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