Releasing Control

Many of you have wondered about us as it has been a while since we've updated you on what’s happening here in Soliette.  Two reasons are that we've been really busy, and a lot of what we've been busy with was frustrating enough that I didn't really feel like reliving it in print at the end of the day!  Most of that involves what God is still trying to do in me (us, Cheryl has her moments!) and get me over my ambitious self and become more Haitian.  I didn't really think my expectations were that high and I thought my plans were clear to everyone, but that didn't seem to matter to anyone but me.  And now looking back, they were pretty right.  Let me fill you in with some details.

This could get really long if I went into all the details so you’ll get the Reader’s Digest version and we’ll concentrate on the last 2 weeks. 

Just to give you a glimpse of the old floor.

 Almost since we arrived in September we’d been working at pouring a new cement floor in the school.  We finally had all the materials on site, volunteer help lined up and we were ready to go. School was out for the week of February 11-15 and we had revival meetings planned for the 15^th-17^th so we’ll get started about 7:00 on Saturday and get it poured so we have all week to smooth coat it and it can cure a couple days before revival.  One of the leaders helped me build forms Friday afternoon and said he’d be here at 6:00 for coffee on Saturday morning.  I was REALLY ready to get this done, so that really excited me.  6:00 couldn't come soon enough.

Well……6:00 came and I enjoyed my coffee while I walked to the neighbors houses that had promised I could use their shovels.  2 shovels became one, and by the time the help started to show up my coffee was long gone and my patience wasn't far behind.  People started straggling in about 8:30 and we didn't really get rolling till close to 10:00. I was not a happy person!  If we didn't get this thing poured today, I didn't really see a way it would ever get finished!  A custom for Haitian work days is to provide a meal for all the workers.  My plan was for the food to come out about 2:00 when we were mostly done.  We were finally really rolling, and by about noon we were nearly half way done.

Water delivery.  We used nearly 400 gallons that day
and it all had to be carried in from about 3/4 mile away!

Cement mixers!

Delivery system.  We did have one wheelbarrow, but
 most was carried in buckets!

  I was working inside leveling the concrete and was beginning to think we might just pull this thing off!  Half hour later I looked up and plates of food were coming in instead of buckets full of cement.  I was about to come unglued but my loving wife caught me and said, ‘why don’t you just sit down and eat’, with this ‘I feel your pain’ look on her face.  The rice and beans WERE really good, and I WAS really hungry, so with a sigh I settled onto a bench with a big bowl.  45 minutes later we swung back into action and were moving along pretty good but the crowd had started to thin out.  At 3:00, about an hour before we could have been finished, the boss announced that he had to be in Port au Prince soon, dropped his tools and left with most of the remaining workers and most of the tools.  I couldn't believe it!  Cheryl and 2 friends helped me clean up.  I spent the most of the next hour with my head down in a barrel cleaning tools.  It was probably the best place for me because it was really hard being nice at this point.

Mr 'Know it all' hard at it!

The end of day one.

A good place for attitude adjustment!

Cheryl and I spent the evening transitioning from comforting each other to feeling really guilty because of the way we acted and the way we treated some people.  We spent the night feeling pretty low.  Sunday dawned, but we were still beating ourselves up for not acting very Christ like the day before.  We prayed through it, and by the time church started we were feeling some better and determined to not let our attitudes affect us like that again.  The worship lifted us some, but then something happened that really changed our attitude.  While all we could see was a project not completed, our church friends were so excited to have a new floor they were literally dancing on it in joy!  I was seeing the unfinished floor as a cup half empty, while they were seeing it as fuller that it has ever been!  We had talked to some people and lined up some help to finish pouring on Monday.  That would leave 3 days to get the other boss up here to put the smooth coat on the surface.  I won’t bore you with the details of that, it’s just how they do it here, but what it ended up meaning was 2 LONG days for me and the boss.  By 3:00 Wednesday we were finished!  I was exhausted, but peaceful.  I had a day to rest up and get the place ready for revival on Friday, and the kids had an open building with a nice floor to play on for a day.  To hear them laugh and play made all the effort worthwhile and looking back, I realized that God really had it under control all along and I’d get along better if I’d just relax and try to let Him have control.

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Time for last minute adjustment!

The revival meetings were done up in true Haitian style!  I’d wired some lights into the building (that’s a story for another day) and just before we were scheduled to start the generator, speakers, instruments and musicians arrived and got everything set up to perform at a level just below what would cause your eardrums to explode!  musicians arrived and got everything set up to perform at a level just below what would cause your eardrums to explode!  We’d invited all the local churches and the place was packed out.  Hebrew 4:12 (For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.) was our theme for the weekend.  The word of God was proclaimed and a joyful noise was made by over 200 enthusiastic worshipers. 

 

The new floor makes it better for your 'Church Shoes!'

Kesnel teaching Sunday school.

'Beni swa l' etenal' (Bless this evening Lord Eternal!)

It seems to have sparked a new interest and excitement here on the mountain.  We’ve started a Wednesday evening service and there’s talk of a Friday evening Bible study.  The first Wednesday evening was very well attended and that was encouraging.  We’re excited to see what God has in store for His church here on the mountain.  Pray that we can fan the spark into a flame that will burn brightly for all to see here.

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This one's for you mom!  Doing my best to fill out my clothes!

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Pray that we will be more willing to be molded by God to serve in the way He chooses and not relying on our own strength and plans. Pray also for Heart of Compassion as we enter a time of transition seeking new leadership.  

The work here is demanding.  It calls for much discipline, determination, dying to self and sacrifice.  But isn't that what the Word of God calls us to? 

 Grandpa Harold 

Simple, but not easy!

We may not have piles of snow around our doors or low, gray skies, but we are anticipating spring as much as everyone else!  Winter here is not a lot different weather wise than most of the rest of the year except for the lack of rainfall.  We haven’t experienced a measurable rain here for nearly 2 months!  It is a time of harvest in December and now a time of preparation for the planting season in March.  It’s also an exciting time around the school! The school day is pretty normal, but things are close to being in place to make the much anticipated floor repairs....

All the gravel, like 12 yards, was carried up by the
students!  7/10 ths. mi. uphill!

Drinking from the saucer?  A cool drink
after a hot job.

The people were pretty impressed with this
 big machine!

and Saturday morning, a bulldozer rumbled over the hill!  A bulldozer in this part of Haiti is big news and everyone in the neighborhood came out to watch the big machine work on the new road that will connect our area to the main road by the river.  Everyone is pretty excited about it!  Just the thought of being able to get a machine closer to their homes brings relief to our hard working neighbors.  Life here is simple.  If you need to go somewhere, you just pile what you need in a sack on your head and go.  It is also very hard!  If you need to go somewhere, you just pile what you need in a sack on your head and go.

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And when you go, it’s not just down to the local market or convenience store when you need a gallon of milk or some toilet paper.  A trip to market will usually consume an entire day.  And depending on what you found, you might have to change all your meal plans for the week.  Maybe that’s why when you ask most Haitians what they are eating the answer is almost always “dire ak pwa”, rice and beans.  Even things a simple as your morning coffee involve planning and a considerable amount of work.  There is a good side to all this work though.  Almost everything we eat could be labeled ‘certified organic’!  With no refrigeration, everything is very fresh and there is very little use of herbicides and pesticides. 

No wonder their eyes are always burning!

We are pretty big fans of the ‘fresh’ part of our lives, especially the drinks. Your morning coffee starts with raw beans roasted over an open fire in very smokey hut,

“pile” (pounded) to a powder in a “mach ak pilon” (a HUGE mortar and pestle),

You always have to try to 'ede' (help).  It always
produces uproarious laughter !

They like it really fine, but Cheryl get's them
to leave a few chunks to snack on!

sifted and pounded some more.   If you like your coffee sweet, you’d love Haitian coffee!  They like to add a LOT of sugar when they roast their beans.  We just get strange looks when we ask for ours “pa sik” (without sugar).  They can’t understand how anyone could drink coffee “ame’“(bitter).

Besides coffee, there are fruit juices.  We always thought that living in the tropics you would have fresh fruit all the time, but really they have seasons here just like everywhere else.  It’s easy to tell what fruit is in season because the kids will show up at our door trying to sell whatever is ripe.  Many of the fruits we have had here are not for eating, but for juice.  When we first arrived, it was ‘grenadia’ (passion fruit).

They're really not ready until they turn yellow
and get all wrinkly!

 

This small seedy fruit makes a wonderful juice and, so far it is our favorite.  After cutting it open, you scoop out the pulp and seeds and “pase” (strain, strainer) out the seeds.  The juice is extremely intense and just a few fruits, along with sugar and water, makes a lot delicious juice. 

Perhaps the weirdest fruit we’ve seen yet is the “kowsol” which is in season right now. 

 The kowsol is a large, prickly, green fruit that needs to be forced through the pase with a mach to remove the seeds and extract the juice. 

Really, I think you are extracting the flavor more than the juice because you pile (pronounced peela with a long a), add water, pile, add water and pile some more. We’re not sure how long, maybe just until your arms get tired.  The fruit is really hard to describe as it is not similar to anything you would be familiar with.  The flesh kinda resembles an overripe cantaloupe that is kinda stringy but tougher than a cantaloupe.  The flesh also is full brown seeds that are about the size of a large bean.  The juice is fairly sweet and has a flavor and aroma similar to a pear, but we like it better mixed with a little citrus.  The Haitians like to mix milk with theirs too, it makes an interesting flavor.

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Work in the “zonion”(onion) gardens is ongoing too.   The seeds are planted and the watering has begun.  This means many trips up to the garden, down to the river, up to the garden, down to the river, with a bucket of water.  Simple, but not easy.  We've worked at trying different pumps to take away some of this manual labor.

  This push/pull pump works pretty well.  It took a couple tries to get it to work well without getting too wet, but with it we can fill a 50 gallon barrel in about 10 minutes.  

Yeah, that's the pipe going up to the garden!  You can see the barrels up
at the top of the shaded areaTinom's garden is terraced up behind
the tree in the center to where the vegetation begins again.  

Pumping water up 30+ feet to the garden makes for some tough pumping, but last evening 3 of us provided water for 4 gardens in less than 2 hours.

Tinom watering his 'jarden'.

It would be soooo nice too, if you could trust leaving your stuff out, but everything, pipe, buckets, barrels, pump, has to be taken down and carried to a secure place across the river.  The gardens are watered twice a day, every day, for 6-7 weeks.

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One other recent highlight was the opportunity to connect with a medical team from the Cincinnati/Dayton area that included one of Cheryl’s friends from Kettering Hospital.  We’d met a young boy with a mass growing on his neck that seemed to be getting larger.  We had hoped to get him to see a doctor, but really didn’t know how to proceed.  We wanted to see an American doctor and knowing someone on this team provided a very unique opportunity to sidestep some of the waiting process and get him seen.  We took Elifaite and his mother with us on our visit and Steph (Cheryl’s friend) had told the team we were coming. 

 They took us right in and got started on some tests.  We still spent most of the day there, but we left with a fairly confident diagnosis that Elifaite had TB and the growth was not cancerous.  We praise God for that, because TB is treatable with medication and diet improvement, and once the diagnosis is confirmed we can get him in a med program that is free!  It’s hard to be happy to say someone has TB, but a cancer diagnosis for a mountain person would be very difficult to manage.  Thank you Jesus for hearing our prayers!

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Some things are just too good to pass up.  Parents, how many times have you scolded your children for playing with their food?

I'm thinking this takes it to a whole new level!!!!

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• On a personal note, you can continue to pray for us to be more selfless in our ministry and more Christ focused in everything we do.  Last evening we watched a video from Louis Gigllio’s talk in Passion 2012, and felt the Spirit of God speak to us through him.  He was teaching from Eph. 6:18-20, with emphasis on vs. 19,   “and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. “ (ESV) It is easy to get caught up in doing things and forget who you are doing them for.  

• With the construction of a road, we are also considering the purchase of a 4 wheeler for transportation.  Pray with us for wisdom in this decision and that God will provide the necessary funding to make it possible if it is His will.  We are truly blessed by your support!  We are very careful to be good stewards of everything God provides.  

• We try to keep up to date with what is happening here.  We’d love to hear from you to keep us up to date with what is happening in your world.  Drop us a note if you get a chance either in the comments on this page or to pkaufman3@gmail.com but please make sure you put something in the subject bar.  Our computers are very precious and notes with no subject don’t get opened because of the possibility of virus’. 

We pray for you every day.  Thank you for praying for us!

“Bon jou ak Jesi”   (Have a good day with Jesus!)    

Edmond, our favorite moto driver.