Day 4: Thursday, November 1
Before leaving for the work site on Thursday, we watched as the House of Abraham kids learned Scripture together. (They were out of school for holidays Thursday and Friday.) We didn't understand a word they said, but it was precious to watch as they memorized God's Word together.
We arrived at the work site on Thursday to find walls going up all around! Our bodies were sore, but we jumped right in to mixing, moving, and pouring concrete. The heat index climbed well above 100 degrees that day, so we loosened up quickly!
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| Outer walls -- progress since Wednesday. |
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| Inner walls going up, too! |
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| More slab completed. |
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| More footings being poured. |
After a hard day's work, we returned to the beach to cool off. When we came in from the water (with cuts on some feet from the coral in abundance), Fenel treated us to a taste of fresh lobster -- tasty, indeed. Then, it was back to HoA for some lovin' on kiddos!
A few things stood out to me about Thursday:
At the work site, we began to see our team's personalities, love languages, abilities,
and resources really shine through. Suzie shined with the kids who were
always around the edges, watching what we were doing. Several team
members engaged the Haitian workers, and -- though there was a language
barrier -- the international language of kindness broke through. We
gave away much-needed and appreciated work gloves and rubber boots. Mark and Bethany even engaged the kids outside the gate. The
care for one another also increased as the day heated up.
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| This guy worked like a champ! |
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| Hi, there, would you like some candy? |
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| Relationships -- even more important than construction |
Back at HoA, I saw God give us strength and energy to engage with the kids even as our strength waned. Kelsie and Bethany had the resource of long hair that kept the girls entertained for hours, and they were good sports to let them. All of us with cameras and phones with cameras were inundated with "photo, photo" requests, to show our pictures and to take theirs. (I was surprised to feel my phone buzzing in my pocket later with text messages. One of the kids had somehow turned my phone off of airplane mode. I'm sure my good friends at AT&T will quickly resolve any charges to my account -- written with tongue firmly planted in cheek.)
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| Nice hair! |
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| Photo, photo! |
One more thing I noticed on Thursday was that as a couple of our team members began to feel puny, the concern and prayers of the workers, the children, and the HoA staff for them was heartwarming. We encountered some beautiful, loving people, and part of our hearts are still very much there with them.
Thanks for reading. Are you ready to go to Haiti yet?
Days 1 & 2
Day 3
4theVoiceless,
Al
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