Promise for Haiti

Saturday January 21, 2012
Bonjour from Pignon Haiti,

It’s Saturday night and all is well in Pignon.
We have had two really full days. Everyone is really tired and
can use a day off. Friday the team did the first rice/bean distribution
to over 300 families. We worked through Pastor Francois’s church.
He and several other pastors bring members of their congregations
that really needed some help. The people and Pastors were very grateful
and thankful that we would do this for them. Many prayers were said and answered!

We also got started on the school desk project. The materials
arrived by truck from Cap Haitian at 9:30 pm Thursday night.
The power was off so had to unload the truck by flashlight and
cell phone lights. The workmen did a very good job at the end of
a long day. Friday morning we set up the saws, fired up our
generator and started cutting the desk pieces. We are cutting lumber f
or 40 desks and hope to get them assembled, varnished and delivered to
some schools next week. Another part of our team headed out to Guimby to do
some repairs on the school that we support out there. The roof was leaking very
badly in the valley, another section was sagging and the water pipe to the school
from the spring on the side of the mountain has been broken for over a month.
The guys had to make two trips and were able to get the roof that was leaking rebuilt.
They found rotted wood underneath the tin and had to do quite a bit more repair than
anticipated. We will work on the rest of the projects next Wednesday when we go
out to visit the students. Another part of the team got ready for the bible schools
that were going to be done on Saturday. We are doing two sessions at two different
church locations with about 400 kids.

Saturday morning it was off to the bibles schools. The whole team went to
supervise/manage the kids. We sang, read a bible story, a craft project and
games out doors. Finished up with a snack and then back to town for lunch
. The hit of the day was Tim found Rufus(a puppet) that he had left here ten
years ago in a store room. The kids hadn’t seen a puppet before and really
went crazy. Even the parents that were there were fixated to the story. After
lunch most of the team went out to do the second bible school and a couple
of us stayed back at the dorm to finish cutting the wood for the desks. Monday
will be an assembly and varnish day.

Tomorrow we are going to UCI to visit the Mompremiers and worship
in their church. After lunch we will take the team on a tour of the UCI facilities,
visit well sites and the irrigated garden projects. Back to Pignon in the late
afternoon and if time permits do some rice/bean distributions to individual homes.

We have a young goat (kid) in our yard that desperately wants to find her
mother. I hope mom comes pretty soon or it will be a long night. The peacocks
are in the roost, the roosters are napping to get ready for the 3:00am serenade,
the dog ran off with her friend so other than the goat it is rather quiet! The generator
is off so we will have power as long as the batteries hold out. Hopefully we’ll make
it until Monday.

Bondye Beni Ou,

Dean