I am writing to give you a report of my last mission trip to Haiti from January 8-22. I was accompanied by four teams. I had one group each from Eastern Canada, Montana/Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina with the total being twenty adults. The twenty were very diverse consisting of four pastors, one overseer, one youth pastor, two ladies, one architect, and a variety of other backgrounds.
I am thankful to be able to report that after four months that the wall around the orphanage has been completed which includes the sea wall portion. When I first went to the orphanage a few months ago, it was overrun with goats and community people walking through the property at will. There was no sense of security at all. Now that the wall has been completed, the environment is much improved, and there was a sense of peace in the whole place. Also, the new generator has been hooked up, water is being pumped from the well, and the school is operational. We have approximately forty-six children back on the property and another one hundred and fifty attending the school on the property. GAIN had also purchased a relatively new Ford pickup truck that I was able to use while there.
Our first church building project this trip was a church building in DuFort. This building was for a thriving congregation which was worshipping under a tarp. We welded steel angle iron together, made T-posts, and set them in concrete. We braced them and made steel trusses and placed them on the walls. We then ran the lathe and attached the metal roof by special screws that we had transported from the states. The building was approximately 34 feet wide and 60 feel long. When I left, I ordered and had delivered the materials to begin building the block walls that will fill the spaces between the posts.
The second project was in Grand Gove. This church was on a narrow piece of land between two buildings, and it was 21 feet wide and about 74 feel long. This construction was not as conductive for steel construction so I purchased treated (insect and rot resistant) lumber and built frame walls and wooden trusses, and then we attached metal roofing. The ladies of this church worked with sledge hammers, picks, shovels, and wheel barrows to the point that we were simply amazed.
In short, both churches turned out to be beautiful structures of which both congregations were very proud. The people who went with me seemed thrilled with the whole experience and have already begun talking about going again next year. In fact, some are talking about going again in just a month or two.
I should also report that on the last Friday of January 21, that we visited the only pastor that we still have living in a tent. The brethren from Canada wanted to buy a piece of land to build him a house. They authorized the purchase of a lot that we were shown.
I am taking another group to work at the orphanage and in the surrounding churches in February. I have pasted some pictures below.
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