Haiti - Day 4 through the eyes of a newbie

Today's adventure was the concrete pour on the roof of the 3rd duplex in the Children's Village. I wondered last night what I could expect from this event. Steve explained that a couple of Haitian men would mix the cement on the ground and pass it up by way of a tiered scaffolding system in 5 gallon buckets to the roof and ferried along via a 'bucket brigade' to the spot needed. Seemed pretty straight forward, right? Well, on site this morning I got a much better appreciation of this process in action. A large group of Haitians were already going strong, moving cement across the roof in wheel barrows. The guys were gracious enough to include us, "Blances" in their work, and the wheel barrows changed to buckets. As we de-briefed tonight we talked about how it was quite likely that we slowed them down (somewhat?!) You know like when a well-meaning child wants to "help" and it isn't always that helpful. LOL. It was hard work but we shared many laughs- some them with us and no doubt some at us-all in good fun, hopefully. When we went back after lunch we were told we weren't needed. The guys on the roof had the wheel barrows running and were making good time. Hummm...'not needed' - 2 ways to look at that - with hurt feelings OR as us working ourselves out of a job. We decided the latter was awesome and the only possible reason! These guys were working together like a well-oiled machine, helping build homes for their own people. There was no animosity about not needing us. Probably just practicality in that they could do it faster without us and their day on the hot roof would come to an end sooner. It was a great day!

In closing, I want to share something that Mark has been heard saying on many occasions - "God will take care of it". Something that I know I need to make apart of my thought pattern.

God is good and alive here in Haiti!