Haiti Relief Trip day 5

Four days in and the tent cities still shake me. I’m not sure what the estimate is as to the number of people that are in them across Haiti but I’m sure it’s astounding. We hear that the town nearest the epicenter is 90% destroyed; I can’t comprehend that. The first day we were here we were approached by a man on the sidewalk who tried to talk to us in broken English while we were stopped in traffic. He saw the boxes and sledgehammers and asked, “Have you come to help,” with a smile. I said, “yes,” he gave a large toothy smile and said, “thank you, Haiti is broken,” and gave us a thumb up, I asked him what his name was and he said Simon and I gave him my name and we drove off while I returned his thumbs up sign. The next morning we were driving down the same road to the place we were to start working and I heard, “hey, Jon!” and I looked and saw Simon waving and giving a thumbs up at me and I yelled back, “Simoooon,” this has happened on the way out and the way home everyday until today, I missed Simon today.

Today we started work on a third building that had a lot of interior walls destroyed in the quake. It was a metal building on the outside so it held up really well. By the end of the day we had broken up and filled 4-5 dump truck (I forget exactly) loads of concrete and blocks by hand through a back door, we’re tired. We only got half of the building cleaned and swept out before quitting time. Large trucks here have to be off the road by 6pm or the will get fined so being that we’re working a good 45 minutes commute from the compound where we’re staying, we have to be off by no later than 5pm everyday.

Tomorrow was originally planned by our hosts for us to be a day off to see the city, but we decided tonight as a group to go the extra mile and go finish the building that we had started and were unable to finish instead. I think they were a little taken back, but seemed genuinely appreciative that we’d actually opt to work instead of exploring the area.

I think the plan for Sunday is that we’re going in the mountains to experience one of their services, half of me is excited the other half is thinking, “Um, I’m not going to understand a single thing that’s said/sung,” but you never turn down an invitation from your hosts, especially hosts as gracious as the Hansons. We should have a few hours of down time to sight see Sunday afternoon and grab any souvenirs for our ladies back home;)

Laura went to her first opera tonight without me and I’m wishing with everything that I could have experienced her first opera since I love it, but I wouldn’t trade this opportunity for anything.

This trip has reminded me vividly of life’s brevity and beauty.

Please visit the host ministry’s website at www.imohaiti.org

Haiti Relief Trip...

Yesterday was a fairly non-eventful day. Andrew and I finished off the roof while Dad, Manny and Jimmy started cleaning out the massive mess that was inside the building. Andrew and I started tearing out the rafters when we noticed the walls beginning to move and realized the quake had caused massive cracks in the corners causing most of the interior walls to become free standing, and without the support of the rafters attached to them they decided they wanted to move. We notified the missionaries that the building might be in worse shape then originally thought. While Andrew and I were climbing along the 2x6 rafters and “wire walking” the walls the guys were inside working hard at cleaning up the second mess that we had made behind them by knocking down the ceiling into their newly cleaned rooms. The last half of the rafters were a bit tricky because of the wires running through them and the fact that they had bolted two lengths together and the bolts were rusted tight, so Dad joined us up top with sledgehammers and knocked them loose while walking on top of the newly exposed walls. Luckily there were no injuries as there could have easily been.
It was a much longer day than the day before and we were all pretty drained when five-o’clock hit.

Today we woke up to a wet morning as it had rained fairly hard all night and must have stopped right before dawn. We had another great breakfast and got our needed tools together for the job that was ahead of us for the day. We arrived on the job site and jumped right on it, demolishing and cleaning up fallen walls inside a chapel-like building. Originally we had tried to save whatever blocks we could by cleaning them up with a hammer and a chisel….this lasted about 20 minutes. Whoever had built the walls had decided to pour cement through the majority of them making them virtually solid; to those unfamiliar with construction concrete block walls are not solid, they have hollow cavities inside of them. When we realized this we just decided to make it a full on demolition project rather than a salvage project and out came the sledgehammers. We backed the large dump truck up to the main entrance and started a smooth process of shoveling, sledging, wheel barrowing, loading truck with literally tons of concrete and cement block. At the end of the day we had broken up, shoveled and hand loaded 3 large dump truck loads of debris. When we left the building it was swept, empty of trash, straightened up and ready for use.
John Hanson, the missionary we’re here serving, showed up toward the end and gave us a tour of the next project…it’ll probably take us the rest of the trip.

John Hanson has been here for 35 years with his wife and started with a school of a little over 100 kids and preaching from a front porch of a friend they had met here. He now oversees a ministry that draws 120,000+ people to church across Haiti every week in 43 churches, 175 “outstation” churches and leads 310 pastors not to mention the approximate 7,000 grade school students the ministry educates. He is one of the hardest working missionaries I’ve ever met and the best way to describe him is “jolly”, may sound funny, but it’s so fitting. He’s a loud, jovial, large man that is serious about his work and can fill a room with his laughter. His wife came in to dinner tonight with John absent as usual, because he was still out at one of the churches working somewhere, telling us that today she had treated over 115 children at one of the school/clinics. This couple is simply amazing.

It was brought to my attention by my lovely girlfriend that I had failed to really introduce the team that I’m here with, so let me remedy that oversight.

Andrew Bailey: He’s our team leader and owns a remodeling company in the Dallas area; he’s been a Gateway member for almost 2 years.

Garry Gaspard: He’s my father and does roofing in South Louisiana for his “day” job but is praying about going full time with a ministry he started 10 years ago called “Infinity Ministries” that goes around the globe basically doing what we’re doing right now, helping local ministries and pastors with whatever they are in need of.

Jimmy Hedge: Has owned a floor and window company for the past 23 years, he’s been a member of Gateway for 4 years.

Manny Martinez: Home builder in the Southlake area for the last 6 years, has been a member of Gateway for 3 years.

And myself…

Until next time…