Reinhard News: 10/5/08

We arrived back in Haiti almost 1 month ago today. It is amazing how time flies. We enjoyed our furlough time, but it was good to get back settled in to “home”. Unfortunately our date for arriving was right in the middle of Hurricane Hanna, so we were delayed a few days but, thankfully, by the time we got back to Cayes, most of the flooding was down and people were taking stock of what they were left with.

The situation here has leveled out in some ways since the hurricanes and school is finally going to try to open tomorrow all over the country, but the hurricanes have made some long lasting changes that are making life more difficult here in the south. The one road from Port to Cayes goes by a big lake in Miragoane. The whole landscape of the area around this lake was changed and now a river from one to the other connects the lake and the ocean and the lake was below sea level. This has caused the lake to flood over the road and it has no outlet now. At first they were still able to use the road by turning the vehicles off and pushing them through and big trucks and buses were driving through. Now the water has continued to rise and the road is no longer passable. The buses that travel from Port to Cayes to Jeremie and back every day are the lifelines for commerce within the southern peninsula. Now people have to go as far as the lake and then unload everything and wait for a boat to ferry them across. Then load up on a bus on the other side to continue the journey. This adds hours to the trip, not to mention expense that people can’t afford. They are working on making a road all the way around the south side of the lake through the mountains. At this point, a 4-wheel drive vehicle can make it, but they say it is not an easy road.

Not being able to get big trucks through also means that we are starting to see shortages here in Cayes, with fuel being the biggest problem. Our compound has a pretty big diesel tank for the generator, so we can last awhile, but the clinic here will have trouble soon if the road doesn’t get opened up soon. We are also starting to see the stores in town run out of many of the basics. Again, we are pretty well stocked up here, but for the many people who live day by day this causes problems upon problems.  Please pray for the many people here in Haiti whose lives seem to be filled with one hardship after another. 

On a more exciting note, we have started building what will eventually become our future home. At this point it will be our house and a small guest quarters for short-term help and then someday hopefully another unit hooked on to ours. The ground that we are building on is very steep, so the men are doing a lot of excavation, all by hand, and the basement will be a walkout. We’ll try to keep you updated with pictures as we go, but it is great to see it finally happening. Tim is thrilled to be able to give a few men some work and his biggest challenge is to try to get as much done as he can even though we are in the rainy season now. There is another missionary family coming through World Team who are in line for the house we are currently living in and they are coming in January 2009, so we are under some time pressure so they don’t have to live in temporary housing here too long.

Along with this project, the regular work of the Construction Dept. goes on. Our first team of the season comes in three weeks, so please pray that we will be ready and all will go well. We are all excited about some extra help that arrived here on August 12 in the form of Sheila Moser and Abby Gerber. Sheila is working directly with the Construction Department and helping run the Guest House. This will take a huge load off of me, and for that I am thankful!!. Abby works for the Childcare Office and even though we don’t see her during the day, it’s great to have her around for evenings and weekends. I’m sure both of these ladies would appreciate prayers as they work on learning the language and getting used to the culture around them.

Thanks for all the prayers and even though our internet and phones haven’t been working well at all since we’ve been back, (something we are working hard to correct), we’d love to hear from you. Eventually we get our e-mail either at our house if it’s on, or at a neighbor’s house if it is off. Take care and keep on keepin’ on.

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