for everyone, but it was a great day with our Lord.

 

Haiti Update January 29, 2011
Haiti Update January 27, 2011