Winding down in Haiti

Well things are winding down for me in Haiti. We have really gotten a lot accomplished, but there is so much to do. The house after tomorrow night will be able to sleep 12 people and the two bunk houses can sleep 32 more. That is a lot of people down here to do the Lord's work. We put up these 24' x 16' Bunk houses for about $1200.00 US a piece. These would make great houses for these people and we are having a lot of people stopping and watching us. They probably have never seen construction like this. We may be starting a new trend. They do have termites but you can paint under the floor with diesel fuel and that will last a long time. Then you can call the exterminator (Ha!).

















You know it is and has been really hard to not be doing something for the people that need so much. But I am only one person and I can only do what I can do and this is what God had me doing and now 44 people can come down and do what I wish I could do. But how much more 44 people can do than I could ever dream of doing. So I did my part and am thankful and blessed to do it. And now the people will also be blessed 44 times greater. Cool isn't it. Now if YOU would like to experience the mission trip of a life time, this place is going to be awesome. I cannot wait to see what God is going to be doing down here. It is already happening in the relationships that have been formed. The presence of the Holy Spirit is so strong you can feel it everywhere.

Even though the people look so sad they are really friendly and are really good people. They just are stuck in a world that has no guidelines. By the government or anyone. It is really sad that there is so much going against them and yet they do not blame the Lord, they are just the opposite. They are praising the Lord and I think we can all take lessons from them. I really feel God is going to make some major changes here and it is going to be exciting to see.

God bless you all
Rob

Could use some prayers-began on Tuesday 2/23

Hey all
We have all had a rough last two nights. If you could please say a few prayers tonight that the earth could be calm tonight. We all are exhausted and need some rest. Two nights ago at 4:00 am we had a 4.7 earthquake or after shock. That started our day a bit earlier then we intended. We all were standing out side after running out of this house trying to calm our nerves. Then we went inside and had our breakfast. There was a little talk all day about the security of being inside and maybe the Haitians are outside for a reason. Well Last night we had another wake up call at about 2:30 AM and it pretty much rumbled all night and I believe we had at least six tremors and then another one at breakfast about 7:00 AM. Well today (Tuesday) we spent the day putting up temporary housing for us outside. Tomorrow we will be putting up some frame work that will last for future teams. We had 7 more people come in today so now we have 15 people here. 2 of which will be helping with the construction. One is to take my place. I am excited to pass the baton along because it has been challenging to say the least as everything has had to be repaired in some way, shape or form in the whole house and I am just exhausted. And then not to be able to sleep just added to the frustration. But as a whole, the team has hung in there and we have stuck together and under these circumstances that is God and his presence here and each and everyone of us is here because God asked us to come down here to help the Haitian people. And we all are here for His purpose and His purpose alone and He will take care of us. In my devotions yesterday morning I was reading Philippians 1:20 and 21 "I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, But will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me." I love to be here and I know this is where I am suppose to be. But this passage gave me peace about being here. But it is still unnerving when the earth is shaking under you. Just as Peter felt when he was walking on the water and he was in the presence of Jesus. We all have our faith put to the test.

Wednesday night now....Well the generator got shut off and this didn't get sent out in time. So this is the next night and we all prayed before we went to bed for a calm night so we could get some rest and God answered our prayers. Amen. We all got a good night sleep. But we continue to build outside. Had a little tremor about an hour ago. Hope its not another rough night.








The guys are doing an awesome job. There is a lot of switching from one job to another, and about face. And they have done great, very flexible if you can't do change its hard to go on a mission trip. You have to be flexible it's Gods plan and His agenda and sometimes we don't understand it but we need to go with it. It always turns out in the end and you sit back and say Wow did you see what God did? It is awesome to see every time and I never get tired of it. Well I need to get this out tonight so you can be praying.

Thanks for praying
Rob

"Wanted you to hear before you watched the news"

This is Jackie, I received a phone call from Rob this morning. There was another earthquake in Haiti at 4:00 AM this morning. The entire team is safe. He said it was really scary. Everyone bolted out of bed and ran outside. There was no damage to the house they are living in or no damage to the new construction on the upstairs of the house. He said he imaged that buildings in PaP that were already falling down or close did fall. He said the epicenter was close to where they are. PLEASE keep praying for safely for the team.

This is what was on a "The Strait Times" website this morning.

"A MODERATE 4.7 earthquake hit the Haiti region early Monday, the US government reported.

The epicenter of the tremor, which occurred at 4.36am (0936 GMT, 5.36pm Singapore time), was located in the sea 35 kilometers west of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, according to the US Geological Survey.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage."

Hard work paying off

Hi Everyone,

I would like to thank you for all your prayers. Things are starting to turn around a little now. We are getting a lot accomplished on the house we were having so much troubled with getting electricity to the house that I finally had to tear it all apart and start over. There was so much junk in the breaker box it was unbelievable. There were #10 wires running into # 8 wires and back to #10. There were no wire nuts on anything. There were little jumper wires all over the place and we were probably only getting half the power that the generator was putting out into the house. I got it all cleaned up and now I have 240 running into the house instead of 120 and we aren't blowing breakers any more. After getting into it though the job just keep growing and growing so now I have to rewire the solar panel system cause we should be getting a lot more out of it. Will be doing that tomorrow.

The block work is coming along great. Four guys from Massachucets came down and we hired three guys from down here and they are moving! It should be ready for the rafters by the end of the week.







We went to Chistianville to church this morning and we ran into one of the eye doctors named Frank very nice man. He is a Haitian and he offered to translate the service for us so we sat in back and he did an awesome job. They had a great service. The people are so nice it isn't as dangerous as we expected but just the opposite. They are so grateful that we are down here to help them.

Mike Gunderson and the ladies went to town and had a day with about seventy kids on Saturday. They told a Bible story and played a bunch of games. The kids had a ball. I brought a bunch of cards that the kids at MGEFC made for the kids down here they handed out the cards and they really enjoyed them. They are off to do it again tomorrow with another bunch and I believe they are doing it on Tuesday also. I think the groups are supposed to be bigger this week. Please pray for them that the kids can just have a little time to be kids and to forget about the chaos in their lives.










Well we did some touring today to get the work crew out and to see some sights.
I have to close now it is almost 10:00 PM and we need to turn the generator off and I need to send this first.


Blessings,
Rob

In the Hands of God

Hi everyone
Another couple days have gone by and need to keep in touch. It feels like I have been here a life time. Yesterday our driver had to take a couple guys to the airport so I rode along. We already burned up a generator so I needed to pick up a new one and the batteries were shot on the solar electric and would not hold a charge so I needed to get some new batteries. Well I started at 7:15 am and got back at 6:00 pm. These are the roads I have to drive on and getting worse every day.

This is actually one of the paved roads which are one of the best. Most of them are gravel and there is so much dust from all the shattered blocks and concrete. The traffic is stop and go everywhere except early in the morning. No one is doing any road work that I have seen yet. In front of the UN station where they are handing out food it is just deep holes and gravel road. We have been getting rain at night the last 3 nights so now it’s just mud holes that are filled with water andit is a mess. I have seen trucks with the whole wheel ripped right off the vehicle. You can't see what is under the water. What a road grader could do in about four hours there.


At the UN food stations all the ladies are in a line that goes for at least a mile and all the men are on the other side off the road waiting. They have to wait for hours. I heard two days ago they had run out of food. How would you like to be the person in the front when they said they were out of food after standing there for hours in the hot sun? It is really hot and humid about 95 during the days and they say this is their winter. They say you don't even want to be here in August.

Anyways, it took us 4 hours to get to the airport and then the hardware store. I got the replacement batteries for the solar electric and paid too much. We needed to get some equipment and some hardware. I couldn't even get a power saw anywhere. I needed a 24' extension ladder and they wanted $560.00 so I guess we will do without until our container gets here. We are having a container shipped full of tools and equipment that arrives next Friday. We need a lot of prayers that we can get it without paying a lot of money. Everyone says if you don't have connections it will cost you a lot of money to get it out of the ship yard because they are really crooked and they can get the money. Well we only have one connection, God, and he can close eyes and that big container will slip right past them. So keep that in your prayers. I found a 2500 generator for $1250.00, unbelievable, since I think it may cost $450.00 in the States. I kept looking and ran across a 6700 diesel for $1800 so I had to buy it, way too much money but we needed it since the last generator that was smaller only lasted four days. Anyway I finally got home after that all day process. Today I got the batteries installed and the generator hooked up and it runs great. I am hoping we can use the generator very little now that we have new batteries. I will know by tomorrow.

Yesterday I was in the part of town up in the hills that was really hit hard. There were a lot of buildings that are now graves. They can't get the people out and have left them so I'm not sure what they are going to do but it was very sad. I went past a school that everyone in it was killed. A big apartment building where several died. And that big market where hundreds were killed and some were Americans. The car was very quiet as we drive down the street where there building after building had fallen down.


We are getting a lot done around the house. We are getting walls put up on the second floor. We are putting up 3 shower stalls in the back yard. Got 9 bunk beds built. I think we should be able to house over forty people here within the next three weeks. It is very exciting.



In the hands of God

Rob

The last 4 days of miracles in Haiti

Monday, February 15
We finally got hooked up to the internet. I will try to get you up dated on the last few days. It has been very busy and a bit over whelming to say the least. There was so much to do to the house just to move in. There was no water, no electricity, and what is here all needs to be repaired. Of course with no access to any communication I couldn't just get on the phone to my father in law to ask him how to wire something (he's my electrician-love you Wayne). But I managed to get it done. We have solar electric panels but the batteries are old. There is enough power to run some lights, fans and refrigerator during the day but won't last all night and won't even run the frig all night on eight 8 volt batteries. I hooked up a generator to the house to help charge the batteries and run the water pump. Luckily there are water tanks on the roof and it only it takes about a half hour to fill the tanks and then the water is gravity flow so I can do that once a day and don't have to run that big pump all day. We have a 4500 generator with only one 30 amp breaker trying to run a house of nine people with computers. We just had six people more arrive today so this is going to be interesting. We worked on the house Thursday and moved in on Friday with everyone cleaning and fixing on Saturday.

Sunday we went to church at Chistianville which is a big compound walking distance away. They have a church, high school, grade school, medical center and university. They also have a staff house and apartments. The church service is being held outside in the school yard. I couldn't understand anything but was exciting to see. There was an alter call at the end and two people came forward. Then they all went down to the river and had a baptism which I missed. I didn't know it was happening, just heard. They have a lot of damage but fared pretty well considering. We will be partnering with them to help with the repairs. They had an engineering company from the US evaluate the damage and are waiting for the report.

The brakes went out of the only vehicle we have Saturday. Well I understand the media played it down in the US but I saw the most exciting thing I had ever seen in my life. Everything was shut down for three days for prayer and fasting for the country of Haiti. This was ordered by the president of Haiti. The awesome thing is that there was not a thing open, not hardly a soul on the street except to walk to church and the churches were full and there was a church on every block. They were praying and worshiping and it was awesome. Even all the radio stations were praise and worship and praying. And I couldn't get our brakes fixed until today, and that was great! You know the whole time this was going on I began to think of our country and I don't think even the President has that much power to call our entire country to pray and fast and it made me very sad and scared for our country. I see the Lord all over this place and you can feel a real presence of God. He is at work down here like I have never seen. Please keep praying for this country they have a long, long road ahead of them but God is going to do miracles here. It is going to be cool to see.

Well I got a thousand concrete blocks, 50 bags of mortar, a truck load of sand and another of gravel delivered today (Monday). I have 6 fresh big guys to start tomorrow on the upstairs. So I better get off to bed. Been some pretty long days. 6:00- 11:00 or so nearly every day.






Thanks for your prayers
Rob


New Life in Haiti....

No Internet

This is Jackie. Rob has called a couple times in the last few days. They have no internet until approximately Tuesday. They have water, sewer and electricity (by generator). The first team arrives tomorrow (Monday). He will send a prayer letter out when they get internet again. Pray for him to be able to get materials tomorrow for the team to work on Tuesday.

Day 2 in Port-au-Prince

We made it safe and sound. It took a while with a snow delay in Detroit and had to wait for a plane in Cap Haitian because the pilot had to wait two hours for fuel. With three hours of sleep we arrived in Port-au-Prince around 2:30 - 3:00 PM on Wednesday the 10th.

I got to sit in the cockpit in the Bimini flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Cap Haitian, very cool. A little scary on the landing I have to admit but very cool. As we flew over the mountains to Port-au-Prince we could see how they had stripped the land of all the mahogany trees. The Island used to be 50% mahogany trees now it is 1%. Once over the mountain and over PaP you could smell the burning of brush and garbage. Then as we came down we began to see all the makeshift tents. They are everywhere some have nice Colman tents that have been handed out or some shelter boxes they call them, but very very few. Most have just sheets if they are lucky maybe a tarp or plastic. It poured down rain last night, what a mud hole. These roads are the worst I’ve ever seen. There like driving in the mountains on four wheeler trails, very hard to get around.

We stayed at a hotel last night and tonight-9 of us in a 2 bedroom. We have very spotty internet. We seem to have it after 9:00 pm. We will be moving out to the house tomorrow but have no internet out there. The system we brought down doesn’t work in Haiti but we found a missionary who also does dishes that said he would give us a good deal on one that works down here. We got the water working today that was an Amen. The sewer is Ok to, because it is a septic system and the pipes are hardly under the surface of the ground, another Amen. We have to get a stove hooked up and I am going to have to run new lines. Tomorrow we are going to get blocks and mortar lined up to start building the second floor on the house next week when a team arrives. Things are accessible but finding them is interesting and then everything is high dollar.

UNICEF ran out of the shelter boxes that I thought we were going to get. I think we are going to need to build something for these people. Everyone is really worried about the rains and that rain last night soaked a lot of people. There were riots down by the UN tents this morning because of the rain. I think they feel that the UN is holding out on them because some got tents and most don’t. Not sure, just the way the Haitians talk.

Pray for someone in the government to come up with some kind of plan to get these people in homes (all of them).

I am very tired will talk later.
Blessings,
Rob

The day Rob left for Haiti

Dear Prayer Partners

Thank you so much for the over whelming support I have received. It is just Gods confirmation that this is truly what he wants me to do.

We leave today at 3:15 pm for Ft Lauderdale and stay the night then we flight out to Cap Haitian at 7:00 am. We catch a plane from there into Port-au Prince. I don't have a time that we will arrive cause missionary flights are just flying back and forth and we hop on one. When we arrive we will not have any communication for a couple of days or so. We do have a house we have rented, it needs a lot of work which we will do for the rent. It's the picture above. It’s a fixer upper they say I will be living in the second floor HA! HA! The first floor is Ok needs a little work. It has solar electric. We are getting a generator to run the well. We have a guy from Texas coming with us who is bringing a satellite system, he thought it would take a couple days. Lots of unknowns whether we have water or sewer. Please keep all this in your prayers. As we are not there to fix up our house we will be camping out here and our priority is the people in Haiti. We must get temporary housing up for the people as the rainy season is fast approaching. We need to build relationship with the ministries that already exist and help build them and multiply them.

As I write this my first grandson was born at 7 lb 12 oz boy with lots of hair. Sometimes we have to put our life on hold and in some cases miss things that are important to us, to fulfill what is more important, Gods work. This Sat. is my wife's fiftieth birthday and then there is Valentines' day.

It is a privilege to do Gods work.

Please keep us in your prayers daily in the weeks to come.

Rob