The Team has arrived

This morning we continued getting things ready for the team for the start of work tomorrow.  At 6am I texted Don to see if the Middletown to Reagan team made it to the airport OK.  He texted back saying they were just through Security. 
After breakfast I shot a few photos of the Generator Room wall where the Service Equipment will be mounted.

It will look better after soe panels are hanging from it.  I also got a shot of trusses that were ready to go on for the roof of the building.  Steph and Deb were the painters and their work clothing showed it.

Not long after this Jay and Mark started putting them into place.

Gene continued working on the pole locations and at 11am Gary hitched a ride to CPR-3 to replace the two broken solar panels.  The driver, Claudie, was on his way to Port au Prince for the rest of our team.  Also while there I helped in some guidance and partial installation for a new circuiit for Jordan's air conditioning unit.  Before Claudie andthe team returned to pick me up we visited the Moringa farm.  This is very interesting in that CPR-3 has about 250,000 Moringa plants and they harvest 1/3 of these every two weeks.

Well, Praise the Lord, all of our team is now at the YWAM base in Saint Marc and we are getting ready for another hot night of sleep under the mosquito nets.  Thank you for your prayers for this team that hails from Oklahoma, South Dakota, New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania.  We will show some team photos as we begin tomorrow.  Keep checking in.

More getting ready

Today Wayne and Gene dug about nine holes for poles and anchors.  This went pretty well and tomorrow Gene hopes to stage poles at these locations so that on Saturday when the main team begins work they will be able to hit the ground running.

The team actually arrives tomorrow afternoon and evening.  Two teams are coming to YWAM tomorrow, one of which is our I-TEC team.  I, Gary, will ride along as far as CPR-3 and will stop over there to replace two solar panels that were damaged earlier this year.I will then be picked up when the team arriving in the afternoon is on their way to Saint Marc.  We are praying for their safe arrival and on-time flights.  Most of the team will be transported to Reagan National in the wee hours again for an 8:30 am flight to Fort Lauderdale and then on to Port au Prince.
Today the plywood was also mounted onto the wall where the electrical equipment will get mounted in the generator room.  I also updated the CAD drawing that was created eight months ago to reflect the actual dimensions of the building and generators.  I also created a drawing that shows the accurate location of the electrical apparatus that will be installed.

EDH, the National Power Company of Haiti wanted to charge YWAM $3500 for a 400-amp watthour meter that would cost less than $200 in the US.  It is all about the money and Americans have plenty so why not tap into that?  Wayne went to their office and met with them and in the end they agreed to do this for $800.  What they wanted was to have a few months of electric billing paid ahead.  However, in the past week there has been a total of about 15 minutes of power supplied by EDH, and in the past three weeks there has been no more than six hours total of electric.  In the States we scream when our power is OFF for 15 minutes and it is a catastrophe when it is off for six hours.  This is why we are here.

Steph and Deb spent the day today painting the trusses that will go onto the generator room.  Jay assured me that the roof will be on by end of the day Friday or by Saturday for sure.

I took no photos today but plan to take many tomorrow and there will be many posted as we begin this project.  I will turn this blog over to others from time to time and you will get a perspective that may not be from a tradesman's point of view.  But we are anxiously waiting for out team to be complete and we are looking forward to seeing what might be accomplished here.  Pray for Haiti.

Scoping things out

This morning we woke up to the warmth of Haiti.  Actually it really got hot.  The rain we traveled through from Port au Prince to here did not seem to follow us completely to Saint Marc.  As I write this, however, the sky is very dark and lightning is all around.  Perhaps it will cool off.

We spent today looking through the materials we had sent down here months ago to see if there was anyuthing missing or needed.  I made a few calls for materials that will be delivered to Pennsylvania tomorrow so that it can be brought here on Friday when the main team arrives.

This is the main pile of conduit that we will be working with.

The generators are in place in the generator building.

Our project started out to hook up the two generators above, but now we will be working with a third generator as well, all within the same building. 

There is no roof on this building yet, but the trusses are being fabricated and we expect to have a roof over our heads by Monday.

There was a slight misunderstanding of the floor design in the generator building.  The floor will be cut out to accommodate our electrical service equipment.

 These wire spools are part of the materials that will disappear in the next week and reappear on top of poles throughout the campus.

These poles will all be replaced by new poles.

Gene spent time measuring and marking where the new poles will be located.

In a few minutes we will be joining the YWAM staff at their weekly church service.  The hospitality here has been wonderful and here is a link to a video that the staff here created in anticipation of this week of work ahead of all of us.  http://www.ywamhaiti.org/news/most-recent-video-photos/  (Scroll down to the video titled "Let It Blow- A Parody of Frozen"  You will be amused and encouraged with why we are here for this project. The anticipation here is very high.  Please pray for a safe work project and for all of the team to be able to arrive with no real delays.  And keep checking back as we will post more photos of our team in action.

Finally in Saint Marc

After sitting on the tarmac at Reagan this morning for no apparent reason for over 1/2 hour, we got into Miami with only about 15 minutes to spare before loading the plane for Haiti.  Once the plane was loaded, we sat again.  This time maintenance had to replace a seat cushion before we could push back.  Once that happened we were in the air to Port au Prince. 

At Port au Prince the foreign passport holders were all funneled through one Immigration desk, so the trip through Immigration lasted over an hour, probably an hour and a half.  In addition to that we were surprised to find that about a month ago Haiti began imposing a $10 Tourism Fee on everyone going through Immigration.  This is new, so be aware of it from now on.

Anyway, once we were through Customs and Immigration we were met by our hosts from YWAM.  Our luggage heading with us to Saint Marc was in an open back pickup truck.  Well, it rained.  Need I say more?
we stopped in at CPR-3 to look at an air conditioning installation for Jordan, and to look at what will be needed to replace the damaged solar panels on the roof.  We also looked at fault codes on the generator.  Once we left there we arrived safely at YWAM, Saint Marc.  Wayne took us through orientation and we ate some food before heading for bed.  Our goal in the next few days is to assess what materials we have available to us and what needs to be done, so that we can stage materials at the right locations to mae the work run smoothly.

We are thankful to the Lord for safe travel today as well as our need to be patient and follow His leading in His time.  In spite of it all, there was a spectacular light show in the heavens as well as a rainbow.  God is going to do some marvelous things in the days ahead. 

Reagan National

After a short night of sleep, more or less, we met at the new Friends In Action project site near Middletown, PA, to be driven to Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington.  Pastor Mark from Word of Life Chapel drove us to the airport in the church van.  With bags stuffed to the limit, we checked in and are now awaiting our flight to Miami.  I have been trying to tweak the background of the blog but have not had success yet.  You will know when I do get it.  I had two Dunkin Donuts and a cup of coffee for breakfast and the others had similar meals.  This initial team consists of Gary, Gene, Steph, and Deb. On Friday we will be joined by the other nine team members.  It is just now getting light and this is a very busy airport.

Getting Ready

This is packing-up day for the upcoming trip to Saint Marc, Haiti.  We will be meeting at 3am tomorrow for our drive to Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington DC.  Four of us will be going.  When we get to Reagan I will post a photo of the starting team for this project, as well as some general information about the project itself.  We will be joined by the rest of the team on Friday.
We will appreciate your prayers for these next three weeks.