Haiti in Review: Work Day 1

It's been a week since returning from Haiti so I'm long over due for a post describing and processing through my first international ministry opportunity. Here's day 1.

I can't blame the fact that I was warned, but still the roosters crowing at all hours of the night are absurd!! This night the rooster we'd later learn was named "Floyd" began crowing around 3 am and would continue to do so about every 3 minutes until I finally gave up and got out of bed at 5:30. But really this is what I needed. I need to get out of bed and enjoy the peacefulness and beauty that our guest house gave us.

Sitting on the balcony in the cool morning air with a fresh cup of coffee and my bible was the perfect way to start the first work day. As I sat and prayed I thought "this is how I'm going to start every morning!" Unfortunately good intentions left after a couple hard days of hard labor.

Once again we had to park a little bit aways from the work site because of rain, so we parked by the school that will eventually be meeting in the building we are helping to build. As we left one of the other leaders asked me if I could imagine learning in that environment. I immediately thought of my grandparents who both were educated in one room schools and would later teach in one before the large elementary school in town was built. It wasn't really that long ago that we were learning in these environments.

As we made it to our job site, we prepared ourselves for a slow start to our day because we weren't sure of what supplies and tools we'd have at the job site. Nothing could be further from the truth as the project manager was already on site and ready to get started when we arrived. He put us straight to work moving and organizing the steel beams (or fe)! To keep the steel safe it had been hidden out of view; this was good for safety, but meant we had to get into a pit and lift each piece out and sort them according to size. Soon we had ourselves a chain of workers and were already beginning to make friends with our new co-workers.

We had come to Haiti not to do work that the Haitian's could already do, but to work with them and teach and empower them to do this work. With that in mind, we set to work with our friends. Soon we were asking each others names, pointing at objects and learning a little creole. Through out the week we would quickly learn modified sign language and basic words in order to communicate.

Each morning started with a brief meeting where we'd talk about what needed to be done and a short safety briefing. We'd pray and often sing together before setting to work.

Some of the Haitians spoke some English which made communication slightly easier. Within about 10 minutes of working I had one Haitian guy come up to me and ask if he could ask me a question. I said "of course!" And he went on, in perfect English, to ask if I was married. I smiled and said no and he smiled and walked away. We met again a few minutes later and I asked him a question which he replied saying "I don't speak english." I nodded and then walked away baffled and confused.  I'd later learn that this was a common question to be asked, but one that typically is asked to American guys by Haitian women.

Our prayer for the couple days leading up to our working was that we would have two welders on the job site. Without them it was obvious we'd get no work done; nor would we be able to properly teach anyone to weld and complete the job when we left.

On this day we got a welder, but it wasn't working. It was dropped on the last job site and we just couldn't get it working. Things like this can get really frustrating, but we have to keep in mind that these things happen on our job sites in America all the time. We joked that morning that on the farm (three of us team members were raised on farms) we always have to fix our tools before we can use our tools. Luckily this day we had plenty to do even without a working welder and we'd continue to pray for working tools the next day.

Remember how I said we started each day with a safety briefing. Notice how Grace and I are both wearing our hard hats...well... they don't protect your skin from the dangerously sharp metal. For the record, Grace was the first to get injured. Because of the environment we're in we couldn't go without cleaning and covering any and all cuts. I made sure Grace's cut was thoroughly cleaned with hand sanitizer (the closes thing to rubbing alcohol that we had). This of course burned. About 2.2 seconds after getting her all bandaged up, I sliced my arm as well. Even though she hates the sight of blood, she took a little too much joy in cleaning mine with the burning sanitizer. We were then informed by the project manager that it's always the white people who get hurt and that he never has to worry about a Haitian getting hurt on the job site.

After moving tons (probably literally) of steel, we began cutting. Of course, I'm never one to back away from combining large power tools with ministry opportunities. Mix in a photo opportunity and I've got myself the perfect combination.

A couple hours into our first day and it became clear we could do a lot more than what we anticipated. So, we decided to also dig the hole for the cistern. Our team members Jim and Travis spent their entire time on the job site digging. I dug for about half a day before I realized this wasn't for me. I think Rosilyn, from Pastor's church, knew long before I did I wasn't cut out for digging. I picked up a pick and took my first swing and she busted up laughing... hysterically laughing at me and my picking skill. I spent a good day helping out before getting so worn out I couldn't lift the wheelbarrow anymore.

By the end of the first day we were tired, but satisfied with our progress. We were sweating and dirty, but none of us came close to the level of filth Travis and Grace had reached. We still can't understand how Travis got so dirty or how Pastor stayed so clean!

As most nights, we spent the evening in the worship service at the tent city where we all somehow ended up on stage. Hopefully once the building is complete we can back up behind the scenes and not be front and center as much. Our heart is to equip and empower Haitian leaders to do the work and be the movement leaders here; not us.

That night it really started to rain during the service. Knowing it was already too wet to drive in and experiencing the slippery walk to the tent already, we each had worried faces during the service and probably secretly hoped it would end sooner so we could safely get home.

Now, each walk in the tent city is an adventure, but nothing topped this night. We walked and slide our way back down the hill as residence looked on, talked about us and even broke up laughing. We tried to scrap our shoes clean, but it really was no use. Back at the guest house, Julie, the manager, said something to the affect of "oh wow! you're really muddy!" To which we replied "sure... we'll call that mud!" We decided that tent city mud wasn't actually mud, but it was better to just pretend.

The next day we'd come up from the job site and find our shoes perfectly polished by the guest house Haitian staff! Even the managers were impressed by their work ethic and attention to detail.