God's Good Work!

We are continuing our work on various fix-up/construction projects around the existing property and we are beginning to start on the newly leased temporary orphanage.

Looks like I'll be mainly doing alot of shelving, some tile work, a large island type of cabinet for the staff to prepare the large meals on and maybe where they could also sit at and eat their(staff's) meals. It seems we're always busy with alot of things--there is so much that really needs attention. But I don't know if I can list them all.

Eric and James have been working quite a bit on redoing the severely scrambled up wiring in the medical clinic and the school office. They have got it all finished there, but are still going to go over the system in the classrooms also.

(The classrooms are packed  and the kids are so focused on their work. You can hear them going thru verbal practices in unison all of the time and it sounds almost joyful! I don't remember that kind of attitude too much in my school years!!  Notice that there is just some tack boards seperating the classrooms. They have a total student pop. of about 300 children. People can sponsor a child's tuition.)

They have also finished relocating the water tanks and the pump, it's wiring and the pvc piping. This needed to be totally reconfigured because of the future demo of the orphanage building.

They also built a breadfruit drying rack. This was done because they have started a program in conjunction with the 'Trees That Feed' ministry. They already are growing a large amount of breadfruit saplings on the roof here which they will distribute to people in need and even help teach them how to care and propagate them. 3 Angels is also planning to use the new property, they have just aquired, as a growing/farming area for these same reasons until any construction there could be funded....(hint, hint!)

*****By the way- I should make clear that any offerings made to the ministry here should be over and above your normal church tithing. 3 Angels nor I want this ministry to take from the needs of anyone's home churches.****

I have been doing alot of smaller things since finishing the kitchen relocation and I have even been blessed to be able to do a little ministering too.

 -I put in a door and door jamb for a bathroom which just had a curtain-for little better privacy.
-I helped in relocating a telephone pole to be able to have better clearance to the vehicles from the power lines in front of the property. -They were actually so low they could come in contact w/the vehicles coming and going here and  the guard would have to use a board or whatever to hold them out of the way!
-I worked on an exterior cabinet and tool shed (the hatians call a "depot").

Security here is important. We have a 24 hr guard. It was made clearer to us just lately when the guard caught someone trying to go over the front fence in the early morning hours. So I helped to get it much less climbable by cementing in the places that could be used for a step. It was an open decorative brick w/a ledge on it, but is now smoothed sloping concrete which has no footholds. We had some very poorly installed razor wire but now we are fabricating steel spikes out of pieces of rebar and welded to the tops to be much more of a deterrent.

I've been really blessed to be able to do some ministering here also. I was able to share what real faith was wth one of the haitian men that helps us here and was able to pray with him to open up his heart-not just his mind, to the Lord. A couple of days later he said he had people that he knew wanted to come and hear some bible teaching! Soooooo .....I was very available to give them that yesterday! We had about 30 people including some kids! So pray for them, we are going to do it again next Saturday. It really made my day to be able to minister to them. I hope and pray it made theirs!

 The Lord seems to be bringing opportunities for teaching too. We went to the church that the Headmaster of the school here attends. It was a very humble yet such a spiritual church! Some of their benches were made of a few twisted 2x4's.

Alex, (the headmaster) is helping to improve his little church. He has been, little by little, helping to change these benches out to a nicer smoother wood bench like you can see in front of them in the picture below. ---Alex has also even helped some of his own students at the school with their tuition!

This church had a tin roof with one light bulb. The concrete at the altar step all along the front was all broken--you can see the feet of one that came for prayer standing there before the podium.

They had to use a noisy generator in order to use a microphone, and of course no air conditioning and yet they were so full of the love of God  and praising him with their voices lifted with such a ringing devotion to God that it testified to all of us of the true riches that were really there, and that we "rich" Americans could do very well to seek more of for ourselves! They were so warm and loving I wish you all could have been there with us. As a visiting pastor they asked me to say a few words. All I said was that 'they were ministering to me with such a love for God".

Afterwards the sweet loving pastor came up to me and sincerely said how glad he was to meet me and maybe we could get together again personally. He also asked me to come and give a message to his flock next Sunday! I told him what an honor and blessing that would be for me. So pray for that time. Also please pray for the other times to share in the word. It is really a blessing to serve the Lord with my hands here and now also with some wonderful opportunities to minister the word.

BLESSINGS!!

Bob

Beauty for Ashes

We took a break from work for part of a day to go over to the new property 3 Angels purchased to eventually build a new school and orphanage site. Altho I haven't seen the famous earthquake damage in the main area of Porte Prince with the damaged Presidential Palace we defenitely saw some very sobering results to this day of the eartquake that killed at least 250,000 people and left well over a million homeless. See some video below:

There is actually some very damaged buildings adjoining the 3 Angels site (including of course their condemned orphanage building .... see in my first post). An interesting picture below is of a devastated building with the 3 Angels play area in the foreground:

The picture to the right is from the roof of the condemned orphanage - you can see another neighbors house just behind the palm tree where the roof line is not level-that is a second story that collapsed and crushing the first story-it has just in the last couple of days been demolished.


 It's kind of amazing- they will hand demolish solid concrete structures here-even some with small sledge hammers made up for by large groups of men doing the hammering.

This is a collapsed house also right next to the newly leased  house that we are preparing for the new the orphans to be in while the old is demolished and rebuilt. This newly aquired bldg, needs alot of finishing work-cabinets, shelves, doors, tile, plumbing, elec. and more! You can see the plants beginning to grow in the rubble after almost 2 year's time,...the earthquake occurred Jan 12, 2010.

Beautiful little ferns and other plants are also growing in the EQ cracks in the old orphanage!


Maybe a way to try to look to new life and hope and new begginnings again?

There is beauty to be found all around still,though. The people themselves are so friendly and such a good manner to them. And maybe I could say they are a very... 'handsome' people? They have a certain beauty in them!


The babys!! Forget it!!! They are so cute, it's rediculous! Above is some cutys being dedicated to the Lord at a wonderful church we go to on Sundays. And guess what ? This local church is sending missionaries out to other countries! Wow you should here the worship here! They sing out praises!


The people themselves are very easily loved.


 I'll try to get some closer pictures of the kids real soon.


The new property they have purchased for future use is an awesome piece of beautiful Hatian land:

There is a cool old style Hatian house on the property that our Hatian driver, "Junior" says he loves! But it will need ALOT of work to make it really useable. You can see the rough classic beauty of it below:

Lastly I just wanted to share some of the Hatian art that has really caught my eye. You can see that it is very stylistic & also very beautiful.

This wood carving is kind of a fitting bit of beauty in Haiti to end this post with.    Bessings!   Bob

Day9

Still working our little hearts out. Getting alot done! I finished the move of the kitchen--really just doing a small counter,shelf and a couple of sinks then relocating the  large propane gas stove. On the right is the reverse osmosis system for drinking water.

They like to do all of their cooking outside,-- but it was too close to the orphanage which we hope will be demolished very soon with the help of the U.N. So we moved their facilities for that to the rear exterior of the "guest house". The guest house is where we and all volunteers stay on the property. It's really a pretty nice place to stay. A few Hatian ladys alternate cooking and cleaning in the house. The other guys relocated a pump and water tank w/it's plumbing and electrical from the damaged orphanage bldg. Eric Helgemo (the president of 3 Angels and  a very good friend, brother and business partner has pretty well gotten the main electrical system including, a battery backup system using a generator and inverter all up and going on his own.

We took a ride up a mtn on Wednesday. Check out our leasurely driveon this short video below. Along for the bumpy ride here was James Monzo, a great young man down here for about a month helping us, and the young daughter of Eric and Christine Helgemo, Becca. Eric, and his family including Becca's two brothers, David & Will are all down here on an extended stay to help here. Christine is homeschooling them while here and you can clearly see the kids are loving this time here!-----Anyhow...the last person there is Dominic who is one of our hatian helpers here who is giving you all greetings and is saying 'Bondye beni ou'-- God bless you!!

This is all of us right now volunteering down here -as seen from the top of the hill above the mission. We are at Fort Alexandre Jaques an approx 200 year old fort to fight the French during their fight for independence. They are actually celebrating their day of Independence today!

From the left is Dominic (from the video), then Will(10 yrs old), his mom Christine Helgemo, little David,(7 yrs), then their father, husband & head of 3 Angels, Eric Helgemo, below him is His 9 yr. old daughter, Becca,(from the video) next to her is another Hatian helper, our driver, "Junior" and above him is James Monzo who has been a really big help here for us old guys! Finally Sandy Miller who manages the guest house and is such an awesome woman of God and hostess. The last guy I think was some picture crasher or something.

 Blessings be posting you soon. Feel very free to comment or ask questions.

First week

Sunrise over the ocean heading to Haiti. Suitcases packed with tools, hardware and various neede itemsto help out at 3 Angels Children's Relief which includes an orphanage, medical clinic, & school, in Delmas, Haiti.

The orphanage was wrecked by the eartquake so we are working on getting that ready for demolition while moving a kitchen area to another part of the property for the feeding of the school children and staff. There is not only an orphanage but also a school and medical clinic. The last two are still in good enough shape to continue. The school has 300 students and is top rated here in Haiti! The clinic serves thousands of people a year. Here's some pictures to better help you see what's 'all goin on' down here:

EQ damaged & condemned orphanage on the left (Blue). Guest house (for volunteers) and school and medical clinic on the right(green)

Parts of major damage orphanage which must be demolshed and rebuilt. Until then they have rented a large house on the next street to house the orphans. They are being cared for with the help of another ministry while we prepare this house. It is without plumbing, elect,cabinets, shelves etc, we must get into there.

The school has 300 students and is top rated in Haiti! The orphanage must be demolished as soon as possible because it is precariosly standing right next to where the students come and go to school.

The medical clinic that serves thousands of people a year. We are going to help them with more storage/shelving for all of the medicines they store.

Please keep all of this work and everyone here in your prayers. That is number one! If you wnat to help in any way let me know here or better yet go to http://www.threeangelshaiti.org  They have some good video there too. I'll be adding pics and even some videos hopefully every day or so on whats going on. Blessings!!  Bob