Thursday, 16 February 2012

A team of eight men arrived in Haiti on Tuesday, February 14.  Gary Nordeman and his son Shane, Gary Aikema, Dan Vanderveen, James Poort, Andrew Bosma, Dave Otten, and Kevin Eigenbrood.  They have a lot of big projects that they are going to be working on for 10 days.

Some of the work that they are doing is:
     1.  Building a new food depot.
     2.  Building a roof over the propane storage area.
     3.  Building two more storage cupboards.
     4.  Building a library.
     5.  Repositioning three walls so that we can have three bigger classrooms.
     6.  Building a playground.
     7.  Putting in a couple of washrooms.
     8.  Building awnings over the windows.
     9.  Building a new wheelchair ramp.
     10.  Putting razor wire above the gate.


A lot of the wood for building depots and shelves.


All the baggage that the team brought.

Our new Makita drill set.  Yeah team, thanks for bringing it.


Gary installing shade cloth for the playground.
 
Taking apart a platform for the new playground.

Father son combo, what a team!

Cutting pieces off, takes three.

Gary teaching the difference between a Robertson and a Philips
  
Drilling for tapcons.

Securing the food depot to the floor.

Daniel hard at work, loves the change of pace.
  
Kevin teaching Frankilin how to use a skill saw.


Trying to fix the welder!
 
The shade clothe is almost done.



Sunday, 12 February 2012

Moving Day


After six months in our house, the time came for us to move on.

When Mindy's father was visiting he helped Cornelius take the big furniture to the new house. They brought four loads in Randy's truck. Thanks Mr. B!

Wednesday and Thursday, Mindy packed up most of their worldly possessions. Cornelius assisted her with the packing and heavy lifting of boxes. Then, on Friday morning some of their friends came to help them move. They trucked everything over the new house...two blocks away. It only took four more vehicle loads. By 10am everything was unloaded, and scattered throughout the house. Kati, Karen, and Mindy began unpacking the boxes and suitcases right away. The gang stopped around noon for a short break and ate sandwiches from Epi'dor. Randy and Cornelius left to go and buy some beds for the house, while the women contined to unpack and organize the house. Around 2:00 the ladies were exhausted. So they sat on the couch the rest of the afternoon and watched a Barbie movie with the girls (and listened to the Beattles).

Cornelius and Chloe set up the beds when they arrived. Now Chloe has her own bed to sleep in!

Here are a few pictures from the adventure....all in a days work! 
I was big fan of the work Kati was doing, she blew me away!

Randy had a wheelly good time helping,
he didn't even get tired.

Everything made it safely!

Cool! They got all the food.

Keep on trucking Jason.

Hang in there Maia, we are almost done!

We had a ball of fun moving.
 
It was a cooking hot day, but thankfully we were done by noon.
 
At the end of the day we were all a bunch of basket cases, tired and exhausted, ready for a break.
 
Maia, you put that under where?


Wednesday, 8 February 2012

Bible Month at Adoration Christian Centre

Toute Écriture est inspirée de Dieu,
et utile pour enseigner, pour convaincre,
pour corriger, pour instruire dans la justice


All Scripture is God-breathed
and is useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and training in righteousness

                                                 2 Timothy 3: 16


Adoration Christian Centre has dedicated the month of February to studying the Word of God.   Throughout the month we are doing several activities all centred around studying the Word of God and knowing it more.  February is a month in Haiti where Carnaval and the things of Carnaval are filling peoples' minds and time.  We want to combat this, and instead fix our eyes and ears on God's Word and what He is telling us.  So we have come up with several activities that we will be busy with this month, to fill our minds with the things of God, and to know Him more.  Not only is the school participating in this but the church is also getting involved.   We have dedicated this Bible passage for the overall arching theme of the month. 

Josué 1:8
Que ce livre de la loi ne s'éloigne point de ta bouche; médite-le jour et nuit, pour agir fidèlement selon tout ce qui y est écrit; car c'est alors que tu auras du succès dans tes entreprises, c'est alors que tu réussiras.


Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Here are a few of the activities we are doing:
1.  Reading of the Bible: We hope to read through the whole Bible this month.  We have posted every book of the Bible on a chart and each class is choosing a different book (or books) to read through during this month.  Individuals and families from the Church have also signed up, and secondary students have selected books to read through to.  Our goal is to try to read the whole Bible during this month.

2.  Explanation of the Bible: Pastor Octavius is also going to spend time with the Grades 3 - 6 classes and explain the overall arching themes of the Bible.  He is going to explain the relevence of each book of the Bible and connect it all together. 

For this he is going to use Luke 24: 27
Et, commençant par Moïse et par tous les prophètes, il leur expliqua dans toutes les Écritures ce qui le concernait.
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.


3.  Bible Trivia: At the end of  the month we will be having a Bible trivia within the school.  The school will be broken into 3 different levels.  Each group will be given a some questions pertaining to the subjects that have been given them and we will have a trivia challenge with this.  A winner from each section will receive a prize.

4. Bible memorization: The students will be memorizing different verses from the Bible and will be saying them to Pastor Octavius.  Which ever class has the most Bible passages memorized will receive a prize at the end of the month.

5. Morning Bible Reading: Every morning from 7:00 until 7:30 anyone from the community is invited to participate in the reading  from the book of Acts.  After the reading of the chapter is done, time is taken to share, explain or ask questions about the specific passage that has just been read.
Please pray for Adoration Christian Centre throughout the next month that the children may be introduced to new parts of the gospel that they have never seen before.  Pray that through the reading of the gospel the children may learn more about God and His holy will for them in their lives.  Pray for the leaders of this centre, the teachers, the director, the pastor and all those involved that God might use them to further his kingdom work.

Sunday, 5 February 2012

In the air!


Dad Beintema getting ready to take off.
 
Dad in the air.
 
Looking down the runway.

Port-au-Prince

Cite Soleil.
 
Where all the containers come in.

Market day, look how crowded it gets.

The mountains.

Uh oh a cloud up ahead.

Mountains along the coast.

My pilot, Jason Krul

A lake with a dam for producing electricity.

Friday, 3 February 2012

CHLOE + CAMERA + RUNNING = GOOD PHOTOS + DISASTER

Chloe was allowed to use her mother's camera for the first time on Wednesday afternoon.  Mindy had just received this camera, hand delivered from Canada by her parents from her husband.  You see her husband had left her old camera outside in the ONE rain storm that we had in December.  Mindy was so excited to have a camera again.  While sitting watching our neighbours play a volleyball game at school Chloe asked if she could use the camera to take some pictures.  She has her father's eye for getting some good shots.  Here are some of the 100 pictures that she took.  Chloe was having so much fun and loving this new 'toy' that had been given to her.  We were impressed with the natural talent that she had.  Then disaster struck!  She was running after Maia and Asher when out of nowhere two metal bolts happened to grow out of the ground before her feet.  As far as we know they were not there when Maia and Asher were running by.  She went flying and then everything went into slow motion.  The camera went sailing through the air; her hands and knees scraped the ground.  She got up, not knowing what was worse, her hands and knees or the new 'toy' she was allowed to play with.  As she came to Mommy and Daddy she had that look on her face like 'It totally was not my fault, how was I suppose to know that there would all of a sudden be two bolts growing out of the ground.'  So now Mindy is cameraless again until we go back to Canada.  We have now gone through two cameras in the last 6 months.  I think we are in competition with Randy and Karen: see who can go through the most cameras while we live in Haiti.  :)

When all was said and done it was a fun time.  Thank you to all that took the time to pose for pictures for Chloe.  She had a tonne of fun and we really enjoyed watching her try something new!