PORT AU PRINCE

We attended church with friends down in Port au Prince, Sunday. On our way home, we took a little detour to "The Lookout". The view out over the city was beautiful, but it was a bit hazy for pictures.

Just down the mountain from the lookout, I spotted this beautiful little patio, and wanted to go sit and enjoy the view for awhile. Haiti's wealthy citizens have homes in this area; some of the houses are unbelievably grand.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEITH!

Today is Keith's 17th birthday. So...a few pictures: Keith the student...
Summer job

reading to a small cousin
and at home in Haiti.

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Rich is still at work on the house project. Here he's drilling holes to run pipes for the bathrooms. The drill does some of the work.....
but throwing a little weight into the job always helps.
Everyone helps out around here. After school, for the past several days, the kids have been working in the school food depot. They're "quality checking" all of it before it goes on the trucks to be shipped out to the schools. They've been working hard, but you can see Laurie and Brianne still found time for some girl talk. :)

MORE FROM BHM

Another view of the valley. Terracing and anti-erosion farming methods have been taught here over the years, and the surrounding valleys are dotted with these beautiful plots.
The mission hospital
More progress on the construction project
The front entrance of the Mountain Maid self-help outlet and restaurant. Above and behind the Mountain Maid, you can see our apartment windows.
Rejoice with us! Our pickup is finally licensed. We're really enjoying driving it, and thank all of you who helped with it's purchase, shipping , and related expenses!

GOOD MORNING FRIENDS

I thought you might like to see the most recent version of "us".
Fellowship in the staff dining room here at BHM.
The sky was spectacular again last evening!

TEAM PROJECT

A team from MD is here working on this construction project. They're replacing a termite-eaten roof, and "adding up" to make more room for the missionary family who live here.
Rich always finds the "high jobs".
Hey, it's starting to look like a house!
I love this invention. It looks like a giant paper-cutter, and the blade is a machete...of course.
Smoothing the concrete walls.

WE DON'T SEE SUNSETS HERE, BUT THIS IS WORTH SEEING TOO

We miss the beautiful sunsets over the bay at Mole St. Nicolas; here the sun just disappears behind the mountain, but it does it in spectacular fashion sometimes, depending on the cloud formations.

WE'VE ARRIVED AT BAPTIST HAITI MISSION

Our apartment--the long row of windows to the upper left. On the other side we're at street level; but on this side we're up three plus stories, and the bottom of the valley is way down below us yet. Below--making ourselves at home in our new abode.

Views out over the valley; this is the view from our front door. It's hard to get the full effect, but I'll keep trying.:)

An evaporation pool in the salt flats; below you see salt bagged and ready to ship out on the big trucks.

Scenery from the edge of the road through the mountains; and below you see a view of the road already travelled--excuse the dust cloud; it's just unavoidable

Rice paddies in the Artibonite Valley.

OUR TRIP TO PORT AU PRINCE

Rich and Keith took a little side trip along the way. They hiked back in to a place called Gouimbert so we could see and report on the progress being made on a church-building project (below). Only the foundation can be seen, but they report that it was a great hike. The rest of us stayed with the truck, as a safety precaution, and because we knew they could hike it a lot faster that way. :)

More pictures from the hike; when we give Keith the camera, we get plenty of pictures!

Further down the road, we found the salt flats dry. Rain is needed badly, but we were thankful for relatively good roads this trip.