TeamDuggan

So what do you do to cool off on a sunny summer Haitian day? Go to the river and soak! Of course, river is a generous term, and we had to go upstream a bit to preserve others’ modesty who use the river for their bath. Don’t ask what might be happening further upriver…we sure didn’t. But we did rinse off once we returned.

Since I left Costa Rica in early June I’ve been immersed in Portuguese, Creol and English consecutively but very little Spanish. Today in Honduras I decided to try to revive the rusty Spanish and speak to the church in their own tongue. Either God gave me special dispensation or the people were very gracious, but the words flowed and they even laughed at a joke I told.

We are in Tegucigalpa where the fledgling Evangelical Free Church welcomed us warmly. What a wonderful place to be when you can travel with someone like Bob Werntz who spent 12 years here and knows someone everywhere we go. And tonight….big, juicy steaks for dinner!

It’s hurricane season, and most of the people in the earthquake impacted area of Haiti remain under tarps or in tents.  Keeping dry is part of the challenge, but keeping safe in high winds can mean life or death.  Each week teams are coming to help us put up shelters that provide protection even in hurricane conditions.  This week’s Google Earth snapshot shows how many have gone up in partnership with local Haitian leaders and Samaritan’s Purse (providing materials).  Even in the midst of this urgent work, building and nurturing relationships is key to success.  Pray that these relationships develop well, that Christ is central to the work, and that many will be blessed with adequate shelter before the first big storm.

With a summer schedule that makes our heads spin, we were particularly blessed to have our whole family together for 24 hours this weekend. Four of us came from Columbus Ohio, two from Rome Georgia, and we all met at my brother’s home near Atlanta where Glenn and Lisa provided wonderful food and relaxation for the six of us to enjoy for a short time. It won’t happen again until Christmas so it was a day we all will treasure.

Among other work TouchGlobal is doing in Haiti, we have been working with a local community of Gressier to build temporary shelters to get people out of tents and tarps and in shelter that will withstand Category 2 hurricanes and keep the family dry (no need to help with staying warm here!). 

This week we began documenting all the shelters in Google Earth for reporting purposes.  Amazing that large organizations are using this very user friendly approach!  So if you have Google Earth and would like to get our KMZ file to zoom around the territory we’re in, leave a comment and I’ll send it along to you.

We had a group from the Czech Republic come to Haiti this week to assess how churches in Czech could help with the crisis recovery efforts that TouchGlobal is doing here. Daniel is the leader of the Czech missions sending agency ZMA. He and the others saw the vast range of opportunities here to show the love of Christ with works of compassion. In this photo Daniel is communicating with a Haitian who is showing him his new home that TouchGlobal built. These homes, designed and resourced from Samaritan’s Purse, are being built throughout the earthquake impacted areas of Haiti. People are now able to move from tents into structures that can hold six people, survive a Category 2 hurricane, and last 1-3 years. We are excited by the interest that churches in many countries have shown in partnering with us to help Haiti. What a witness for the Gospel when people of many cultures come together under one banner to give with no strings attached.

Where else in Haiti post-earthquake can a newly minted ten year old get a cake, piñata and other kids to join her birthday party? Pink icing colored from red jello, Sweet Tarts spelling out Happy Birthday, and matches as candles just can’t be matched by any other cake. Plus it tasted great!

Today Anna was with me as Cathi was off in another area of ministry. We took a team to an orphanage that we’re helping and Anna became a pied-piper for little girls….walking up and down this wood platform, trying to keep them out of the mud. It was such a pleasure to listen to her leading them in a chant (in English) as they repeated the sounds and followed her up and down grinning from ear to ear.

After a special pancake breakfast (Anna’s had chocolate chips), while Brian headed out with the international team here to capture a glimpse of ministry opportunities here in Haiti, the rest of us headed to our respective work sites– Brian and Byron to an orphanage where they were constructing a building; Dave, Cathy, and Lori to roof shelters in a nearby neighborhood about a kilometer down the road from the base/TG operations center, the Haitian Queen. I was riding along with them as Steve and I would be accompanied by Miguel, our translator so as to obtain GPS coordinates for recently completed shelters, meet the homeowners, and pray a blessing over their new home so the moving in process could begin!

Lunchtime back at the base, but raindrops turned into pelting sheets of rain as we headed to the worksite in Gressier to obtain tools left in anticipation of the afternoon’s work–tomorrow would come soon enough, and work would resume. Preparations for celebrating Anna’s 10th birthday could be done in a more relaxed manner–new Haitian friends and EFCA missionary applicants (and their 3 kiddos) visiting family in Christianville will be joining us for the celebration.

I wonder if Anna is still working out the details of her latest birthday request? She decided instead of a Barbie dreamhouse, she’d love a younger sister….and the others were headed to the orphanage again. Maybe tickets to a Jonas Brothers concert in Costa Rica aren’t such an expensive proposition?

Anna and Cathi spent some time at one of the orphanages we’ve been helping and fell in love with the kids there. Of course Anna found a little girl she could love on and immediately decided that we should adopt her. As adults we understand that there are many factors involved in the orphan situation here, and that the situation is very complex. But for our little girl, it was quite simple. “God loves me, he gave me to a wonderful family, and I think we should bring another needy child the same blessing I have.”