Mom and Dad T’s First Visit to Haiti: Part One

Wow, I can’t believe we haven’t blogged in a long time.  It’s not that there hasn’t been anything to say.  I’ve just been at such a loss for words the last 6 weeks or so.  I’ve got a blog post swirling around in my head on that topic, but that will have to wait for another time!

Last week, Rob’s parents visited Haiti for the first time!  It was so fun to show them where and how we live.  I think they really “get it” now; they saw first hand what draws us here.  Not that they didn’t get it before, but I can see it put a real face on life and ministry here and that is exciting for us.

Dad T was supposed to come here January 14th with Rob to work on the house before we moved here.  The earthquake January 12th changed those plans.  Mom T. bought her tickets 3 days before they came as she didn’t have a passport until a few days before that.  I think that was a blessing!  She didn’t have much time to think about the fact that she was about to spend a week in a 3rd world country!

The original purpose of the visit was for Rob’s Dad to do construction projects around the house, so for part one I’ll post some pics and comments about that.  I’ll post pics and comments of fun in part two!

They arrived on a Friday and on Saturday made plans for what Dad wanted to work on for the week.  Plans included: build a closet in the boy’s room, rebuild pantry shelves to make a more organized space, fix a leaky roof, and build some kind of box around our inverter/battery back-up system. They went out to buy the supplies Saturday afternoon with the plan to start construction on Monday. Dad got to see right away that buying the supplies is not as easy as going to Home Depot or Lowes!  I think they went to 5 or 6 different stores and didn’t get all they needed.  The first store they visited was where they bought the wood, which they paid for and picked up on the way home.  Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication and they bought the wrong kind of plywood.  Since the store was closed when they picked up the order, Rob had to go back Monday to return it.  Welcome to life in Haiti!

Dad got right to work Monday morning!

Drew and Pop-Pop working on the boy’s closet day two.

 

The finished closet!  Lots of storage and finally a little hanging space.  I couldn’t be more pleased with it.  We will stain it and I will make curtains to close off the hanging part and probably the bottom part by the floor—I haven’t decided yet.

 

Dad T building some new shelves in the pantry area.

 

Up on the concrete roof caulking the area where we have a significant leak.  So far, so good! (Although we haven’t had a major, major rain yet!)

The finished “cage” for the batteries.  Our inverter is attached to the wall.  This gives us power when the city power goes out.  Our fridge, some lights and fans run on this.  The power goes out at regularly scheduled times every day and then goes out at many other unscheduled times as well.  When we have power, the batteries charge, and when we don’t have power, the inverter runs off the batteries.  These batteries were sitting exposed on our front “porch” area and we have been concerned about the kids near them since we moved here.  So the cage is more to keep the kids away and safe then anything else.

Thanks Dad, for all your hard work!  You were such huge blessing to us last week!

I’ll write part two about some of the fun stuff we did when they visited!

~Becky