It has been a busy week with the team from Covenant Presbyterian Church in Fort Myers Florida. Here is the group at HAFF -- Harry and Jane Volker, Brian Cumbow, Shirley Lehnert, Bill Whitaker and Victor Arias. They arrived Saturday March 14 and left Saturday March 25. Thanks to Brian for this and most of the following photos. 
During the week they were joined by Jerry Downham, a home builder from Lafayette Indiana who was lent to the team from Caleb and Debbie Lucien in Pignon.
With the help of Jerry, Greg, Dr Jerry, Zach and the Haitian carpenters, the guys on the team made great progress on the dorm porch expansion. Here is most of the combined team with 3 of the ladies who cook at the dorm -- the expansion is for them as much as for any of us!
They built the roof trusses on the basketball court.....
And then carried them to the porch and hoisted them into place with ropes and muscles. Then they attached them together with purlins to which the metal roofing would be nailed. The Haitian carpenters made short work of getting the roofing material up.
The team also completed the job of taking down walls in the kitchen to open it up and make way for the concrete work surfaces that will be poured later. The ladies can see what it will be like now and Madame Raisuis was actually bouncing, she was so excited to see the progress!
Once the rubble from the walls was loaded in the truck, Greg and some of the team dumped it into the bad mud hole at the crossing of the Bohoc River.
The ladies on the team did all kinds of things. Jane is the ECHO librarian, so she and Shirley did some much needed work at the BTI library. Shirley also did some photocopying of final exams for the school.
Jane and Shirley also worked with Barb and Mme Gesson and me in Bon Fanm to teach the ladies a new quilting technique. Last year we did small squares with the ladies.
This year, Jane showed the ladies how to do a block called (I think) Kings Star and a modified Log Cabin block called Split Rail.
They also worked with a group of local ladies to show them the Split Rail quilt later in the week. The ladies caught on fast and loved the new skill!
The team got to do some fun stuff for themselves as well. A number of the group went with Greg and the Jesus Film crew to Ravine Longue and St Raphael to show the Jesus Film. They helped set up and were blessed by the large groups that came to see the film.
Brian and Victor climbed Morne (Mount) Pignon on Friday afternoon!
They were astounded by how quickly their guide, the young lady with Brian, was able to climb in a dress and flip flops!
And they saw some amazing views ....
....and the start of a beartiful sunset. The sore muscles the next day were worth it!
Team visits to HAFF are usually topped off by a visit to the HAFF gift shop -- Zandolit, named for the chameleons always present in the area. There are over 200 local vendors who place their own or purchased crafts in the shop to be sold on consignment. One hundred percent of the purchase price goes to the vendor. Through Zandolit, HAFF teams this year have put many hundreds of dollars into the local economy just since January.
This is the team that arrived March 7th. They flew into Pignon on MFI and this is a photo that June had taken with her camera at the airport. They are standing under the wing of the airplane. The team is, from the left, Rosemary Woytowitz, Annie Herbert, Wayne Phillips, Rosie Hetman and June Phillips.
The team came prepared to distribute clothing and blankets, do puppet shows at Junior church, make photocopies, bake cakes, make a Chinese dinner and a birthday party for the Bohoc missionaries, participate in the BTI soccer team festival, clean out part of the intern house and move an intern and to move the dorm porch and kitchen furniture and many other jobs.
As soon as the team got to the HAFF campus, June and Annie went right to the Bon Fanm class. There are a group of ladies at Lighthouse Fellowship who are praying for the Bon Fanm ladies. June wanted to bring the ladies greetings from her church and to give them the hats you see in the photo. The hats were made for the ladies by a woman at Lighthouse Fellowship. The women love their hats and are blessed by the prayers -- Thanks Lighthouse ladies!!!
.Rose spent time in the clinic with Madame Telius on Thursday. They saw some patients with blood pressure problems and some with colds. They also handed out some baby packs -- diapers, clothes, toys, shampoo, powder, etc.
The team baked cakes for the school festival on Friday (more about the festival below!).
The team also helped us move things around -- Carolyn from the Wilson's house to the north side of the intern house and dorm kitchen and porch things to the Wilson's house so we could continue to feed the team while we demolished old parts of the dorm porch and kitchen and built new parts!
The Wilson house, with the dorm furniture, served as the perfect venue to entertain about 8 of the Chilean UN troops posted to Pignon. They had challenged the BTI soccer team to a match. And for the first time in 5 or 6 meetings, the UN won the match. We then invited them to supper. We all had a great time making ourselves understood in a combination of Spanish, English and Creole! And the food, cooked by our Haitian ladies was tremendous.
This is Barb sitting on the soda cooler on by the old porch wall dividing the old and new sections of the porch. Behind her you can see the new wall and posts of the porch expansion. Behind her shoulder is the "toy" Greg borrowed from a local development organization. It will cut through concrete like butter. Well, maybe not like butter .....
Last Saturday, Greg and Zach and Barb and Diranot cut and banged and pulled down the old dividing wall and posts separating the old and new parts of the porch. Later, Rhoda helped Greg load the rubble into the truck to be hauled away. Then Monday, the masons poured the floor.
If you notice behind the new wall, there is the swing tree alive and well and the swing invitingly hanging in place!
Here is another view of the new porch and kitchen extension from the swing. As you can see, all is well with the swing! In this photo, the wall dividing the old and new parts of the porch has been taken down and the floor has been poured. As a matter of fact, I took this photo today! The blocky part to the right of the porch extension is the kitchen extension.
With the old porch wall out (boy was that a mess!) and the floor poured, you can see how big the porch will be! The area behind the new wall with 2 windows is the kitchen extension with a store room. Immediately behind the windows will be the dish washing area. There are still walls to come down and counters to build in the kitchen area. When that is done, there will be a pass through (where the low beige wall is now) for food and dishes from the kitchen to the porch. And behind that, instead of a wall with a door, there will be a work island. We are all very excited about this project, especially the ladies who cook for the teams. Speaking of which, the team coming in today will be roofing the porch and kitchen.
It has been a busy week with the team from Covenant Presbyterian Church in Fort Myers Florida. Here is the group at HAFF -- Harry and Jane Volker, Brian Cumbow, Shirley Lehnert, Bill Whitaker and Victor Arias. They arrived Saturday March 14 and left Saturday March 25. Thanks to Brian for this and most of the following photos. 
Team visits to HAFF are usually topped off by a visit to the HAFF gift shop -- Zandolit, named for the chameleons always present in the area. There are over 200 local vendors who place their own or purchased crafts in the shop to be sold on consignment. One hundred percent of the purchase price goes to the vendor. Through Zandolit, HAFF teams this year have put many hundreds of dollars into the local economy just since January. 
This is the team that arrived March 7th. They flew into Pignon on MFI and this is a photo that June had taken with her camera at the airport. They are standing under the wing of the airplane. The team is, from the left, Rosemary Woytowitz, Annie Herbert, Wayne Phillips, Rosie Hetman and June Phillips.
As soon as the team got to the HAFF campus, June and Annie went right to the Bon Fanm class. There are a group of ladies at Lighthouse Fellowship who are praying for the Bon Fanm ladies. June wanted to bring the ladies greetings from her church and to give them the hats you see in the photo. The hats were made for the ladies by a woman at Lighthouse Fellowship. The women love their hats and are blessed by the prayers -- Thanks Lighthouse ladies!!! 
The team also helped us move things around -- Carolyn from the Wilson's house to the north side of the intern house and dorm kitchen and porch things to the Wilson's house so we could continue to feed the team while we demolished old parts of the dorm porch and kitchen and built new parts!
This is Barb sitting on the soda cooler on by the old porch wall dividing the old and new sections of the porch. Behind her you can see the new wall and posts of the porch expansion. Behind her shoulder is the "toy" Greg borrowed from a local development organization. It will cut through concrete like butter. Well, maybe not like butter .....
Here is another view of the new porch and kitchen extension from the swing. As you can see, all is well with the swing! In this photo, the wall dividing the old and new parts of the porch has been taken down and the floor has been poured. As a matter of fact, I took this photo today! The blocky part to the right of the porch extension is the kitchen extension. 
With the old porch wall out (boy was that a mess!) and the floor poured, you can see how big the porch will be! The area behind the new wall with 2 windows is the kitchen extension with a store room. Immediately behind the windows will be the dish washing area. There are still walls to come down and counters to build in the kitchen area. When that is done, there will be a pass through (where the low beige wall is now) for food and dishes from the kitchen to the porch. And behind that, instead of a wall with a door, there will be a work island. We are all very excited about this project, especially the ladies who cook for the teams. Speaking of which, the team coming in today will be roofing the porch and kitchen. 
