Day 6 - June 21 - Monday

This morning we started by going to market. More beggars than last time, it seemed. There was a lot more food than last trip, but not many buying, it seemed. Then we walked up to the bakery.

Off to more work at Foison, moving dirt, cracking gravel, rolling rocks, tying rebar. There is not much to show for all this labor, it seems, but we know it is important. All this drudgery will contribute to the sturdiness of the final school building. Even the small pebbles we are making may save the life of a child if the column does not collapse because of its increased strength.

I stayed behind today to work on Pastor Chrisbon's new laptop. Somehow, with computers, nothing is simple. Fix a problem, find another, fiddle with it, fix it. Later in the afternoon, I started putting up a 133-foot long antenna. When Kester got back, he helped me by organizing teams to go up on the roof to work, and organized the Haitians to chop branches out of the trees to let the antenna be pulled up to its full height.

Jane Martin, your devotional booklet is an awesome labor of love, we are all reading it and we thank you for that. Sandi and Iris, our days do not seem to be synchronized, but that does not seem to detract from the power of your devotionals. We had daily devotions, most of the time near breakfast, but later if we were rushed. At each of these Deborah had assigned one of the young adults to prepare a devotional: scripture, prayer, a lesson, and sometimes music, and always the reading of the letters from home prepared by Sandi and Iris. This was always a beautiful and tender time.

Some other thoughts... Sandi, we have a powerful spiritual team down here, but we miss your presence deeply. The work you have done to support us is phenomenal, and words cannot express our gratitude.

Deborah notes, "I especially enjoyed our team 'family time' in the evenings. It was so much fun to play bananagrams, scrabble and cards. It was a joy to sing together and share our daily devotions. I was so impressed with each of our young adults who did our daily devotions."

I have not said this before, and I probably should have. We miss you all, and we send our love to family and friends. Sorry -- this is all very time compressed.