Letter from one new home owner - Pastor Gusmagne (Pignon)

We have received a wonderful letter from one of the new Prefab home owners in Pignon, read and rejoice as a little effort makes a world of difference:

Tuesday July 5th, 2011

Dear Ms. Marilyn,
First of all, we would like to greet you in the name of Jesus Christ. God can do the beautiful things for his son (s) and his daughter (s). We are so happy for this great and nice house that you and your team have provided for our family. You know that this house has become a historic place where everybody can come and see the great thing that God has done. God will bless you. He will bless all of you! Thank you, thank you, thank you and thank you.
(I can just hear him saying "Mesi anpil, anpil, anpil, anpil!" Can't you?)
May God be with you and all the people who have given the money to help to fund our new home. Our family will pray for all of you. Remember, "God loves all the people who love to give." God can bless you with everything that you need and you will always have more than enough to do all kinds of good things for others. Please say Hi to all the people who were here with the first team the first time (May 2011).
Pastor Joseph Gusmagne

Three down, two more to go - Homes for Haiti

We have some more exciting news from Haiti:

Hi team and Trinity prayer team: good news – Mark called last evening. They completed the 3rd home! That means the family at Monac, Pastor Gusmagne and his family, and the family (Isaiah Pierre) at La Jeune/Bohoc who had dug their latrine and who were

working on their outdoor kitchen have received their homes. They are so excited and thrilled to be in their new dwellings.
God is so very good. Mark and Keith leave Pignon today for Port au Prince. The fellows are tired! Tomorrow they fly back to Canada. Pray for them as God brings them to your mind.
Marilyn

First Homes for Haiti is built and being lived in!

We have another update to celebrate!

On 2011-07-01, at 9:54 PM, Marilyn McIlroy wrote:

Hi team: Frere Mark called me tonight to say that they completed the house at Monak today (home with a view)! He said that it was very moving to be able to hand the keys over to the family. They were so thrilled/overwhelmed. The lady of the house went about sweeping and getting everything in order for the family. The guys are beat tonight. All the materials are at Pastor Gusmagne's house.

They will begin the job tomorrow (Saturday). Mark says getting some of the work done is like "pushing rope, ha!"
Anyway, keep praying for Mark and Keith. They are troopers! Mme Janvier is feeding them well he says!
Blessings to all.
Hey Ian, your prayers for rain, brought torrential rains for a number of weeks; it was very muddy for awhile! I will keep you posted.

Love Marilyn

Update on the Five (5) Homes for Haiti Project

Below is a little update concerning the next team from Canada, that will be helping in assembling the Homes for Haiti in Lajeune. From an email from Marilyn:

Hi team members: just want to let you know that Mark Pratt and another gentleman, Keith Burke are travelling to Haiti tomorrow (June 28^th, 2011) to hopefully build houses.
Mark is pumped about the project. Keith is from Three Hills, AB and is new to Haiti.

I would ask that you please pray for the fellows in the coming days.
They arrive in Port-au-Prince tomorrow at 1:15pm on AA. The plan is that Pastor Giordani or one of the chauffeur's, Frere Ismaye or Frere Emmanuel will meet them at the airport, and take them directly to Hinche. They will gather up tools that are in Hinche.
On Wednesday, they will travel early to La Jeune. Mark's plan is to start with the house with the view, then go out to Pignon to build Pastor Gusmaye's. After that they will do the next 3.

Please pray for the guys that the plans and the project will go smoothly.

Pray that they get to Haiti without issue along with their luggage.
Pray for safety as they travel on the roads.
Pray for some dry days to do the building. Ian your prayers for rain have been answered over and over again. They have had lots of rain and there is lots of mud.
Pray especially for safety as they travel on that road out to Monak. That would be extremely treacherous if it was wet.
Pray for strength and good health for the fellows as well.
Pray for good working relations with the new team of builder men.
Pray for other details that come to mind. ie that the generator would work well.

The Homes are finally up country in La Jeune!

Below is a message from Marilyn, concerning good news for the homes:
Hi Team:
I just received the email below from Pastor Abdon. Here are the details of the house panels etc.
"I hope you are well. Pastor Altidor arrived with the container in Hinche on Friday evening. Frere Elizer (with dump truck) carried materials on Saturday but there was lots of rain; the road became mud (as you can imagine). Thanks to God, almost all the materials have arrived in La Jeune. They will finish with the final load today. Everything arrived in fairly good shape except that everything was mixed up?? Because there was so much that the garage was full up; they needed to put panels in the dining hall. Today they brought in the doors and windows in 2 trips. We will communicate more later."
So that is the scoop.
Blessings to all.
Marilyn

Finally, some creature stories.

This morning, while the teens cleaned out a cluttered garage, we had our first critter encounter. A blackberry sized tarantula crawled out of a pipe and hid in a pile of cement bags that we had to move. After a careful dismantling of the pile, we found it, and after playing with it, killed it. The adrenaline kept us on our toes, and we were paranoid for the rest of our cleaning.
Later, while moving rocks, we found four more, all bigger, over the span of an hour. Made for quite an interesting day of work.
James, for the Haiti team.
Sent from my BlackBerry® device from Digicel

Just another day of Haitian consistency

The entire team is very thankful for the prayers, please keep them up, we will most likely need them.
I know that reading vague blogs can be unsatisfying, but many stories so far have too much context to type on a blackberry.
We are all looking forward to church tomorrow, and as we sing, we'll miss Derek and the band but also thoroughly enjoy the passion surrounding us.
About half way through our trip and still going strong while looking forward to what the second half will bring.
Have a great sabbath,
James for the Haiti team.
Sent from my BlackBerry® device from Digicel