House

Thought I would try to give you a word picture of Robinson’s house. It’s funny, because his house is now larger than where the church meets. It is a duplex unit that goes from street to street. In other words, instead of being side-by-side units, they are front and back. But each one accesses a street. It really is kind of unique. Rob and Naromie have done a great job of splitting up the large living area to be a kind of dining and living room combined. It’s funny though; there are no chairs at the kitchen table. The culture is not inclined to eat together as such. Matter of fact they kind of eat in isolation. A happenstance I’m sure the result of not enough food to go around. They eat in corners a lot of the time, and the house has a few of those. There are 5 rooms and two hallways. The food preparation is done in the back hallway on the floor. The house is all open air, however there is glass in a couple of the windows. Four rooms have doors, the front room off the living room, which is a bedroom for the women, the front door itself, the main bedroom that is Rob and Naromie’s, and the bathroom. There is not doorstop trim along the edges of the doors, so you can see right into the rooms. It was a little uncomfortable the first couple of times in the bathroom as you can see right into the shower, but they are a respectful people, and privacy while your in the bathroom, even if someone is right outside the door, is not a problem. The furnishings at this point are very simple. There is a seat, love seat and couch, all matching in the living room, albeit used. A TV and a little DVD unit that we sent in a while back. Rob’s computer table and a little cabinet are the rest of what is in the living room area. There are a few things on the wall as well. The dining area has a curtained off space where all the bins are kept. The only other thing in this area is a fold up table that has the dish drainer on it. The main bedroom has a bed, and blue bins used for storage. There is no closet, but they have fastened a wooden bar across one corner of the room and hung a curtain over it to hide the clothes hung behind. It’s simple but looks nice. They also use curtains at a couple of the doorways as well, it allows some privacy, but also give airflow throughout the house when the air is moving, and not so humid that is doesn’t matter if it moves or not! The kitchen has a simple camping stove, a small propane tank, a table for cooking utensils, and a small countertop with an attached cabinet of sorts. There is no sink yet. If there were, I am not sure you could stand the heat to be able to work in there. It is a small confined space, with a very small block window and doesn’t breathe very well. The bathroom is kind of an extension of the back hallway. You could kind of think of the house as an “I” construction in the layout. The big front room that goes from side to side, the main hallway that goes down the middle accessing the main bedroom on the right and the kitchen on the left, and the back hallway that provides an exit to a corridor along side the house and the bathroom to the right. The bathroom has a toilet and shower stall. There is no curtain for the shower. And the floor in the bathroom is tiled. It is simple, but works quite efficiently. The water for the shower and toilet is gravity fed from the rooftop. That tank is filled from a cistern in the front garage area that is filled by the city once a week. The floors are painted concrete, and the walls are a medium yellow. All in all, it works well as a starter home. It is far from elaborate, but far exceeds Robinson’s living conditions to date. I was upstairs at the church Sunday morning and was once again reminded of how dedicated Rob has been, and how frugal he is willing to live to be able to minister to his people, and I must tell you, I am very proud of this young man. We are blessed to be able to minister through such high caliber of character. He is a man truly after God’s heart. The new house is great for entertaining people, the front porch where we have slept the whole time we have been here is wonderful. People are coming and going all the time. We have enjoyed that part immensely. Over all the entire house is about 24’ wide and from the front gate to the back is about 34’. So it is not huge by any stretch, but it is much bigger than the space he had before. I told him if I ever made enough money, someday I would love to build him a house here in St. Marc. We’ll see what God can do. Robinson is a man who will never be at home outside his people and country. To try to get him to live in the U.S. would be a mission that is about as likely to happen as we were in getting the tent this week. Blessings once again.