April update

We are beginning to see some progress in housing in Haiti since I was there in January as more homes are being built outside the city and people are leaving the tent cities to live out there. Although there are many still living in the tent cities there is a great deal of plots of land being sold or given to families if they would move out of the tents.
 We got to be a small part of the rebuilding in March when a team of 5 went down from Colorado and built Pastor Exil's home. He now has the nicest home in the community. His home was part church, school and their personal home too and it collapsed in the earthquake. We finally got the lot cleared of the rubble this last January and built a kit home from an organization that provides work for the Haitians at their factory in Port Au Prince. The house cost less than $5000 to build with the additional concrete work needed and paint.

Jack and Sarah cleaning up the lot.

Sarah attracting lots of friends.

The lady in the middle was one of our patients and came by to see us.
She had a severely broken ankle that required surgery and pins.

Pastor Exil always had a great big smile on his face.

The roof trusses going up.

This is Kenny, Pastor Exil's father. He is 78 and had to have
a part in the construction. He climbed around the roof
like a youngster.

There was always a group of onlookers.

Inside the new church, doing our Saturday kids program.
The benches we built in July 2010. 

Each week the kids get a meal before they leave, in many cases
it is the best meal all week.

This is what the finished house could look like when it is
painted. 

View of neighborhood from Pastor's new house.

 In February a Japanese non-governmental organization (NGO) was able to negotiate with the land owner that the tarp covered church sits on and was able to put up a more permanent structure with plywood walls and tin roof. They also built a 4 room school near the church with school desks and black boards. We had tried to get the landowner to let us do something more permanent than tarps, but they would not let us.

We are so grateful for all of you that helped make this reality for Pastor, thank you so very much. Also thanks to Jack and Sarah Krider, Steve Wilcox and Eli Willcox for coming down and sharing their lives on this trip.