Flowers...

On a hike recently, I shot some pictures of flowers along the path. Hope you enjoy them like I did...

Bonus picture!!! Looking down into the Allegre valley...
The group of buildings to the right includes the church and school.
The mission is almost directly ahead... Can you see the road below,
with a pickup on it? Where that disappears it also curves sharply to
the left... After a few hundred feet the mission drive branches
off to the right.

Bonus #2! :-)
Men working in a yam garden...

...And now- for the REST of the story...

I said we were surprised when we arrived. Actually we were shocked and horrified. As Sujet later commented, "Nou ginyen kochon ak kay pi bon pase kay sa!"

This is the progress of the new house. Needs walls, floor, doors...

With characteristic Haitian courtesy they brought chairs for their
visitors- in this case borrowing the chairs from the neighbor. They
didn't have any chairs of their own.

It is so humbling to look at the conditions in which this poor widow
survives... Then turn around and eat from her small store of food.
But it would be unforgivably rude not to, so we ate...

Alex and his sweat rag...

Going in to the half-existent, crazy structure this lady- Mde. Beria-
calls home currently...



Bed.
Yeah, you read right.
The widow's bed.
The spot of dirt between the chicken, and her bare feet.
Damp, cold- unfathomable smell.
Walls tumbling around her.
Her home.
Bed.



The roof above her bed. Yes, water runs in every time it rains- even a light
rain. Can you imagine what it was like in this hut last week??? When
the after-effects of Hurricane Irene dumped 7-8 inches of rain on us?
Soaked day and night for two days straight???
No.
You CAN'T imagine, face it.

Talk about a hopeful view for this poor lady! Looking out through the old
doorway, towards the new house-in-progress!!! Wow!!!! Think she
can hardly wait?? She cried as we left. "God has heard me!!"

Her.
She doesn't know how old she is. Lost track of the years. Over 70 though...

Some idea/perspective on the distances and mountains here.
Here is the opposite mountainside, at about a 48x zoom...
Notice the steep zig-zag path... That leads up to scores
of houses called home by local residents...

...And at about 12x...
Still see the path? Barely?
Goes a l-ooooooong way up doesn't it?
Picture yourself heading up it- with a 5 gallon pail of water on your head.
Dozens of ladies do- several times a day...

...And without zoom...

What Sujet said was, in effect, "We have pigs that have better houses than this!!!"

He was right of course. And the new house we're erecting for this widow, will cost less than $700 US.

Are there more like her? You bet. Right here in our zone? Oh yeah. Will we be able to build them a house too?? Nope.
Do you know of anyone who would like to help with something like this? Please forward this to them. Anyone can visit the GTH mission blog for more info on what we're doing here. And the clinic blog as well- notice both address's above in the welcome message of this blog.

And don't forget to pray for the poor and suffering- here and around the world.

Hiking...

Sometimes things that we take for granted, things that happen often in our lives, are interesting to others simply because those very things are quite different from their everyday experiences. When coupled with an interest in the people whose lives are represented by these experiences, we find pleasure in perusing things that, to the actors on the stage of life from whence these scenes originate, are dull and ordinary; or at least, as we mentioned before, taken for granted.

Come along on a hike with pastor Sujet, Alex, and I in the mountains here in Allegre. We're going to see a widow lady whose house is being rebuilt after earthquake damage last year. It has been shelved for several months, due to staff being occupied with the cholera epidemic. And Michael Horner, who oversaw this project, is no longer down here.

What we found, surprised us...

On the way... I never cease to marvel at the beauty of this country...

There is so much potential in such a fruitful country...

There was a meeting going on up at the church, regarding the upcoming
school year. It will begin the first of October...

The bean crop- one of the staples of agriculture here- is coming on
beautifully! The plants are blossoming now....

Definitely the cutest hiker in the bunch.. :-) He's getting so strong it
amazes us sometimes, hiking up the mountains tirelessly...

The mountainside...

All the green foliage of the bean plants adds greatly to the
beauty of the landscape... Here is a glimpse up close...

Heading up the winding trail to reach the top of the ridge at the right
of the picture...



Looking back the trail we just passed... Hard to even see a trail, the
tropical vegetation closes in behind...



Anybody know what that is? Looks like some kind of cactus
growing on the limb of this tree, I'm not sure what it is.

Well, we're almost at the house. Don't want to overload you with too many pictures and info at once. More tomorrow...?

Splat Frogs...

Alex has a great fascination for "splat frogs", who possess the unique
ability to run up the side of houses. Occasionally, especially when
alarmed by the activities of overly energetic young gentlemen,
they will leap off said house walls and make a very satisfying "splat"
as they encounter the concrete. Hence their name, according
to Alex. (I'm sure in Latin it's more along the lines of El
Splaticus Froggus Hommus.) Right now he has a container
of splat frog eggs hatching, in order to preserve the joy of
watching splatters for future generations.

Balancing Act

Poor innocent Jared. All he was doing was trying to
mind his own business and paint the house, when
a crowd of ruffians grabbed his ladder and took
him for a ride. (Assuming two can be considered
a crowd, and a mission administrator a ruffian.
No comments, please.)



He said to let him down. He forgot to specify
which direction.



Neireis's House Project...

This is Neireis's house. Some generous folks in the States gave money
to have it rebuilt. So we're getting ready to begin that process. You
can't see really well here, but all the walls fell out during last years
earthquake. So we'll be putting in new stone/concrete walls, and
putting on a new roof. All this to the tune of about $600, U.S. price.
And there's a lot more houses like this around here. It's not
pleasant to think about what it would be like to go through
a heavy rainstorm in a house like this- let alone a cyclone or
hurricane!!!

The family has been sleeping in this tent for over a year. It's not exactly
waterproof anymore.

Their Kitchen.... Called a "cuisine" in Creole/ French.

...And, we're back!!!!!

The Typical American Tourist.
Hi everyone, sorry things have been so quiet on the "Southern Front"
lately. We were in the states from the beginning of May till around the
first of June- I'll throw a few vacation pics on later- and came back to
get a Cholera Treatment Center going here in Allegre at the mission.
The cholera epidemic that has been plaguing Haiti for 10 months finally
reached our remote zone in the end of May, but thankfully it has
slowed down again and possibly we have seen the worst of it. For
more info on this, please visit our clinic blog, which will have a
link to the cholera info. haiticliniclife.blogspot.com
ANYHOW, here's a pic of Alex with one of his two goaties.
He's quite fond of them, and enjoys feeding and watering
them daily.

Here's Wilbur, the daddy pig.

The litter of seven little piggies; most of them are sold already but I believe
Alex still has one little feller down there. He was pretty sad to see
 the others go, but he took it in stride.

And momma pig- Madame Wilbur, naturally... :-)

Waterfalls....

On March 30th, several of the guys that were down on a team along
with Polveret (left) and Vixen (center) and myself (invisible), went on
a hike to "the waterfalls", about an hour and a half away. It's a real
killer of a climb down in and back out, but it's worth
it to see the lovely falls...

This bottom part falls about 60 or 70 feet into a nice
little pool; quite an impressive little drop. This being
the end of the dry season, the water level is fairly
low. When we get into the rainy season, there will
be a significant increase in the water flow...

There are some really neat rock formations and growths
in various small caves around the area...

Aaahhhh, a refreshing spot to swim!!! Several of us took a dip in the
pool at the base of the falls- wow was the water ever cold!!! I didn't
realize before that there were any melting ice fields in Haiti!! :)
I'm not sure where the water comes from, but I would imagine there
is a spring not too far above the falls.....

Petting Zoo...

Alex helping to carry gravel up from the riverbed for a project around
the mission here. He loves to help out when people are working
wherever he can... (shhh- don't tell him it's work and you're
not supposed to like it; where ignorance is bliss...)

One of the little neighbor boys knocked this poor
birdy out of a tree with a rock. ?! . Yeah- they're
that good at throwing down here, they
have lots of time to practice- on each other
occasionally... :(

After reprimanding the scoundrels who perpetrated
this act of malice, my wife took a few pics with the
little blondy, who was quite pleased with the catch
and (I think) can hardly wait to grow up so he can
knock a bird out of a tree... :) Actually he felt sorry
for the little critter, it was still alive... The nationals
said it's some kind of hummingbird... Maybe one
of you knows what it is...? Drop us a comment...

Quartets and lollipops...

Steve and a couple friends enjoying a few minutes of singing...

Left to right; Donny, Stevie, Johnny, and Mikey. Or if you prefer;
Donavon Hostetler, Steve, Jonathan Newswanger, and Michael Martin.

Claudsie's first lollipop!!!! Just a few shots, his
expressions are pretty cute...
"Hmm, this ok...."

"Why didn't anyone tell me about these before???"

"Oh yeah, yummy!!!!!"