Haiti Trip, January 3, 2013

My big green table

Prayer Partner of the Day: Becky Memmelaar

The first morning as the brothers begin chanting at 5:30am is always a beautiful awakening. I took my Bible and headed down to the big green table under the cover of so many trees, and the words to "Spirit of the Living God...fall afresh on me" came to my heart. I hummed the words over and over and a wonderful sense of peace engulfed and prepared me for the day!

The two boards looked mighty fine!

As has been our practice with Bob the past couple of years, we pre-built the two water systems on the 4'x8' plywood sheets at the monastery. Bob had shipped the boxes to Haiti weeks ago, and after a quick run for supplies at the warehouse, Bertone, Bill, and I got to work. Yes, Bob left me in charge! This was a great idea, and while I am fully capable, when you put Bertone, Bill and I together, we end up being a little more silly and a little less cognizant of what we are doing. Thus, the two ozone churns I built were crooked messes, and come to find out later, we put two filter heads on backwards.

Please no comments on the churns!

Thankfully, we took a break for lunch to regroup, and by that time, Bob returned to oversee the rest of the work! I gathered the "boys" - Ancy, Valdes, and Bertone - for a staff meeting. I am more and more amazed with the leadership they are taking and the ownership they are taking for the projects and systems. Valdes continues to impress me with his ingenuity and creativity.

Before dark, we piled in the Kia to retrieve Peggy, a young gal from Huntsville, from the Notre Dame orphanage. Though I say it so often, it was again a family reunion of seeing the kids, playing crazy games, and simply sharing love. And yet another reason to pile into the Kia for a late afternoon drive... Ice Cream at the Total Station!

When we returned, Bill and I began work on building a mini-barrel sand filter. We have been working with Coreluv, a mission organization out of Houston with an orphanage near Gonaives, to solve the problem of their nearly untreatable untreatable water, and Jake, one of their missionaries, is planning to bring a 5-gallon bottle tomorrow for us to test. On the way back up the mountain, Bill & Bertone "shopped" for a 5-gallon bucket, sand and gravel. (Easier said than done!) While I won't bore you will all of the details, building a sand filter in the dark is quite a challenge! First there is hole drilling, followed by cross building. Since Bill had forgotten to bring a PVC "T", I made one out of duct tape! Impressive, huh? Once we got the gravel washed and built the layers on top of the "T", we were so excited to run water through and see what how it worked! Unfortunately, come to find out, we had a bucket with a leak and sand that turned out to be limestone! Thankfully, we had so much fun and shared many laughs.


And so ends another wonderful day in Haiti! Tomorrow the Operators Conference will begin! We are expecting 60+ folks!

By the way, Chris arrived tonight! We have the entire team together. It's a very good, Spirit-filled day!