Days 238 – 241 (6/25 – 28)

Monday – After breakfast this morning we sent one team to the airport and home and our Delmas 33 team to their site. I’m struggling with the funding issue for the HHAP. The EMH contribution is being held up because Pastor Paul is out of the country until July 3^rd. The UMVIM contributions that may have come in won’t be accounted for until after July 1^st. And the UMCOR 2^nd draw is not forthcoming because I’m still trying to dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s. I’m working on the 3^rd draft of my request this morning. The bottom line is that work on the GH Staff Annex has stopped until more money arrives. It’s very frustrating. I’m burning up the laptop with emails.

Tuesday – Our only team this morning was the Delmas 33 team. They’ve been at the Guest House for 6 days and will be here for the rest of this week. They’re a team of 9 teenagers and 3 adults from Michigan. They’ve been a lot of fun to have around. It’s amazing that after working in the hot sun at Delmas 33 all day they still have the energy to come back to the Guest House and play soccer and swim in the pool. They also eat a lot.

I’m still looking for money. Pastor Marco, the EMH Secretary and 2^nd in command, contacted Pastor Paul in Montreal and he authorized a partial payment on their contribution. Now it’s a matter of getting the check cut and 2 signatures. I haven’t heard back from UMCOR in New York on my 3^rd draft submittal for the next draw. Hopefully all is well and it’s being processed. Meanwhile – work is stopped.

This afternoon we had a team return from their week in Leveque. Like most teams, they came back dirty and tired but with big smiles on their faces. Doing this kind of mission work is an experience that unfortunately most people never have. Those that have had the experience will tell you that it was probably the most rewarding thing they have ever done. I feel blessed to be able to be part of that experience.

Wednesday – We said goodbye to our Leveque team and sent them to the airport cleaner; a little more rested; but with the same smiles on their faces. I’m sure that many of them will be back again. Haiti does that to you. After dropping off the Leveque team, Johnny, the driver is picking up a newly arriving team and taking them direct to Petit Goave. We won’t see them at the Guest House until next week. And of course, we sent our Delmas 33 team to work.

I received word from New York that the paperwork is finally acceptable and the 2^nd draw will be processed. The EMH check is being processed. Meanwhile – work is stopped.

This afternoon we had another tired team return from Les Cayes.

Thursday – It was an early breakfast this morning. Our Les Cayes team had to catch an early morning flight and Tom, Danette and I left for Furcy. We were accompanying Lauren James and 4 members of the UMCOR Interdisciplinary Team. They wanted to do a survey of the community’s water and agricultural needs. I wanted to look at the new mission house that is being built there. I love going to Furcy. It’s about 20 miles back in the mountains and about 7000 ft. high. It’s beautiful country and it’s COOL. Like most back-country roads in Haiti, the farther you go the worse the roads get and they’re not very good to begin with. The road to Furcy is no exception. Once you pass Kenscoff it deteriorates rapidly. When we send teams they have to walk the last ¾ of a mile. However, Spana was not going to let a little thing like bad roads stop him. He put the D-Max in 4 wheel drive and we drove all the way in. He had to make 3 point turns around some of the corners. The UMCOR team elected to walk.

The mission house at Furcy has been a problem for some time. The local pastor designed a huge 3 story structure that was going to cost 3 or 4 times more than anyone could afford. We made the engineer cut it way back to a 1 story building, but it was still too expensive. We told everyone that we were going to have to explore ways to scale it down some more. Imagine our surprise when we got there and found the walls already up. Not only was it going up without permission, it was going up without any supervision and the construction quality was very poor. Tom and I had to be the bad guys and tell the pastor that he was not going to be able to complete his building as planned. He was going to have to leave a portion of it unfinished and was going to have to put a metal roof on it instead of a concrete roof.

The UMCOR team did their water survey and we had a community meeting with the Furcy congregation to discuss how they were going to run the community store that Tom and Wendy’s teams had built. They decided that they wanted to sell agricultural tools and supplies and set up an advisory committee to manage it. Lou Lou was the VIM team cook and prepared a big lunch for all of us. After lunch we loaded up and headed back to Petionville.

We got back to the Guest House to find that the team from Arcahaie had returned. So with the returning Furcy team, we had 2 teams in residence for the night.