day 2

we apologize for the delay on this post. apparently the internet connection doesn't really work in bad weather, and it rained all day yesterday (sunday). so, i'm just posting saturday's update now (monday morning), and i will post the update for sunday's activities as well.

this was the view from the second floor of one of the buildings in the village as we were working yesterday. you can see the area where the construction team was preparing to pour a concrete second-story floor. the main "road" runs the length of the village and is lined with houses for various women. we had a productive day, completing the concrete floor and also running a medical clinic inside the village. and of course, there was time to play with the children, as they love to join in with whatever we are doing.

construction

the concrete job required many hands! the men spent some time working with haitian contractors preparing the surface. there was a large cement mixer, which needed to periodically be filled with concrete, water, and/or stones depending on what step of the process we were in. so, we had people filling buckets with concrete, people filling buckets from a stone pile, and people pumping water from a well at the other end of the village and moving it (with a cart) back to the mixer. once the conrete was mixed, the guys were putting it in buckets and created an assembly line to move it up a ladder to the floor. (on the left you can see mike, dan h, and matt s, along with some of the haitian workers) it was a lot of hard physical work, but by the end of the day, the floor was done. some of the other teams staying at the village, as well as the haitian workers themselves, kept commenting on what a great day it was, both because of how joyfully we served but also how excellent of a job we did laying the concrete. here you can see lou troweling it out at the end.

clinic

the nurses (lorri b, sarah, rachel m, kristen w) spent the morning preparing their supplies and getting organized for the clinic. they treated a few people from the village, and then opened the gates for the community to come in at 1pm. they served everyone who came through - 43 patients - in about 3 hours. from the road, you could see the crowd of people being treated, watching, or waiting. (to the left is rachel m treating a child) the patients were mostly young boys and girls, but there were some women and even a few men. a few others got pulled in to help as well: darby (for his translating abilities, rachel b, mary n, and tracy s). here you can see darby, kristen and mary working by the pharmacy.

the children at the village are very playful, but they also like to help. many of them were pumping water and helping us cart it back and forth. we had brought some bubbles with us, which provided lots of entertainment. (carie blowing bubbles for a small audience outside the clinic) when people weren't busy working, they could often be found holding babies or young children. a lot of the women who live in the village have multiple children and because they are single mothers, they just don't have the time to play with them or hold them. they are often working as well, doing laundry or other jobs around the village. they are more than happy to have people walk around with their children, or even take them outside of the houses while they are working. here is jaclyn with betta, one of the girls who lives in the village.

tomorrow we are attending darby's father's church. pastor steve will be preaching with a translator, and we will be singing songs for the church. ryan r will be leading worship for us. we hope to be able to get to the computer in the afternoon, so by the time you read this, that will already be done. sorry for the time delay, we just aren't able to gather pictures and our thoughts to get them online to you as fast as they happen.

please start praying for the vbs teams, as they plan to start on monday with their ministry. they may possibly be paired with a clinic in the same location, up in the mountains. thank you so much for your comments - it is very meaningful for us to be able to hear from you, and a blessing to report your comments back to the team.