Haitian desserts

Great to be back in Haiti!  We arrived last night after a great flight and wonderful fellowship with the team.  There are many newcomers as well as the usual gang I came to like so well last year.  First setback of the trip as we got here- 15 of our 50 bags didn't make it!  Worst of all, 2 of them were the coolers with all of our desserts for the week!  After about 1.5 hours of sorting and figuring out which ones were missing and matching luggage tags with the Haitian airport staff, we found out they were still in Miami.  They would get here the next day by 4pm!  Dessert is part of the reason some of us are here, so that was a big bummer!  God tells us to always look for the blessing even in the hard times though.  Since it took us so long to get things organized and find the missing bags, it made it later in the evening.  The airport customs staff were ready to leave, so they let us through without even asking about or checking our bags!  What a big answer to prayer since they always question medical supplies and medicines sometimes asking for more money to pass them.  Even better news, our bags did come through today with the coolers of desserts and everything was safe, edible, and accounted for!

We helped build a house today for one of the sponsored families-mom, dad, 5 kids under the age of 6 living in a tent right now.  They leveled the ground and put up the forms for the slab and started to mix the concrete.  No machinery or concrete trucks here!  It was fun doing some manual labor.  I felt like I was building decks again in high school in 90 degree august heat!  We will go back tomorrow to help lay block for the walls.  The whole house will be finished this week, and we get to help dedicate it.  The family has to bring the water for all the cement mixing by walking a half mile through the hills each way with a 5 gallon bucket on their head.  That is how far they go for their drinking water as well, and oh yeah, no bathrooms!  Alyssa spent the day playing with the 5 kids plus the neighbors who came to see what we were doing.  It was great to see her dive right in and play.  

Pray for us tomorrow afternoon!  We meet our sponsored kids for the first time- 2 sets of twins- pictures to come!

Serving him faithfully,

Jeremy and Jaime and Alyssa