The Home Stretch

Introducing, by special request(mine)...The Haiti Team of 2011...

 Something tells me this pic was taken at the end of a long, hard day of soaking up that Haiti sunshine...oh, and working!!!  This is the team that keeps going despite the setbacks.  Brian's email this morning spoke strongly of the perseverance of this team:  "I want to share a couple of verses I read tonight...Galatians 6:9,10.  It talks of not giving up and I'm very proud to say there is no giving up on this team.  We are anxious to keep going, to keep serving, no matter whether it's putting up a building or preparing a foundation.  God will bless this work because we do it for Him.  We do it for His family of believers and we're just going to keep going."

The email this evening reveals the status of these illusive houses:  "It's now official,  we're not going to see the houses on this trip.  It turns out that they've decided to have a party in Port to celebrate the inauguration of the new president and have closed down all business and schools until Thursday, including Customs.  We're disappointed for sure but trying to stay positive with the work we are doing...God is good and He has made himself known to all of us."

I find it mind boggling to grasp how this country runs.  Can you imagine if our Prime Minister decided on a whim to close everything down to celebrate his majority government?  Okay, you don't have to answer that!!!  In Haiti, they live in the moment.  And in some respects, we could learn so much from how they do life, but there are drawbacks to this as well.  An example from today?  Around noon, they ran out of nails at the work site, so some of the Haitians left to pick up some more nails.  The team encouraged them to grab a bite to eat at the same time, thinking  they would just stop at the market down the road to fill rumbling stomachs, but instead, they decided to go home...about an hour each way.  This left the team with nothing to do but wait for nails.  Frustrating.

There won't be a shortage of work tomorrow.  They will check on the first work site to ensure that everything was completed, do whatever is still needed to be done at work site #2, and clear out space in one of the buildings to make room to store the houses when they do actually arrive.  The next team that makes the trek to Haiti with Marilyn will be in the running for putting these houses together.

I'm missing my boys...quite a bit.

 I sooooooooo look forward to having them home again, even if it looks like their clothes will need to run through a couple of cycles in the washing machine!!!  Of course every pocket and fiber of their clothing will need to be thoroughly dissected for possible "carry-on-baggage"...BUGS!!!!!!!  Oh, and by the way...that will not be my job.

Keep praying for this team...encouragement and energy to finish these last couple of days.