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| Mommy and Claudsie.......... |
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| Donny and Grandpa setting up the new receiver for Grandpa's Internet. |
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| Donavon Hostetler (aka "Donny" to everyone except his mother...:) is living with us for a few months helping here at the mission. He's helping Michael with the house rebuild program, making trips to Ti Guave for supplies, and putting in a hand wherever we need one down here. Not sure what we'd do without you Donny!!! (Excuse me Eunice... "Donavon!!!") |
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| Shana with a little visiting friend.... Lizards actually rank pretty high on the "most appreciated vistor" list around here..... When you consider some of the OTHER options, that's not entirely surprising. :) |
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| A new goat for Alex!!! This one should be having babies here pretty soon. (No kidding!) |
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| A new stove for the happy housewife!!! The old stove was still putting out a lot of heat, the problem was that most of it was apparently being absorbed by the wooden cabinets around it, which would become too hot to touch.... Much better now..... |
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| Two weeks ago we went out to Labiche to visit Pastor Dineah and his family. We picked up our friend Dylo (Dineah's son) in Ti Guave to help guide us the three hour drive back the rugged trail. Dylo and I.... |
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| Alex, with the two youngest boys in the family. Alex had a lot of fun with them. |
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| Pastor Dineah would be a lot more interesting if he could just have a sense of humor.... :) |
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| They have a lovely family, it was refreshing to spend a weekend with them. Even if a front wheel nut fell off the truck on the way home Sunday night leaving us sitting along the trail waiting for Darv Seibel to graciously come rescue us. Darv and I spent Mon in Port parts shopping, then on Tuesday we fixed the rig and headed up the trail to home........ |
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| We picked up Johnny and Donny at the airport, and then got this steel package for Les Reinford's new shop....... Yes it's the same shop you'll see in the "Hurricane" section......... |
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| It was a pretty good load heading up the trail that night, the front end bounced off the ground several times as we crawled over boulders........ |
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| ...And here are the pilot and copilot!!!! |
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| This man had a tree fall on him, and was in fairly serious condition. The only really obvious problem was a cut through his lip, but he apparently had no movement in his lower body and left arm. So we knew he had to go out, the problem is, how do you transport a potentially paralyzed person over these rough trails without guarantying that they are paralyzed by the time you get there??? |
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| So we made a makeshift back board, strapped him to the board and the board to the bed of the Ranger, and headed out on prayer, (and very careful driving!!!) We got him down safely enough, and hopefully they were able to help him.... Haven't heard..... |
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| Hurricane Tomas!!!! On the Friday of the cyclone we headed out to check out last night's damages.... |
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| Yes, that used to be the road......! |
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| I'm standing on the road, on the other side of a fast-moving river that didn't exist yesterday.... |
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| Jonathan, playing pitch and catch with limo's... A tropical fruit.... |
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| Another road shot.... |
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| Uh-oh, spent too much time out in the hurricane there Johnny!!!!! Jonathan Widowski is a good friend of Steve's who spent a month down here in Oct- Nov, and was lucky to be here over the hurricane. He was also in Haiti during the Jan. 2010 earthquake, so he's certainly experienced the wild side of life here..... |
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| Washout on the trail to Ti Guave....... David Ringler from New York came to operate the dozer we own and keep at Madam Terry's, halfway out the trail to Ti Guave. He had to push the mountainside over to help fill in the gully created by the cyclone. |
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| Les Reinford's shop up in Terre Rouge. You have to respect the power of that wind.... |
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| This was a bit of an "oops" situation....... Some of us went over to Labiche, which is about a 3 hour drive with 4-wheelers over rough trails. On the way we encountered this river, which as you can tell from the people out in it, is fairly deep. |
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| ....And it proved a little TOO deep for our machines! The Ranger just died from the plugs fouling, and the Yamaha plowed right on through. But unfortunately the air intake on the Gator is under the passenger seat, and the riders seats got wet.... So that gives you some idea how high the water came, which proved too high for the Gator. It got water in the engine and froze up.... :( Beautiful scenery around though. |
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| A tap-tap charging through.... You really wouldn't believe the kinds of roads these big trucks go down every day here. |
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| "Well we made it again....." |
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| No, I WASN'T the one driving the gator when it died, in fact I was the rescuer this time... I brought the dump truck out and we loaded up and headed out with 'er.... |
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| Around 3:30 this afternoon, Fre Daniel came to me and told about a poor blind widow whose already plastic-wrapped roof had disintegrated in this last storm, exposing her to the elements. So we packed up some tarp and supplies, and headed out... |
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| On the trail, looking back into the valley where the mission is located... |
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| One of the nicer houses you will see back here... |
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| Typical of many trails around our area, twisting and winding- and steep! Oops, fre Daniel is growing impatient with all my photographic attempts, I'd best stow it till we reach the widow's house... |
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| We've arrived!!! The concrete structure to the left is an above ground tomb. Much better built than the house... |
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| It's hard to see from this angle, but the plastic on the roof is frayed and worn out in many places, allowing the occupants no choice but to get wet. And they existed through the past 3 days like that??? I can't even imagine... We've had a TON of rain1 |
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| The lady in the rear- wearing white- is our widow. In the foreground is her daughter, and a small grandchild. Notice their kitchen in the back... |
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| They are certainly very poor, even by local standards. There is next to nothing in their house. This is the main bed. |
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| Installing several new boards prior to the plastic. |
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| A relative of our widow. |
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| Work in progress... |
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| Finished!!! After dark, and with an hour hike home. But the beauty of the night and the mountains is enough reward for the effort, not to mention the many thanks of the poor widow and her family, (OR the heavy sack full of limo's I have/ get to carry home...:) |
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| Everyone knows that, after you're finished working on an ATV, you need to test it out and make sure it's running ok... |
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| ...And even if that means driving at high speeds through mud and water on a rainy evening- hey someone has to do it! Me and dad can make the sacrifice...:) |
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| It's amazing how green Haiti can be; three days of rain probably doesn't hurt anything... Looking in the general direction of the church, from the new depot... |
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| Looking back over the mission compound to the mountain behind. The Horner's house is in the foreground, note the goat on the porch...:) Just a peak of our house is visible beyond... |
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| This rainy weather has been going on for 3 or 4 days, the most rain we've seen since we've been here. The river has been flowing steadily... |
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| Rainy weather in Aleg... Mountains are in the fog, notice the river flowing in the ordinarily dry river bed below the mission. |
