More Family Pics...

Mommy and Claudsie..........



Donny and Grandpa setting up the new receiver for Grandpa's Internet.



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!!!")

Misc family shots

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. :)

A new goat for Alex!!! This one should be having babies here pretty soon. (No kidding!)

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.....




 

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....

Alex, with the two youngest boys in the family. Alex had a lot of fun with them.

Pastor Dineah would be a lot more interesting if he could just have a sense of humor.... :)

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........



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.........



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........

...And here are the pilot and copilot!!!!

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???

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.....




Hurricane Tomas!!!!
On the Friday of the cyclone we headed out to check out last night's damages....

 

Yes, that used to be the road......!

I'm standing on the road, on the other side of a fast-moving river that didn't exist yesterday....

Jonathan, playing pitch and catch with limo's... A tropical fruit....

Another road shot....

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.....

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.

Les Reinford's shop up in Terre Rouge. You have to respect the power of that wind....

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.

....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.

A tap-tap charging through.... You really wouldn't believe the kinds of roads
these big trucks go down every day here.

"Well we made it again....."



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....