Spit-polished

Here we are at the end of a complicated and busy day with lots of stand around time. You say what? How can you be busy and have stand around time. It's Haiti. The truck broke down several times today, I think it is about time for a new vehicle for Robinson. We normally don't depend on his vehicle to get around, but Ray's back surgery and the torn up road that we usually take to the church cost time, money, and undo aggravation. But I believe it was Jim Gallo who said in one of our missions meetings at the church one Sunday, if your going to go to Haiti, leave yourself at home. It will try every bit of your intestinal fortitude, and some you didn't think you had. A simple switch, that I have installed twice down here myself took us 3 hours! I think we finally discovered the problem and it had nothing to do with what we did. Some of our plans for the day went terribly astray, but we ended the evening at the Deli Mart downtown eating pizza. It was kind of a treat, we have not done this with a team yet. And it wasn't without it's own little sideshow. Apparently the ladies bathroom had in its attendance a person of the male agenda. What a riot that turned out to be. Robinson said it seems sometimes people have an 'education problem', I'm not sure that's what this fellow had, but he sure provided for some interesting table conversation. It was supposed to be air-conditioned at the Deli Mart, and some part of me wanted to believe it was, but when I walked out onto the street, I think it was as cool there as it was inside. We had some good laughs together, made a few plans for the morning that I hope won't get shot down, and then Jim drove Alisa home on the motorcycle while Beth and I tried out the very rear of Rob's Toyota, (because we were also carrying Bob, Julie, Ray, and Maura) in case your wondering, no there are no seats there, and no doors there, no seat belts, just a crash bar and lots of Haitian dirt! Rob’s car is a two door five person vehicle. It was quite a ride. But I had to make sure Jim had the full on motorcycle experience here. You don't see any Harley's, and any group riding is just taxi drivers in the same vicinity of one another delivering their human cargo. I'm afraid a Harley wouldn't cut it here, first of all the owners pride would be crushed because they couldn't even keep it clean, by the time the first spit-polishing was concluded at the rear of the bike, it would be time to start over at the front just because of the dust and dirt in the air, let alone taking the thing out for a spin where it would probably get a ding or a scratch on these rugged and unforgiving roads. Jim and I both witnessed different accidents right in front of us today. Well enough of the motorcycle talk. I just came out of another productive leadership meeting, and am confident in the direction the church is going. The orphanage is running superb, and our team there is doing great things. We got the pictures up on the wall today and got some photos of them to put up on the blog and website. Bob and Ray are like a finely oiled machine; you can tell they have been working together in Haiti for a few trips now! They continued to roll on their own production plan today. We gave out several hundreds of gallons of fresh water today, the children especially race for the fresh water, they are so thirsty here, it's profound to watch what a difference cold clear water makes in a community. And the expressions of thanks is a never ending tide of warm fuzzies! Much hard work and gracious giving has made this possible, it is amazing to watch the fulfilling of this dream. May many more follow, would to God that no more Haitian children should have to die of thirst! We are into our final day on the ground tomorrow, pray it goes smoothly. Sorry there is only one post today. Will try to write a little more for tomorrow. Thanks again for all the comments, the team loves them. Blessings!