Haiti Trip Update #4 Sunday, July 22, 2013 Ok, I know I say this with every team, but I really LOVE this team! It is such a blessed privilege to be a part of it and to get to know these precious people and serve alongside them. This morning some of the girls slept in a bit to get caught up on rest. The men who were up so late got up to go over the supply list with me and then Celissa and I headed to Port. We went to three different hardware stores and searched high and low for things we need (which is like a wild goose chase in Haiti), and we were successful with many items, but not all. One of the things we got was lots of paint for the inside of the hospitality house, the rest of the little buildings and even the gates. I had to guess off the little swatches so I hope it turns out ok. These girls are animals when it comes to getting this painting done so that’s why I decided to just go for it - this compound is beginning to look like a whole new happy, lively, colorful, Caribbean place! Brett called me in the middle of the day with bad news…among all the other things that have been going wrong and needing to be fixed around here, the water pump went out. Thankfully I was able to find another one that worked perfectly. They had no water all day in the house so Kenol and the Haitian guys would carry buckets of water from Lifeline over and add bleach to it for the ladies to use. They figured out how to flush toilets, wash dishes, wash hands and even take showers with no running water, they used a cup. These girls are learning A LOT – haha! And having GREAT attitudes through it all. Right in the middle of my bucket/cup shower I heard cheering and knew the water was back on, but honestly, my cup shower was so pleasant that I just finished it and didn’t even turn on the shower! (The water was warmer than from the cistern ☺. It’s such a small world, our dear friend Pastor Benis who has a wonderful ministry on La Gonave Island, off the coast of Haiti, ended up on the highway right behind Celissa and I on his way into Port to do some business too. So we met up with him at the Visa Hotel for lunch and enjoyed some good food and even better fellowship. We found out that he and his family will be visiting California in mid-September. Things took so long at all the hardware stores and the drives in between, that unfortunately we didn’t get finished or make it to the grocery store. Brett decided it was more important for us to get the water pump home so Celissa and I are going back to Port first thing in the morning. But that’s ok – that’s what I’m here for! I’m in contractor training school ;-). Brett and the men have been a little discouraged because they have spent all their time fixing things that are breaking and not seeing much progress on new work. But I reminded them tonight that they specifically are here for “such a time as this,” and we GREATLY appreciate all that they are doing and that it is so necessary, especially for the benefit of future teams coming here to minister. The girls have said that they want to learn to cook so Marta and Tracey are helping them and tonight Juliana and Angela teamed up and cooked the whole dinner by themselves with only some guidance from the “moms.” It was really tasty Spaghetti, green beans and watermelon. Today Greg continued work on the shower, Bernhard was trouble shooting some electrical wiring, Greg got the girls set up to do the painting, they all did some maintenance on the generator and then replaced the water pump for the cistern system tonight. In addition to painting, all the women went next door to the serve the children food at the Lifeline canteen during lunchtime. The little children wanted them to help feed them and they ended up in a circle on the floor holding and feeding them and loving on them. Both Tarahca and Tiffany had children fall asleep on them while they were rocking them. Most of them were in tears or holding back tears most of the time. They were deeply touched by the experience of serving so many children food who otherwise would have nothing to eat – it hit hard and they all had emotional moments to share tonight – they loved it so much that they are going back tomorrow and taking the men with them! Tarahca led the devotional tonight and it was about their time at the canteen and how she has been working through her conflicted emotions with the Lord and how she kept coming back to the scripture that God’s ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts higher than our thoughts and we may not understand why things are the way they are in the world, but that we can always come back to the fact that God is good and He loves us all, and He gave her a small glimpse of that as He poured out his love for this particular child through her. Praise God that Sarah and Juliana are feeling completely better today, but please pray for Greg. He has always had some stomach issues and they are flaring up down here. In fact, he has been in bed ever since I got home. Blessings from Haiti, Nikki
Posted on: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 04:07:30 +0000
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