Days 263 – 266 (7/20 – 23)

Friday – Team activity this morning consisted of sending one team to the airport for their journey home and I team off to their work site in Arcahaie. After saying goodbye to the teams, I took a tour of the Guest House complex. Apparently my pep talk to the engineers yesterday about the work schedule had a positive effect. Today there are about 20 workmen banging away at various jobs lots of noise and dust. With all the dirt piled up from the canal, septic system and Annex footing excavations; debris from demolition at the Guest House and the piles of sand, gravel and rocks for the new construction, the complex is looking like a war zone. I spent the rest of the morning with my Construction Superintendent hat on and made sure everyone understood the scope of work on their particular project.

This afternoon I called the factory in the Dominican to check on the status of our order. They said all of our wall panels were done and the roof panels should be finished by the first of the week. This should work out perfectly since we are planning on pouring the 2^nd floor deck on the Annex tomorrow. Actually it’s a little scary – things don’t normally go this well in Haiti.

Just before dinner our team from Mellier arrived after a busy week. We’ll send them home tomorrow and won’t have any more teams until late Tuesday afternoon.

Saturday – After saying goodbye to the Mellier team I once again put on my Superintendent’s hat and toured the site. I counted 39 workers this morning. About 24 of them were on the crew that is pouring the 2^nd floor deck on the Annex. They obviously had been working together for some time. Everyone had a specific job and were well coordinated. They had guys bringing buckets of sand and rocks to the cement mixer; another guy putting the sacks of cement; a guy bringing buckets of water; a bucket brigade moving buckets of concrete up the ladder to the 2^nd floor; runners taking the buckets to where the concrete was being placed; 3 or 4 guys leveling and finishing the concrete and even 2 guys running a zip line returning the empty buckets to the cement mixer. It was like a well-rehearsed ballet.

At 10:30 Tom, Mario, Danette and I left for Les Cayes. Les Cayes is about 90 miles from Petionville on the Caribbean side of the island. The trip usually takes about 4 ½ hours. However, this morning we had gridlock traffic in Carrefour and the trip took just over 5 ½ hours. We were in Les Cayes because Pastor Paul had asked us to attend the dedication of the new church in Torbeck – just outside of Les Cayes. I have a connection to the Torbeck church in that when Tom and I looked at it last year, it was partially built but had been sitting dormant since the earthquake. It was a structural nightmare and I told Tom it was not safe to have teams around it. It reminded me of pictures of the bombed out shells of churches in Germany during WWII. I took pictures and sat down with Eng. Laplanche  and suggested that we buttress all the columns to give the walls strength. He agreed and the work was done. It’s now a beautiful new, safe church.

We went down to Gelli Beach for a couple of hours to enjoy the Caribbean breeze and some refreshments - then returned to the Les Cayes Guest House to have dinner with Pastor Ablamy, his wife Donette and Pastor Paul. We all went to bed early and fought the mosquitos all night long.

Sunday – We all got up in the morning nursing mosquito bites (even Tom and he never gets bit) and had breakfast. I like most Haitian food, but fish for breakfast is not my favorite. We got to the church about 8:30 and the place was packed. They had their circuit convention this weekend and people from every church in the circuit were present. I would guess there were 800 to 1000 people there. They marched us up to the front of the church and had us sit with Pastor Paul and the rest of the clergy. I was hoping for a quiet corner in the back. The good news was that there was lots of music – 2 full choirs, 2 smaller ensembles and a band. The bad news was it ran for over 3 ½ hours. We didn’t get out of there until after 12:00.

We got back to the guest house and changed into cooler clothes and had lunch. Then we all packed up and hit the road. Now this was a milestone day for me. I drove back from Les Cayes – my first Haiti driving experience. I actually enjoyed it. There was only one small incident. At one of the many places where the road was torn up, I slowed down to pick my way through it and a SUV came barreling up on my left to pass me and I didn’t see a fairly large rock on my right. I hit it with a glancing blow off of the bottom of the front grill guard. I was going pretty slow and it didn’t hurt anything but made a lot of noise and scared everybody to death. I drove for about 3 hours to Mellier where we stopped to look at the work site. Mario took over the driving from there because he knows how to navigate around Port au Prince better than I do. I’m glad he was driving because we got into another traffic jamb in Carrefour and got rear ended. Not much damage to the D-Max other than a scarred rear bumper. It was another 5 ½ hour journey. We knew we were going to be late so we had called the Guest House and told them not to fix dinner for us. We stopped off at Munchee’s in Petionville for, in our opinion, the best pizza in Haiti.

Monday – After conferring with one of the site engineers about the days work, Spana and I went shopping. I had a whole list of things that I needed to get for the projects. One of those things is 24 full-size, sturdy bunk beds. We went to every source we could think of and found 1 bunk bed that would work. I asked the clerk how many he had in stock. He went away to check and came back in about 15 minutes and said “One”. I asked him how long it would take to get 24. He went away again for about 20 minutes and came back and said “I don’t know”. I love shopping in Haiti. The rest of our list suffered much the same fate. We were unable to find most of the things I needed. It’s very frustrating knowing you could go to a dozen places at home and find everything. In Haiti you end up having to improvise, settle for 2^nd or 3^rd best or completely redesign what you were trying to do. Did I mention that I love shopping in Haiti?

Days 259 – 262 (7/16 - 19)

Monday – It’s a slow week for teams. We won’t have anybody at the Guest House until Thursday. But it’s still busy for the staff. My projects are in full swing; Tom is busy putting together a report on all of our sites for the Site Review Committee meeting this afternoon; Mario is getting things ready for the GBGM auditor who will be here next week; and Danette is putting together a job description and protocol for our interpreters.

The Site Review Committee consists of the usual suspects – Pastors Paul and Depestre and Sylvio Rocourt from the EMH and Tom and I from VIM. We invited Engineers Laplanche, Abicher and Roos to the meeting today to get their input about finishing some of our sites. Tom’s report showed that since the beginning of the Haiti Response Plan we have worked on 43 different sites and completed 23.  The initial report of EMH earthquake damage assessment was 6 Churches destroyed, 24 damaged. Of the 6 destroyed churches 2 are completed and 3 are in progress. Of the 24 damaged churches 5 are completed and 2 are in progress. Of the 8 schools destroyed 1 is completed and 2 are in progress. Of the 18 damaged schools 5 are completed and 3 are in progress. Of the 410 homes destroyed 50 are in progress. Of the 360 damaged homes 6 are in progress. The purpose of today’s meeting was to decide how to best finish the projects in progress and choose sites to work on for the remaining 1 year of the Haiti Response Plan. We anticipate between 150 - 170 teams during that time period. This translates into approximately 1 to 1.2 million dollars in matching funds to work with. The EMH sets the priorities of these projects.

Tuesday – Tom and I left the Guest House at 6:00 AM to meet Pastor Paul and Eng. Laplanche at Pastor Paul’s house in Pacot and drive to Tapion. We picked up Eng. Abicher in Carrefour on the way. Tapion is a rural community a few miles before Petit Goave. Their church was heavily damaged in the earthquake. There is no road into Tampion so you have to park your car off of the highway and walk down the mountain about ¾ of a mile. The trail is a little steep in places but really quite beautiful. I’m glad that we were doing this in the morning and not in the heat of the day. The leveled out in a little valley then up the next hill a little way to the church. Before we got to the valley floor you could hear singing coming from the church. They knew we were coming and several dozen people from the community had come to the church to welcome us.

At first glance my first impression was that this building was going to have to be torn down. The damage was extensive. However, further inspection revealed that the main structural components of the building could probably be saved. We could buttress the columns like we did at the church in Torbeck. Engs. Laplanche and Abicher agreed and will draw up a plan and estimate for the repairs. After the inspection we met with the people from the community and explained our plan to them and told them that if everything was approved, we could probably begin rebuilding their church by October. Needless to say, they were very happy. By the time we started our hike back up to the car it was almost noon and the heat was rising. When we got our sweaty bodies into the car, several people came walking down the road carrying food and a big pitcher of lemonade (actually lime aid). So – we sat in the car and enjoyed a lunch of fried chicken legs, French fries and fried plantains. I’ll have to say that they were the best plantains I have had in Haiti.

We drove on in to Petit Goave so Pastor Paul could see the work at Brakeman College and the Petit Goave bookstore. Pastor Paul was the Circuit Superintendent in Petit Goave for about 13 years before becoming President so everyone knows him. Driving down the street people would call his name and we would stop so he could shake their hand and say hello. It took us about an hour to get out of town. Tom and I got back to the Guest House about 6:30 PM. It was a long day.

Wednesday – No teams, no site visits and no meetings today. But I had a lot of work to do. I’m leaving for home on August the 1^st and we will be shut down at the Guest House until August 19^th. However, the work on the Guest House and the Staff Annex has to continue so everything will be ready when the teams start arriving in force in early September. Roger Laplanche and Madam Ruth, the Guest House Manager will also be gone for most of that period so there will be little oversight available. It’s essential that Engineers Abicher and Roos know exactly what needs to be done. I’ve discovered that there is no certification program for engineers in Haiti and the training they receive varies from school to school. Abicher and Roos are good at structural design and construction techniques but I have yet to meet a Haitian trained engineer who has had one day of training in construction management, budgeting and scheduling. So I am putting together a weekly work schedule and a room by room scope of work for both projects. It will be their bible while I’m gone.

Thursday – This morning Tom and I had a 9:30 AM meeting with Pastor Paul and Constantine with World Hand Alliance, one of the EMH Housing Project Contractors. We were meeting at Pasto Paul’s office and he had not arrived by 9:30. So – we called him and he said “You did not tell me about this meeting.” And I said “Pastor Paul, you’re the one that called the meeting”. Oh well. If it’s important I guess he’ll reschedule.

At 11:00 I had my meeting with LaPlanche, Abicher and Roos. I told them, “Gentlemen, this project is like no other project you have done before. In the U.S. we call it fast track. We have a very limited time to get a lot of work done and you can’t get it done by having the same 5 guys going from one job to the next. We need 25 guys doing 5 jobs at the same time”. I then gave them the work schedules and went through them week by week. Then I gave them the room by room scope of work. Needless to say, there were raised eyebrows. However, there was immediate buy-in. They rose to the challenge and actually seemed excited to have something to work with. We’re going to meet every week to track the schedule. Who knows, maybe a whole new method of construction management will take hold in Haiti. Don’t hold your breath.

Days 255 -258 (7/12 – 15)

Thursday – No teams to deal with this morning. This gave me the opportunity to get all the material together that I was going to need at my meeting with Engineer Laplanche and Madam Ruth. This was the meeting to go over the final scope of work for the Guest House Renovation Project. Several things had changed since I first put it together last October and I wanted to be sure that everyone was in agreement about what we were going to do. This required walking the complex and going through the Guest House and Swiss House room by room and agree with what I had recommended. Luckily 95% was accepted and the few changes/additions that Ruth had can be accomplished by some minor adjustments. I’m glad it went as well as it did because I was expecting some push back on several items. Roger appointed Engineer Arbicher as the site engineer and we walked the project with him later in the day. He said they would start work tomorrow.

Just before dinner we had a team return from Mellier and a new team come in from the States. Guest House life is back to normal.

Friday – The morning activity included getting the Mellier team off to the airport very early for their flight home and our new team to their work site in La Tremble. At 9:00 AM I had a Skype call from Una Jones, the head of the Volunteers in Mission program for the General Board of Global Ministries in New York. She was calling to talk about another extension to my contract. My current contract expires August 1^st. I had discussed another 3 month extension with my family and we concluded that another 3 months would allow me to complete the projects that I have been working on for the last nine months. However, I had told Una earlier that if I was going to extend I would need more money to pay my bills. She said she would look into funding possibilities and that’s what this Skype call was all about. Apparently the powers to be in New York have concluded that the job I’ve been doing is a very integral part of the Haiti Response Plan and probably should have been a part of the staffing plan from the very beginning. So – as of August 20^th the start of my new contract term, I will no longer be an UMCOR/UMVIM “volunteer” but will be funded by the Haiti Response Plan. No change in the job description, but a significant change in how the job is perceived. It will more than likely be a part of the plan whenever or wherever the next disaster occurs. Una wanted me to agree to a 6 month rather than 3 month extension, but I told her that I had pushed my family’s endurance as far as it was going to go. She then said “Why don’t you take 2 or 3 months off at the end of the next contract and then come back”. I told her that that would be up to my family.

During my Skype call the construction crew arrived and started the demolition of the 1st upstairs bathroom. I guess we had better get used to the noise because it’s going to be ongoing for the next 2 ½ months.

The afternoon brought the COR team back from Petit Goave. The new team from the States that was due to arrive had their flight cancelled because of mechanical problems. There are no more available flights into Port au Prince for 10 people for the next 3 days. They are scrambling around trying to find a way to get here.

Saturday – Our team stranded in the States decided to take a flight to the Dominican Republic and then an 8 hour bus ride to Petionville . They will arrive sometime this evening. We won’t have any more teams for the next 4 days, so Danette is flying to Miami for some R&R.

I’m spending my time today working with Eng. Abicher and Boss Wesche going over the changes I want in the 2 bathrooms that we are starting. I’m still dealing with communication issues (my less than perfect Creole skills are a real handicap at this point) and I have to go over everything 2 or 3 times to be sure they fully understand the scope of work. It’s apparent that hands-on supervision over the next couple of weeks is going to be critical.

Our wayward team finally arrived about 7:00 PM, exhausted after 36 hours of traveling. We got them fed and into their rooms.

Sunday – Our new team wanted to attend church services at their work site in Mellier, so we got them on the road early. They were still a bit bleary eyed, but in better shape than they were last night.

Danette was in Miami; Mario went to his cousin’s house in Thomasin and Tom left early to preach in Cabaret, so I had the place to myself. It’s been hot (upper 90s) and humid (98%) so my first order of business was to find the shadiest, coolest spot I could find to spend the afternoon. Turned out to be my room with the window open (it’s never closed), the door open and the fan at full blast. I read my book and took a nap.

Days 250 – 254 (7/07 – 11)

Saturday - This morning we got 1 team off to the airport for their return home and got our new team on the road to Arcahaie where they are going to spend their week distributing bio-sand water filters.

I forgot to mention in my last blog that I received word from UMCOR that the second draw of my HHAP grant was finally approved and the funds will be transferred Monday. So – I spent most of my day working with Mario in getting the 2^nd draw checks cut for the housing beneficiaries. This includes verifying that all receipts for the first draw are in and the inspections have been made. Then making sure all of the information is properly recorded, because I’m going to have to go through the same process for the last funding draw. With the length of time it takes to get everything approved, I’m going to start the request now.

Sunday – No teams today. So, after a partial church service at the Freres campus (I say partial because I generally only stay for about the 1^st hour) I came back to the office to take care of my personal bill paying via the internet. After spending all of my money, I watched a little golf on the internet and then went to my room to read one of the new books that I had just downloaded on my Kindle. It’s nice to have a quiet day.

Monday – No teams again today. Eng. Roger Laplanche came by the Guest House to pick me up at 7:00 AM to head for Petit Goave. We wanted to check out the 2^nd story addition on the auditorium building at Brakeman College. This project is being funded by COR (Church of the Resurrection) in Kansas City. It is not a VIM team project, but Pastor Paul has asked me if I would help Roger manage it. So, we try to get down there every couple of weeks to check on the progress. It’s about a 5 hour round trip. We picked up Engineer Abicher, the site engineer,  in Carrefour on the way down and met Pastor Dorceley, the EMH Circuit Superintendent at the school. The project is coming along nicely and the walls are about ½ way up – to the first bond beam level. And except for a couple of minor masonry issues that Eng. Abicher said he would address, the quality looks good. I will recommend to COR to send the next funding advance so that the work can continue.

Pastor Dorcely then wanted us to stop by the church in Petit Goave and look at the security wall that we built around the book store and check out a couple of other projects that he would like to see put on the to do list. The Circuit Superintendents never run out of projects. Our last stop was at the Petit Goave Guest House where a COR team was doing some IT upgrades to the internet service. Then it was another energy bar lunch in the car on the return trip to Petionville. Back at the Guest House at 3:00 PM – hot and tired. However, I got an urgent email from Lauren James, UMCOR/EMH Liason, for some assistance on preparing the grant proposal for the finish work at the St. Martin church. It ended up being a long day.

Tuesday – Still no teams, but the day started out with a meeting of the Guest House Committee. I’ve lost track of how many committees I’m on – they call – I show up. This committee consists of Pastor Paul, EMH President; Pastor Depestre, EMH Secretary; Madam Depestre, Guest House Manager, Madam Vivian, EMH Business Manager; Sylvio Rococourt, EMH Relief and Development Manager; Roger Laplanche, EMH Head Engineer; and Tom and me. This was actually an important meeting because, among other things, it was the kick-off of my Guest House Renovation Project. The funding is finally in place and we are ready to start renovating. With very few teams here in July and only 1 in August, it is the ideal time to be doing this work. Madam Ruth, Roger and I agreed to meet tomorrow morning to go over the specific room by room details and agree on a schedule of work.

The afternoon was an email marathon with Lauren on the St. Martin church grant and Eng. Derly and Doug Ahfield of Homes for Haitians on some issues with the EMH houses in Mellier. I think I need more hats.

Wednesday  –  Another day with no teams and no meetings this morning. I finally have some time to catch up on some of my other jobs before an afternoon trip with Pastor Paul, Roger and Tom to visit Pastor Paul’s proposed site for his “Methodist Village” in La Tremble. We’ve been talking for a long time about the need to provide housing solutions for people who were renting homes that were destroyed. In reality the non-land owner population is the largest segment of the homeless population. We know that the Methodist church owns land all over the country and have been asking if there wasn’t some land that could be used to build housing for these people. This idea has geminated long enough that it has become his idea and vision and he wanted to show us the parcel he proposes for the “Methodist Village”. It’s a very nice piece of agricultural land, about ¾ of an acre, right across the road from the new La Tremble church. I’m very excited about the possibility of seeing this being developed.

Days 246 – 249 (7/03 – 06)

Tuesday – Still no teams today. Jim Gulley and I left early this morning with Spana and the D-Max headed to Carrefour. We have a meeting with the 2 new contractors and the 10 beneficiaries that will be receiving the homes. Engineer Derly and Pastor Jacob introduced the contractors and explained the schedule and procedures for the start of construction on their new homes. The people were very excited to finally get their homes started. They have been waiting for over a year. If you’ve been following this blog, you are aware of the numerous problems that have delayed this process. It has been a learning process for everyone involved. I guess that’s why they call it a pilot project. The lessons learned have created an ironic situation where houses that I started in the Haiti Home Assistance Program in April will be completed before most of these houses whose process started over a year ago. Bottom line, however, is that 54 families (over 300 people) will be out of tents and temporary shelters and in new homes by the end of October. That’s why I’m here.

Wednesday – Happy Birthday America! As you can imagine, the 4^th of July is not a holiday in Haiti. Their Independence Day is January 1^st.  So – it’s business as usual for us, a day of meetings.

This morning it’s the monthly Joint Leadership Team meeting at the UMCOR office on Delma 54. This is the EMH, UMCOR, VIM leadership group – Pastor Paul and Pastor Marco from EMH, Elizabeth Petheo and Lauren James from UMCOR, Tom and I from VIM and Jim Gulley from GBGM (General Board of Global Ministries). Each group gives a report on the previous month’s activities and their plans for the coming months. Problems and concerns are discussed in an effort to coordinate our activities. It’s actually one of the more productive meetings I go to.

The meeting this afternoon is definitely not one the more productive meetings. It’s a Strategic Planning meeting that Jim periodically holds with the clergy of the EMH in an effort to develop a 5 year plan for Education, Health, Development, Evangelism, Reconstruction. This is the 3^rd one I’ve attended and the same problem exists. The Haitians don’t grasp the concept and/or process of strategic planning – it’s just not in their vocabulary. They just can’t get past their immediate needs to be able to look into the future. It’s very frustrating. You want to help, but the vision has to be theirs and not ours. I think it needs to be broken into smaller groups in each area of focus so that better mentoring of the process can take place. I’ve suggested this to Jim and I think he may try it.

One of our only  two in-country teams returned from their week in Petit Goave and an afternoon of sight- seeing.

Thursday – Today I’m going to play videographer. My friend, Warren McGuffin from the Cal/Nevada Conference is putting together a documentary film about the food program in Thomas. He had a professional videographer down here with his team a couple of months ago who filmed the bulk of the documentary, but in the process of editing decided he needed a few more pieces. Who ‘ya gonna’ call? ME. So – since I just got my new camera that will shoot Hi-Def video, I agreed to give it a try. James Lazarre agreed to set up everything in Thomas that we would need to shoot.

James met me at the Guest House right after breakfast and we set off with Spana and the D-Max. The first stop was to film someone cooking on a propane stove. Well – James couldn’t figure out how to do that so he took me to a store that sold propane stoves instead. This was an indicator of how the rest of the day was going to go. I ended up having to improvise almost every scene that they wanted. I’m not sure if anything I shot will be useable, but it was the best I could do. The best part of the day was being able to see many of my friends in Thomas.

I arrived back at the Guest House in time for dinner and to greet the first new team to arrive this month.

Friday – We got our new team loaded up and off to Mellier after breakfast. Then I left to do some more HHAP home inspections. Even though all but one of these sites is in the Port au Prince area, it becomes an all-day project navigating around and then having to walk. There are very few locations that you can actually drive right up to. By the time I got back in mid-afternoon, I was worn out.

We had one team return from Mellier and a new team arrive from the states just in time for dinner. We (Tom, Wendy, Mario, Danette, Jim and I) however, went out for dinner. We met Sarah and her friend Ashley and Lauren and Gareth from UMCOR at the Quartiere Latina. It’s a favorite restaurant with good food and live music not too far from the Guest House.

Days 242 – 245 (6/29 – 7/02)

Friday – The Delmas 33 team was first out this morning, followed closely by the Arcahaie team on their way to the airport and home. The Furcey team is taking an extra day to do some sightseeing. This all took place in my absence, however. Jim Gulley and I left at 6:30 AM to join the rest of the EMH Housing Project Management Team for a tour of all 20 home sites in Mellier.

The sites are scattered so it took us all morning to see them all. Homes for Haitians is leading the race with their 10 homes about 70% complete. World Hand Alliance is only about 50% complete. We’re all a little frustrated with the length of time it is taking to get these homes finished. Homes for Haitians had a lot of problems with shipping and import fees on their Styrofoam forms in the beginning. There also was some ramp-up time in training the Haitian Workers in the new building technique. However, things seem to be moving along now and they should have all 10 homes done by the end of July. World Hand Alliance has been constrained by their ability to produce the light weight blocks. They only have enough forms to make 104 blocks a day and each house takes just over 100 blocks. They ordered 200 more forms, but they have been lost in shipping somewhere in Haiti. We’re hoping that they can get 5 homes done by the end of July.

Jim Gulley and Lauren James had to return to Petionville early to get to another meeting, so it  was just Spana and me on the return trip. A half mile up Hwy 2 from the Mellier turn-off is a National Police check point with 3 big speed bumps that requires traffic to come to almost a complete stop. There are always vendors there running out to sell snacks and drinks as you crawl over the speed bumps. As we went by an 18 wheeler in the right lane we saw a body underneath it that had obviously just been run over. Not a pretty sight. Spana was shaking his head and saying “Oh S**t – Oh S**t. I never knew that was a Creole expression.

Apparently American Airlines had some mechanical problems and the plane from Miami that was bringing our new team in early this evening was delayed and finally cancelled until tomorrow morning. Nothing is easy in Haiti.

Saturday – This morning we finally said goodbye to our Delmas 33 team. It was really nice have all of these young people with us all week. We also said goodbye to the Furcy team. We are now “teamless” for the next 3 days. The team activity is slowing down to a trickle because of the hot summer weather. We only have 8 new teams in July and 1 in August. It will pick up to the normal 15 to 20 teams in September.

I spent the rest of my day dealing with the issues that we uncovered at our site visit yesterday. Besides just routine finish work, there were several defects that needed to be addressed. The H4H houses are built using Styrofoam forms that are left in place after the concrete is poured inside of them. Then the Styrofoam is covered in nylon mesh and 2 coats of latex and fiberglass infused plaster. The end product is a very nice, strong finish. Apparently they ran out of mesh and the reinforced plaster and coated two houses with standard plaster. Predictable the plaster spider-webbed and cracked and both houses are going to have to be re-plastered with the proper material. Another issue is getting all wooden surfaces painted. Untreated wood does not do well in humid tropical climates.

Sunday – No teams to usher in or out today. Tom, Wendy, Danette and I went up to church in Thomasin. Tom was doing his monthly communion service. It’s always nice to go up the mountain from Port au Prince. The air quality is little better and it’s almost always a little cooler. After church we all came back to the Guest House and found our own quiet corners to read, write, surf the internet or nap – if you could stay cool enough.

Tonight seemed like a good night to go to Hangs, our favorite sports bar, for a Hangburger. So, we commandeered a van and Tom, Wendy, Mario, Danette, Sarah, Jim Gulley and I descended on Hangs for the best burgers in Haiti.

Monday – Still no teams today. I went on an inspection tour of several Haiti Home Assistance Program home sites this morning with Oge. They are making good progress and I will be able to process the next funding advance for them – as soon as the 2nd grant installment arrives from New York. It’s a complicated process. The grants are parceled out in installments and you have to meet certain milestones before you can ask for the next installment. The reporting paperwork that accompanies the request is almost as extensive as the initial grant request. It has to be reviewed and approved by several people in New York. Consequently, it can take several weeks to receive the funds and in a lot of cases work has stopped. I haven’t yet figured out a way to make the procedure more seamless. 

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.