2018 Haiti Mission – 11/11/18 thru 11/17/18

Another mission team from Lott Carey arrives this week. There are 7 pastors in the group of 11 men and 4 women. They call themselves Team Impact and truly live up to their name. The men are hard workers, dedicated to their task. The ladies in this group are passionate and fun loving. Most of the team doesn’t arrive until Monday evening because of missed airline connections so they are eager to make up for lost time.

One of the projects missionary teams are helping with is the construction of a new home for the boys. Currently eleven boys ages 9 to 18 share a home at the orphanage with the younger girls. Once their new home is complete, up to 30 boys will be able to live here. The walls of the cinder block and cement structure are already up. Team Impact is helping to apply a cement coat to the building. They jump right in on Tuesday morning sifting sand.  “Sifting” separates larger particles, like rocks, so that the finer sand can be mixed with concrete and applied to the walls of the new building. This “scratch-coat” or rough textured cement application (I sound like I know what I am talking about) is first applied then a “skim-coat” (finer cement coat) will be applied before the structure is painted. These guys labor 6 to 7 hours a day sifting and passing buckets of sand up to the building, even arranging for their lunch to be delivered to the work site.

While the men are sifting sand, the ladies are making a huge impact in other areas. The team donated 22 new laptop computers to the school. Each teacher, assistant teacher, and administrator was blessed with a computer. Wow! The ladies also spent time in several classroom, worked at the clinic, served at the soup kitchen and visited the orphanage. They left a trail of love, gifts, and presents everywhere they went. They may need to change their name to Maximum Impact.

As the week wore on, I got a little worn out so while the team was working on Thursday afternoon, I took a moment to chill with my man Claude to see if I could have an IMPACT on him.

Team Impact leaves the guest house early on Saturday morning headed to the airport for their return trip to the US. There are reports of disturbances and rioting in Port Au Prince so I am relieved to find out they make it to their destination safely.