things i have come to value over the last few months:
-glass bottle cokes.
-electricity in general, especially fans at night. oh, and lights in my bathroom so i don't have to shave my legs on the porch outside. it'll be really great when that actually happens. :)
-the creativity and ingenuity of "haitian engineering".
-nutella. worth it's weight in gold. [almost.] thanks to the crucified crew for choosing to show their love for me that way. :)
-communication. even when you think you said all the right words, that doesn't mean that anything was actually effectively communicated.
-marie yves. i'm thinking about bringing her home with me just because i like her so much. it's going to be crazy when i actually have to start cooking for myself again - way more boring too. i'm convinced she can take an onion and a boullion cube and make a five-course meal. pate, pancakes, all kinds of delicious goodness.
-multi-lingual worship. love it.
-baby wipes. always a good thing.
-kids that help without asking for anything, just because they want to help.
just a short list. many, many more things to be grateful for. God is good to us.
To Him be the glory!
3.26.2012
3.13.2012
13 March 2012
Hi friends!
It's been a great couple days having the crew from Akron here. There's seven of them total: Ben Keenan, Zach Romanin, Vinny Romanin, Ashley Lonsbury, Hannah Farmer, Brandon Nelson, and Jenna Brinker. The whole team has been great about stepping up, doing whatever work needs to be done, whether it's working on vehicles, helping Angela in the school clinic, moving backfill (everyone's favorite of course), painting, or even simple things like doing dishes after dinner. There have been lots of great conversations, card games, and fellowship as well. All good things. Headed to church again tonight, and more work again tomorrow!
to Him be the Glory!
It's been a great couple days having the crew from Akron here. There's seven of them total: Ben Keenan, Zach Romanin, Vinny Romanin, Ashley Lonsbury, Hannah Farmer, Brandon Nelson, and Jenna Brinker. The whole team has been great about stepping up, doing whatever work needs to be done, whether it's working on vehicles, helping Angela in the school clinic, moving backfill (everyone's favorite of course), painting, or even simple things like doing dishes after dinner. There have been lots of great conversations, card games, and fellowship as well. All good things. Headed to church again tonight, and more work again tomorrow!
to Him be the Glory!
3.10.2012
9 March 2012
Just a quick update tonight. It's been a good week. Started with a quick getaway to Jacmel Sunday and Monday (more on that later) to spend time at Surf Haiti with Dr. Ken and Diane Pierce (www.surfhaiti.org). The World Race team is wrapping up their time here this week, with their last work day on Tuesday, followed by now three days of 'debrief' before they move on to Romania. Tomorrow for them is more debrief time, plus packing up tents and packs and such before they leave around 4am Sunday morning. I'm definitely going to miss many of the people on this team, as they have become good friends as we've all spent time together this last month. However, they all have blogs to follow, and there's always facebook, so i'm sure we'll be able to stay in touch as they travel the world.
Today was a great adventure to Port-Au-Prince to pick up what was supposed to be six of Travis's friends, plus a team of seven from Akron. As it turned out, we had all seven from Akron, but only Ian from Travis' crew, due to a broken airplane in DC this morning that prevented the rest of his team from getting to JFK in time for their connecting flight. They're spending the night in Miami (by way of DTW), and will be flying into PAP tomorrow morning.
I'm really excited to have the Akron crew here. It's going to be a great week, hopefully including lots of mechanic goodness and problem-solving, amongst other ongoing projects like painting and helping Angela with the school clinic. I know that we probably won't *quite* accomplish the goal of fixing every vehicle in the country in the next seven days, but we're going to try. :)
to Him be the Glory!
Today was a great adventure to Port-Au-Prince to pick up what was supposed to be six of Travis's friends, plus a team of seven from Akron. As it turned out, we had all seven from Akron, but only Ian from Travis' crew, due to a broken airplane in DC this morning that prevented the rest of his team from getting to JFK in time for their connecting flight. They're spending the night in Miami (by way of DTW), and will be flying into PAP tomorrow morning.
I'm really excited to have the Akron crew here. It's going to be a great week, hopefully including lots of mechanic goodness and problem-solving, amongst other ongoing projects like painting and helping Angela with the school clinic. I know that we probably won't *quite* accomplish the goal of fixing every vehicle in the country in the next seven days, but we're going to try. :)
to Him be the Glory!
3.01.2012
1 March 2012
Hi Friends. The article I wrote last fall for PIA's school magazine just got published. Here's the link to the online version. :)
to Him be the Glory!
to Him be the Glory!
2.29.2012
29 February 2012
Hi friends!
For today's post, I'm going to refer you to the blog of Paul Fallon, the architect of both the Mission of Hope school and the Be Like Brit orphanage. Paul is a fantastic writer, and describes situations better than I ever could. His blog is about a wide range of topics, ranging from life in Haiti to cycling adventures in the US.He wrote a post a couple of weeks ago describing a night of concrete pouring, the last night before John left the first time:
http://theawkwardpose.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/concrete-night/
He also just wrote a post about our Haitian vs. American concrete pour last weekend:
http://theawkwardpose.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/a-day-at-the-concrete-races/
Enjoy!
To Him be the Glory!
For today's post, I'm going to refer you to the blog of Paul Fallon, the architect of both the Mission of Hope school and the Be Like Brit orphanage. Paul is a fantastic writer, and describes situations better than I ever could. His blog is about a wide range of topics, ranging from life in Haiti to cycling adventures in the US.He wrote a post a couple of weeks ago describing a night of concrete pouring, the last night before John left the first time:
http://theawkwardpose.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/concrete-night/
He also just wrote a post about our Haitian vs. American concrete pour last weekend:
http://theawkwardpose.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/a-day-at-the-concrete-races/
Enjoy!
To Him be the Glory!
2.24.2012
23 February 2012
hi friends! hopefully the pictures from the last post gave you a little bit of an idea of the scale of this school building project. often a picture or two is worth a thousand words, and a video can be worth a million. i've got a couple short video clips of the concrete pouring process, but couldn't upload them because we were close to the internet capacity limit for the day. hopefully sometime soon!
other than those few pictures, i know it's been a long time since i posted anything of substance. there has been a ton going on. daniel and john both left today, so now it's just myself, 45 of my closest new friends, boss pepe, and a crew of haitians. we're mainly going to be backfilling the foundation inside the building perimeter, which will probably need to be done mostly by buckets, since there's now six-course-high (4 feet) block walls everywhere. backfill will bring the floor level up about three feet from where it is now, so the walls will slowly become less of an obstacle, but for now, we'll do the best we can!
today (thursday) is officially day number 38, meaning i have 33 days left here. ten weeks in some ways is a long time, and yet somehow it's already half over. at the same time, it really does feel like i've been here way longer than that. for me, after about the two week mark, my "normal" recalibrates, and life here is just how life is. there hasn't really been anything this trip that i've really been craving. it's going to be nice to be able to eat a salad and take a hot shower when i get home, but at the same time, it's amazing what you can live without when you stop thinking about it. for me, it's very much 'out of sight, out of mind' about all the things i think i need but really don't. honestly, i think that in some ways i'm much more content in this third world context than i am in the united states. our american culture so easily breeds the materialism, immediate gratification, greed, entitlement, self-sufficiency, and ultimately pride that is the root of so much discontent and distance from God. not that life in Haiti is perfect and i'm exactly the kind of person i want to be when i'm here. i think the biggest difference here is that the problems i see or encounter here are actually things of significance, rather than the things we can think are important that are really insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
building a school so that the next generation of kids in grand goave can get an education and can learn about jesus. guys working so that they can earn food for their kids that they run up the hill on their lunch break. guys learning how to build a building the right way so that it's strong and safe and can withstand hurricanes and earthquakes. trying to get people to see beyond just today. Haiti is a culture of immediate need, whether it's shelter for tonight, or food for my family tomorrow. The natural result of growing up your entire life in a culture that is so driven by things that are temporary and needs that are urgent is that you will be so focused on the present that you never get to see the big picture; never look beyond tomorrow to six months from now, or to why this is the way it needs to be fixed now so that it doesn't break again next week. it's just the way people think here. it's not that they're not intelligent or are incapable of understanding something; it's that this is the reality of the environment they've been surrounded by their entire life, and because of a lack of education (for a myriad of reasons) they aren't even aware that there might be another way to view a problem, that the quick fix might not actually be the best solution. efficiency and long-term planning are words that i don't think exist in creole, and yet somehow, things still get done. ingenuity and creativity definitely exist here, and often haitians come up with temporary fixes that i never would have thought of. the key is learning how to work in this environment, encouraging positive change, but at the same time not trying to make haiti into america. and all the while speaking creole.
welcome to life in haiti.
to Him be the glory!
other than those few pictures, i know it's been a long time since i posted anything of substance. there has been a ton going on. daniel and john both left today, so now it's just myself, 45 of my closest new friends, boss pepe, and a crew of haitians. we're mainly going to be backfilling the foundation inside the building perimeter, which will probably need to be done mostly by buckets, since there's now six-course-high (4 feet) block walls everywhere. backfill will bring the floor level up about three feet from where it is now, so the walls will slowly become less of an obstacle, but for now, we'll do the best we can!
today (thursday) is officially day number 38, meaning i have 33 days left here. ten weeks in some ways is a long time, and yet somehow it's already half over. at the same time, it really does feel like i've been here way longer than that. for me, after about the two week mark, my "normal" recalibrates, and life here is just how life is. there hasn't really been anything this trip that i've really been craving. it's going to be nice to be able to eat a salad and take a hot shower when i get home, but at the same time, it's amazing what you can live without when you stop thinking about it. for me, it's very much 'out of sight, out of mind' about all the things i think i need but really don't. honestly, i think that in some ways i'm much more content in this third world context than i am in the united states. our american culture so easily breeds the materialism, immediate gratification, greed, entitlement, self-sufficiency, and ultimately pride that is the root of so much discontent and distance from God. not that life in Haiti is perfect and i'm exactly the kind of person i want to be when i'm here. i think the biggest difference here is that the problems i see or encounter here are actually things of significance, rather than the things we can think are important that are really insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
building a school so that the next generation of kids in grand goave can get an education and can learn about jesus. guys working so that they can earn food for their kids that they run up the hill on their lunch break. guys learning how to build a building the right way so that it's strong and safe and can withstand hurricanes and earthquakes. trying to get people to see beyond just today. Haiti is a culture of immediate need, whether it's shelter for tonight, or food for my family tomorrow. The natural result of growing up your entire life in a culture that is so driven by things that are temporary and needs that are urgent is that you will be so focused on the present that you never get to see the big picture; never look beyond tomorrow to six months from now, or to why this is the way it needs to be fixed now so that it doesn't break again next week. it's just the way people think here. it's not that they're not intelligent or are incapable of understanding something; it's that this is the reality of the environment they've been surrounded by their entire life, and because of a lack of education (for a myriad of reasons) they aren't even aware that there might be another way to view a problem, that the quick fix might not actually be the best solution. efficiency and long-term planning are words that i don't think exist in creole, and yet somehow, things still get done. ingenuity and creativity definitely exist here, and often haitians come up with temporary fixes that i never would have thought of. the key is learning how to work in this environment, encouraging positive change, but at the same time not trying to make haiti into america. and all the while speaking creole.
welcome to life in haiti.
to Him be the glory!
2.21.2012
21 February 2012: pictures!
as requested... pictures! just a little of the progress. for reference, the highway runs along the north edge of the property, and the property slopes uphill towards the south. depot buildings (yellow with brown trim, painted by the stow alliance team in august) are along the west side.
late january: forming up footers in the southeast part of the building.
some footers poured. overall view of the site a few weeks ago, looking northwest toward the highway.
daniel's uncle lenny sent down a huge bag of tools. you would have thought it was Christmas!
the MOHI construction crew (plus Travis) went up the hill for a tour of the progress at the Be Like Brit site. L-R: Gama, Len, Me, Daniel, Travis, Lisa, and John.
PVC drain pipe laid out along the southern (back) wall of the building. props to daniel and his laser-level abilities for making the grade exactly right. backfill, landscaping filter fabric (to keep dirt out of the drain), "river gravel", pvc pipe, more gravel, top fabric, backfill. quite the process.
overview of the site last friday. southern (back) wall is now substantially higher, and poured east wall is finished. CMU (block) interior walls are going up. everything you see (inside and outside) will get backfilled an additional three feet still (to the bottom of the doorway cutouts you see on the far side). the hooks along the south wall (to the left) are at the height of the ground floor ceiling. the rest of this is all just foundation...
late january: forming up footers in the southeast part of the building.
some footers poured. overall view of the site a few weeks ago, looking northwest toward the highway.
daniel's uncle lenny sent down a huge bag of tools. you would have thought it was Christmas!
the MOHI construction crew (plus Travis) went up the hill for a tour of the progress at the Be Like Brit site. L-R: Gama, Len, Me, Daniel, Travis, Lisa, and John.
PVC drain pipe laid out along the southern (back) wall of the building. props to daniel and his laser-level abilities for making the grade exactly right. backfill, landscaping filter fabric (to keep dirt out of the drain), "river gravel", pvc pipe, more gravel, top fabric, backfill. quite the process.
overview of the site last friday. southern (back) wall is now substantially higher, and poured east wall is finished. CMU (block) interior walls are going up. everything you see (inside and outside) will get backfilled an additional three feet still (to the bottom of the doorway cutouts you see on the far side). the hooks along the south wall (to the left) are at the height of the ground floor ceiling. the rest of this is all just foundation...
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