We all had a wonderful night’s sleep, well, all of us who traveled here. Kaen not so much apparently – she kept closing windows and trying to shut out the noise.  I had a wonderful sleep and did not hear a rooster, dog, cow, donkey, the alarm truck or even the night club that blared until 2:15 AM.  I heard the night club when I first went to bed BUT I thought it was a church service and soon fell asleep and stayed that way until Karen came with her flashlight at 5:40 am to see if we wanted to walk along the canal at daybreak. We all did and were soon on our way.  The older kids love to walk too but none were up or at least didn’t see us leave so there was just the 4 of us.  We met a lady with her donkey laden with supplies, a man walking his cow, men and women walking , one lady already doing her laundry in the canal and saw a “mad” cow…actually a “mad” bull and he was a little scary as his rope was broken and I feared he might decide to run after us instead of the cows!  It was a beautiful walk as we watched the sun rise.

Home to breakfast of fruit and Haitian porridge…yummy!  Next came devotions led by Djemima a wonderful time of praising our Lord!

Sunrise on our early morning walk

The work day started with Dickie and Jim opening a box and getting a big propane stove out of it and moved into the kitchen and then getting it hooked up and running.  All instructions were in Spanish so the Creole, French, and English speaking people were all at a loss to read them.  JJ who is learning Spanish in school took the instructions down to his room with his books to try to decipher them BUT to no avail.  Next a call to the man who Karen bought the stove from gave no help so Dickie and Jim went back to doing their own thing and it was soon up and running!

Sandra sewing underwear while the men working on stove

Kitchen boss and supervisor keeping a close eye on the stove and Dickie

We had electricity troubles today several times.  All is well that ends well, we are now up and running again.  Dickie and Jim took the truck and took Moise and JJ with them and headed to the local “hardware store” for parts and glue but had no luck there.

They piled wood and debris and demolished a table etc that needed to go to the dump and Friday is dump day so they wanted it ready to go.  Jim worked on Karen’s computer for a while and Dickie was busy somewhere.

Kids helping with stacking wood

Karen was busy here and there as usual and one can’t keep up, she did take us on a tour of the new church and I am eager for church on Sunday!

It doesn’t sound like I did anything, and I didn’t do much! At supper time I said “I didn’t break a sweat today” and was quite excited about that until Dickie said “you didn’t do much then”, and he was right.  I was working on payroll books, forms, and calendars with Jim’s computer help.  I made a cake (2) for Josie’s birthday today and broke in the oven.  We all had soupe joumou for supper and then had birthday cake, pop and birthday wishes, hugs and a gift for Josie!

Beautiful Birthday Girl

Birthday girl, Josie, opening her gift

Anne and Djemima

Magdala at birthday party

Magdala finally allowed Jim to get near without her feeling the need to run away screaming.

HATS printer/copier/scanner left Keith and Joan’s house today, where it was set up for service to scan letters and photos for Liette’s huge job when here,  and returned to it’s home at Karen’s place.  Karen is a tad pleased about this.

Copier-printer-scanner going to its real home at Karen’s

I am more than ready for bed again, it is only 7:30 and when I finish this I am off to bed while someone else puts photos in and posts it!  We are up and walking at 6:00 AM again and this time the kids have put in the call to go with us.

Goodnight, God Bless you all

~Sandra