Karen's Post

Good Morning to those of you who enjoy hearing from us here at the HATS-Haiti mission.
I had good 'intentions' of writing last night, but those were overridden by the fact that my head could not sit properly on my shoulders and my eye lids decided to close of their own accord. I remember someone, hopefully it was my giddy sister, walking me to my bedroom. Don't remember much for some time after that.

Yesterday, Tuesday, I was up before 4:00 a.m. and I saw an absolute ton of work completed. It was a day that I will remember always. I did the usual run, run, run around both compounds seeing that things were moving along and things were supplied as needed. I ran for plumbing supplies with Brian and Dickie and Dickie and I took one of our security agents and headed to St. Marc for plywood, propane, and to return the second cheaply made, but expensive to buy, water cooler. The store owner continued to tell me the problem was me, or my house/electricity, etc. Dickie and I knew it was not and I stood my ground. I said I was not leaving the store without a credit for the total cost. Got it and then used it all, and more, to pay for plywood, etc.

The school construction was more than busy all day long. Luckner knew it was important to get all of that stage of the construction, building and pouring the cement supports for the roof, finished yesterday so this morning the work could move forward. There was still a lot to be done at 3:00 p.m. so Luckner jumped in the truck and ran outside the compound looking for men who wanted to come and work hard and fast. He found seven new ones and the other regular workers kept on trucking, Haitian and Blan alike. When it got dark we ran with extension cords and two lamps from my house. All the 'blan yo' who were not pounding nails or mixing or pouring cement, held up flashlights so the work could continue.

It was an amazing few hours where the workers , chocolate and vanilla alike, ran around like ants trying to get to the honey jar. At 8:00 p.m. we were all very overtired but had an extreme sense of accomplishment. Luckner and I both really want to see the cement roof finished with the tremendous help of the team. We would like to be able to start pouring on Saturday, but that might more likely happen on Sunday. Oops, for those of you who have not been on a work project like this, sometimes Sunday, after church, must be a day of work.

Ed mixing cement

Sandra and Faith have been busy beavers bug painting and regular painting the big fantastic cupboard Dickie built for my bathroom. They are in the process of moving and organizing things there for me. They have been doing a lot of different things which includes an outstanding job with my precious little happy guy. Alex is soaking up the attention of the whole group but looks to Sandra and Faith for most things. Mama Karen keeps running around and does not have enough time for Alex. He wants time with his mama, but he is certainly not hard done by with these two taking care of him.

I got back at this early this morning but the work day started. School is in session and today a presentation of Creole Bibles was made by Gerry to all students in our grades 5 - 8 students. Several sponsored students received gifts from the workteam members today that had been sent down by their sponsors and photos were taken. Work on the school construction continued, a lot of odd jobs and running around was done, and now at 7:40 I am once again very tired.
If you enjoy reading about the escapades of the group, come on down.
Karen