Friday

We have had an interesting day. We left the guesthouse at 8:30 to go up to the overlook above Petionville. We made it about 5 miles and one of the tap-taps broke down. No trip here is complete without a few breakdowns. We sent half of the team on up and the rest stayed in a parking lot of a grocery mart waiting for Pastor Leon to bring us his truck. Leon then turned his truck over to the best tap-tap driver in all of Haiti....Bobby (aka Big Bob). The other tap-tap overheated later but was repaired in short order. We made our way on up to the mission for lunch, ice cream, and shopping. We came back down to PAP and went to the National Palace for a photo-op and just now returned to the guesthouse. We will have our Bible study in a few minutes and then begin the process of getting ready for the Rook World Championship. Leon has been talking a big game and is coming ready to rock the house!!

We have had an incredible week and feel blessed to have been here. The weather has been unreal. The temps have been great during the day and in the evenings it has been cool. For those that have been before you will understand when I say that the only time we have sweat was while we were working. Thank God for the blessing of nice temps!!! Tony is thrilled along with the rest of the team!

We will pack tonight and be ready to go in the morning. We will leave the house at 6:30 for a 9:00 AM flight. We will arrive in Miami around lunch. We look forward to seeing everyone at RDU.

Thanks so much for praying for our team while we have been away. It is great to belong to a church like Ridgecrest Baptist Church that allows us to go out into the world to serve Christ. Thanks also for all of the messages to let us know that you are remembering us while we are away. We serve as an extension of each one of you and count that a blessing.

We will see you soon.

PS: Donnie, 7 folks are all that need a ride so you should not need the Blazer.

Thursday!

Hey everyone,
I am glad to see that people are actually reading this thing! We had 9 comments today...i believe that to be a Haitian Record!!! We had a wonderful day working. WE moved a lot of block, we laid a lot of block, and did a lot of painting! The work is complete but there is always more to do! This means we need more people to come next time!

Tomorrow we will be travelling to Petionville and downtown Port-au-Prince. It should be exciting! Bobby is our tour guide so we should be in serious trouble. Pray that we return to the guesthouse and not in the Dominican Republic. Oh yea, Kara officially made it through the whole work project without getting hurt or puking. It is not for certain if she has Haitian Happiness, but she is going to get a gold star from the team for her great effort at accomplishing this.

Donnie (AKA DAD!) please bring the van and trailer to pick us up at the airport.

Wednesday

Well due to the large quantities of water that fell from the sky last night and literally made the roads into rivers, we Could not make it into Repatriot today. So, we all went to Blanchard. There the team that was there yesterday continued to prime and paint. The others did a lot of work very similar to last year...that is...Hauling block up to the second floor so more rooms and walls could be made. It was hard work but fun!



Last night we had our first annual Rook tournament. Here Are the outcomes.

4th place - Tony Blalock and Gail Hicks

3rd place- Jordan Salmon and Jason Palmer

2nd place- Rodney Hicks and Gwen Tilley

1st place- Leon DeOrleans and Julie Hudson



There will another tournament held on FRiday night with more to come in the years to come!



No serious injuries today except for Kara. Her feelIngs were hurt when a 5 year old Haitian girl picked up more block than her! J/K Kara lifts block like a Hoss! ArT did get poked in the arm with a piece of metal and had to get a band-aid on it. Half the team got high off of the paint fumes except for CindY because she cant get high off of anything as short as she is. (Bobby Long said this...I am just typing)



Hope all is well there and that the rain continues to fall...

Are people even reading this thing??

Tuesday

Terrible day!! 2 folks wee lost for several hours after wondering outside of the compound. Nothing major but it took awhile to find them.......April Fools!!!!!

We had a wonderful day and worked very hard, We split into two teams with one going to Blanchard to paint (Bobby Long, Donna, Julie, Gail, Tom, and Gwen). The rest were back to Repatriot for another day of hauling blocks, water, and concrete). We have more to do but made a great deal of progress today. Everyone is well and still no Haitian Happiness.

This afternoon and tonight we had a major rain storm. That is why this post is so late because the internet has been down. We were unable to go to Michael's for the show so we enjoyed Ice Cream instead. We had enough for everyone at the house. There is a major Rook tournament underway with Leon being the most vocal.

Tomorrow we will attempt to go to Repatriot but it may be impossible due to all of the rain. We will psot again tomorrow afternoon.

Monday

Hey again!
Today was a great day! It started off with us visiting Blanchard to pick up some supplies and to see the work that has been done since last year. It looked Great! After that we made our way to Repatriot. Repatriot is in the middle of no where! This is a place where refugees are sent when returning to the country. The govenrment seeing this happened gave Leon land to come in there and plant a church. Once we got there, we bagan hauling block and mortar to outer wall. Bobby and Jordan got to drive away for a little bit to pick up some supplies and pick-up some Starbucks! Actually there was no Starbucks involved but supplies were picked up and a powerline was torn down! When they returned we continued to carry block and mortar well into the afternoon. No serious injuries to report and no one has the D-word or as Leaon says "Haitian Happiness." We are sure that no one will have trouble sleeping tonight!

Sunday!

Hey Everybody!

Things here are great besides the rooster at 4:00 A.M. and the snoring from some of the people in our group whose names will be made unknown. This morning we got to spend time in worship with the Cite Soleil Church. It was Pastor Leon's 20th year after starting the church and they recognized him with a plaque in the service. It was really great to be a part of it. After church half the team went on a little beach excursion to Wahoo Beach while the rest stayed at the guest home. Those who went to the beach had a blast! Jason, Jordan, and Kara swam 300 yards out to a non-existent coral reef. It was a workout! Jordan Salmon got us all a coconut out of a tree and busted it with his own bare hands so we could eat of it. Rodney layed out working on his tan so he could look good at dinner tonight. Kara did well, she never got hurt! Bobby ate two hamburgers because he is Bobby and he can do those things! Everyone including myself just had a good time there. Right now we are preparing to eat dinner and then have another wonderful Bible Study with Tony. After that it is off to bed because tomorrow we start our long work days. Pray for safety and relationships to be built while there.

WE MADE IT!!

It all began this morning at 4:00 A.M. at the RBC parking lot. There the team met and prayed with each other, family, and friends (Curtis and Randy). From here the team left for the airport. Form here we enjoyed a small adventure. We had a small delay in Raleigh (mechanical problems- something with the gas cap not being screwed on correctly) and once we were airborne, our pilot overshot the runway in Miami. Lets just say that it always a comfort to here the pilot come on the intercom and say, "sorry about having to pull up again but we were coming into the runway too high." That was sarcasm for those who don't know me. Anyways, from here we finally got onto our flight from America to travel to the place known as Haiti! Once threre everything was easy! Customs and luggage ran smoothly due to the guidance of our fearless leader, Bobby Salmon! (By the way, we are truly blessed to have him leading us!) The weather here is not as hot as it has been in the past though still warm enough to go buy another fan for the bedroom. We were greeted with a friendly smile by our good freind Pastor Leon. And You know what? It seems like he is always smiling! After a few minutes in the parking lot, we were all packed into our "tap-taps" and lead to our nice home for the week. The trip was a little sad because on the way we were met by children on the street corners asking for food or water. It was and is really sad to see. Right now everybody is resting and getting prepared for a great day of worship tomorrow. We are all doing well! Keep praying for us as we continue to pray for you! We miss you all!!!