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*This blog was written April 21*

Holy frick it was hot out today. I was painting near the roof at Pastor Rodrigue’s house and the sun was just torturing me. My deodorant fought a losing battle with the heat (side note-comments like that may be why I’m single….). Needless to say, it was not pleasant. But it has to be done. They don’t exactly get “mild and in the upper 60’s” in Haiti. It comes with the territory. As was mentioned in my previous post, I have been spending the last few nights at Girard’s house. It’s fairly comfortable. He asked if there was anything he could do to make it more peasant for me. I suggested internet. He laughed. Since that isn’t likely to happen, I have been using my time wisely. That’s right, re-watching the extended versions of The Lord of the Rings. Even in Haiti, I’m a massive geek. (Reason #2 why I’m single? Maybe.)

I have definitely been missing my family and friends lately, but God has been doing some awesome work in me. I just hope I am blessing the ministry. I have been painting, and will do the plumbing work when that is done. By the time I leave at the end of June, I want Rodrigue to be able to live in his house. We’ve been working on this a long time. It needs to be done. Forward Edge, who had a team here a couple of weeks ago, has another team here. They get the record for shortest time in Haiti. They got in yesterday and leave tomorrow. Apparently, it’s a bunch of pastors who was brought here to catch the vision. I tagged along when they went to the new land to pray for it today. I have high hopes for the work Pastor wants to do for that land and praying continuously can’t hurt. Some might even say it’s Biblical. Or something. (Sarcasm….reason #3…you know, these posts sometimes take on a life of their own. I just start typing and whatever comes out, comes out….I really am not looking for a pity party…I’m mainly amusing myself.)

Anyway, I am going to get up early to paint before it gets too hot tomorrow. Gonna start around 6 AM. I am not overly fond of 6 AM, but seeing as i’ve been waking around 4 or 4:30 since coming to Girard’s I might as well be productive. Though I will say my prayer life has improved. “4:30?!? Dear God, PLEASE let me go back to sleep. Amen.” Goodnight friends!

Pop Quiz

Ok, everyone. Pop quiz. What’s the difference between a normal outhouse and a nice one? Trick question. The answer is pretty much nothing. I realized this yesterday when I was using one. In a span of about 5 seconds, I thought “Wow, this is a nice outhouse!” and immediately followed with, “but I’m still doing my business on a concrete perch and there are chickens outside.” Gotta love mission trips.

So I know I haven’t posted for a few days. I am writing this on April 20 in the afternoon. The internet was down my last few days at the hotel. Like completely down, not just slow like the first couple weeks. I think the hamster that ran it had died and they hadn’t found a replacement rodent yet. You might notice the date on the post is NOT April 20, but (insert date here), as I am no longer staying at the hotel, but am bunking across the street from the church at Girard’s house. Girard drives one of the tap-taps (those of you who know Joy O’Keefe can ask her about her song about him, sung to the tune of “Tomorrow,” from Annie). I am writing this on my laptop and will simply copy and paste into WordPress/Facebook as soon as I get to be online. This way I don’t have to trust my memory. Can I get a witness from the congregation?

So team 4 was a rousing success. Finished the bunk beds. I took Darren and Videographer Brian on a tour of the house so we could talk about what Conduit is doing. Brian even videoed me talking about it. I’d like to say the camera loves me, but we all know better. However, at least what we were discussing was right up my alley, so I at least sounded like I knew what I was talking about.

Started painting the outside of the church last week. I will be finishing this project next week. It’s a long process. I had assistants last week. While I was climbing ladders, Mandy and Sharon from the team were filling rollers and brushes for me. Made it work a lot better. Speaking of those two girls, I had a fantastic time getting to know them. Sharon and I have have extremely similar tastes in music. They made the time go very fast. One of the fun parts about these trips are all the people who have joined us who aren’t members of New River or Conduit Churches. God is doing mighty things bringing all of us together.

As you might have gathered, team 4 has, in fact, left. And I am not at the hotel. This is when the “real mission trip” starts for me, I think. I am not surrounded by “blanc” people, just people from the church. I am working diligently on learning Creole. I no longer get a shower, just a bucket and a cup. And as previously mentioned, no toilet. And electricity is on from 6 PM to midnight. But God is good. I still have it better than a lot of Haitians. Lastly, I want to share with you something I have done on every single trip to Port Au Prince. When I get to the top of the mountain, I put on U2’s “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” album. There is nothing like looking down at God’s Creation while listening to “Beautiful Day.” The bridge gets me every time:

See the world in green and blue

See China right in front of you

See the canyons broken by cloud

See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out

See the Bedouin fires by night

See the oil fields at first light

See the bird with the leaf in her mouth

After the flood all the colors came out

It was a beautiful day

I love this description of what God does. Everywhere we look, it’s a beautiful day, as long as we know where to look!

Hello everybody! This week has been going great! This week I have been doing what I really felt called to do. I helped cut wood for bunk beds and today (Thursday) I started painting Pastor Rodrigue’s house. It’s funny, because I normally do not like painting, but I found myself enjoying it. God has really been on me to just serve, and I am taking joy in doing exactly that. I get to paint again tomorrow, and couldn’t be more excited. I have helpers, too. We have some people painting down low, and I am on a ladder. Sharon and Mandy on this team have been great help while painting. They get paint on my brushes and roller so I can just keep going. Sharon refers to me as Dr Ben and they are like my nurses. It’s fun. Makes the day go by faster.

This week, I am rooming with Darren. Should be rooming with David Whetstone, too, but he has yet to sleep at the hotel. He spent a couple weeks down here immediately after the quake and has been out visiting people and just staying there. I am kinda ok with it, as it gives me more room. Speaking of rooms, this week I have had hot showers! Have not had them previously. I feel almost spoiled. Am very thankful to God for them. Also, I will definitely need to stay here starting next week. The hotel has made a generous offer on room rates for me. Please consider donating to my trip to help offset those additional costs. God, as well as all of you, has been so faithful in providing the money I’ve needed for this trip so far, and I see no reason why He won’t continue. There are no more teams after this Sunday until June 12, so I will be here solo until then. Pastor Rodrigue is going to help me with my Creole and I with his English, so between that and work, I should stay plenty busy.

Today, I also got to play catch with a 2 year old named Felix. We played for about 30 minutes. What made that amazing, was he was throwing strikes from about 25 feet, and doing it left-handed! I was way impressed. Hopefully he can do something with that talent. The opportunities are hard in Haiti. I will definintely pray for him

I also have an update on my grandpa. He can’t have the heart surgery yet, because his teeth are so bad. Most infections occur via the mouth, and his teeth are so bad, the risk of infection goes up exponentially. So the surgeon has ordered his teeth removed before they can fix his heart. It will be minimum of three weeks before they can do heart surgery, so please continue to pray.

Ok, I am off to sleep. Goodnight, everyone!

So it’s 7:11 in the morning as I am writing this.  If there’s one thing I definitely don’t care for in Haiti, it’s the propensity to wake up way early.  Like in the 5:45-6:00 range.  As my parents can attest, I am most assuredly NOT a morning person.  But since I’m up, I thought I would blog for you. Today I get to take Team 3 to the airport and pick up Team 4.  I return one of my favorite people, Christen Cole (and my roommate for the past few weeks, David Casey, and Michelle Anderson, who has a wicked sense of humor.  I loved it!) and pick up Darren Tyler, the pastor at Conduit, who has been nothing short of an older brother to me these last 6 years.  So excited to have him down here.

Team 3 got a lot accomplished.  We visited the homes of our sponsored children, built bunk beds (well, only one is completely done…The others are cut and ready to be assembled), installed a water purification system so the church has fresh drinking water and they don’t have to buy it, and had two days of a health clinic, all in a 5 day trip.  WHEW!!  I am tired just from writing that.  Especially thinking about the health clinic.  206 people came through between Saturday and Monday.  I got to play crowd control and photographer.  The exciting thing is the nurses that were here taught some local women at the church to do some basic diagnosing so they can help church members out after we’ve left.  That’s the most important thing.  The Haitians have been given so much stuff that a lot of them don’t have any desire to learn to do anything for themselves.  But the only way to change the country permanently is to get them self-sufficient.  It’s going to be a long process, but it can be done.

Would like to take a moment as I sign off and wish my mom a very happy birthday.  I love you and miss you!

Good morning, dear readers.  I trust you are well.  Yesterday was an absolutely incredible day.  I will get to that in a moment, but do want to confirm that Team 2 is home and Team 3 is safe and sound in Jacmel.  Excited for this team.  Looking forward to accomplishing a lot.  Ok, so yesterday.  Got up, went to the church.  We fixed a bunch of wobbly tables.  We had built some but needed some additional lumber to secure them.  Got the wood, fixed the tables.  We also went over to the house we’ve been building to see what we could do.  The bunk beds that were scheduled to be built will still be built.  They will just be stored until they can be moved in (hoping that we don’t have to take them apart later on to move them).  we have several people that know how to tile here.  However, the way they do it is they don’t start with a smooth surface and then lay tile in grout.  They pour a bunch of cement and then lay tile in the cement.  We recommended that pastor just pay them to do it, because he’d have to pay them to smooth the floor for us first, and then buy more material to get the tile to stick.  That would end up costing him almost as much as paying them to tile it their way.

We had an opportunity to play with the kids off-and-on yesterday.  I absolutely love getting to do that.  Jemica, the little girl I sponsor, is a diva in the making.  She constantly makes me laugh.  After all of that yesterday, and helping with the feeding program, we came back to the hotel.  Some people went back to church last night to help teach some worship stuff, but I ended with a free night.  Managed to score a cheeseburger!  So incredibly stoked!  It wasn’t anywhere close to the best burger I’ve ever had, but when you’re craving one, it was great.  Shared a little of my burger and most of my fries with Audrey, who was also here at the hotel.

What made yesterday the most special, though, was a gift from Christen Cole, who is on this team.  She works with the kids at Brentwood UMC in Brentwood, TN.  She was telling her First Graders about Haiti and told them I was going to be here for 3 Months.  They made cards for me.  I was so touched!

Later last night, I had a chance to talk with my mom on the phone.  Definitely miss my parents.  She told me my grandpa has to go in for heart valve replacement surgery next Friday, so if you all could pray for that, I’d be appreciated.

Also, definitely not going to be able to stay at the house in May (at least not until later in the month) so I will need to be in the hotel.  Please prayerfully consider continuing to support my time here.  Thanks, and God bless!