You Don't Need to Wash Your Hands.

Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside the man which going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of man are what defile the man.

Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him; because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?

That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. - Mark 7

For one just returning from Haiti, this is GREAT news, to know that none of the soot and muck we gather traversing that land stains me. This is an encouragement, that what was embedded on my skin, in my hair and on my clothes does not affect my heart. As well, it removes an impediment before me which attempts to keep us away from the unclean world.

There is no unclean world, only unclean people. I have cleansed your heart and you will not be stained by the world. Go into the world, amidst the dirt which will cake your skin... and be a heart-cleansing source for others.

Our position before the Lord God Almighty is not based upon the state of our hands, our clothes, or our body; nor is it based upon our activities or inactivities. Rather, our cleanliness is "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe... being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Jesus Christ."

Somehow...

Somehow He is the God who has already overcome

as well as the God ever-present in our times of trouble

He is the God who is both here and over there

He has it figured out

while allowing us to figure it out

He is the BIG

the small

the BIG within the small

and the small within the BIG

Grace’s Mission and Our Mission

This is the first of two posts that have been stolen from Spring 2011 EMI intern Samantha Rowell (I believe a recent VT grad). I found the post in December 2015 while surfing. Sam had not touched her blog since the trip, but I wanted to hold onto the memories. I’m a cad, a thief, a man with no soul.
Sam’s blogspot site: http://samrowell.blogspot.com/

It was hard to resist the feelings of hopelessness that crept in as we drove around Haiti, but the people and mission of Hatian owned and operated Grace International was inspiring. Their vision is to bring opportunity to the Haitian’s and in doing that empower the people. One of the ways they are trying to do this is by building communities, not just homes. In the 2010 earthquake displacement camp tent village that Grace runs, we saw that they were applying expectations to the people who lived there and enforcing strict consequences. It seems simple, but I think this is a huge value to the Haitian people.

View of a portion of the displacement camp on Grace International’s property

Soccer game in Grace village

Our mission was to provide Grace with a master plan for a new community. We achieved that, but could not give as much detail as will be needed in the future for this site. EMI has worked with Grace for several years. It is very likely that this partnership will continue and we will be involved in helping them realize this long-term vision for the community at Lafiteau.

Our EMI team (Ash Wednesday)

The beautiful planning work of Dan Ford.

Our presentation at the end of the week to Grace Int’l

Be Flexible. Really.

This is the second of two posts that have been stolen from Spring 2011 EMI intern Samantha Rowell (I believe a recent VT grad). I found the post in December 2015 while surfing. Sam had not touched her blog since the trip, but I wanted to hold onto the memories. I’m a cad, a thief, a man with no soul.
Sam’s blogspot site: http://samrowell.blogspot.com/

The EMI staff really meant it when they said expect things to go awry and that we must be flexible. Our trip required a lot more flexibility than most.
First, it was a surprise that we would be riding back from the airport with another group (Fuller Center) that was there to help the same ministry we were, Grace International. The result was this –

35 people plus their luggage in a extended-cab truck

Upon arriving at Grace Village we found out that their other vehicle was broken down. So that meant our team and the Fuller group had to coordinate transportation the whole week between our respective schedules. The bus became known to the EMI team as “the cage.”

All those people came out of the cage

That first night we found out that the Mardi Gras celebrations would mean roads through Port au Prince would be blocked off. Sunday and Monday we could not drive through past 3-4 pm and on Tuesday we could not drive through at all. This meant we had to push our visit to our work site back to later in the week.EMI was involved with Grace Intl on a previous project in Fall 2010 and that site (Lambi) is fairly close to our new site (Lafiteau). Our team had planned to go to Lambi and do some survey stakes at that property. Because we could not get to Lafiteau, we went to Lambi at the beginning of the week (we did not have to travel through Port au Prince to get there.)

Yes, that is a large pig next to the surveyors

In a way I think this was a blessing in disguise for a few reasons:

There was a big rain event the night before our visit to the Lambi site and this helped the engineers and our client, Grace Intl, to see that drainage at this site was a bigger problem than first realized. Basically it’s a flood plain and not an easy good [edited by sokkaleo] site to build on.

Construction on the first house at Lambi started a few weeks before our arrival and when we got out there, we saw that it was not located according to the plans we gave them. It was misplaced enough to knock out space for several homes.

Because of these two things, some of our team spent half the week re-designing the Lambi site…not what we had intended to do during the week.

Another little surprise at Lambi. We spent a whole day putting stakes with flags in the ground to mark out the road and some drainage ditches. That night we found out that some kids had gone around and pulled them out of the ground…we think mostly because they wanted to play with flags.

Later in the week, on Lafiteau, some of the guys that went out to walk the perimeter of the site were met with men with guns and they were not happy that we were there. That night the team found out that the site was 13 acres. We were told it was going to be 105. The next day it turned out that we actually did have the whole 105 acres. But this information on how much property we had was not a promise. Grace is currently working on securing the property.

Beginning stages of planning

Walking the Perimeter of Lafiteau

Meeting with Grace to talk about the site

Voting & Taxes

Cobb County just participated in a local SPLOST election, where "based on complete but unofficial results, 42,971 people voted in the election: 21,525 for the SPLOST and 21,446 against, a difference of 79 votes." In a county census-certified at 688,078 residents, 6.2% of the people voted in an election to decide whether to incur a $492,000,000 sales tax over the next five years; the resulting decision (79 votes) represents 0.01% of the population. Regardless of the merits of the decision, it is both daunting and embarrassing that such a far-reaching decision is made by such a minority of the citizens.

It might be worth combining single-ballot elections into a greater election cycle - bringing minor elections like these into typical Primary or General Elections held in May and November of the year. You would certainly get a greater cross-section of the population through larger voter turn-out. However, you might end up with people voting without knowledge of the issue, similar to how we randomly pick judges on a ballot without any idea who they are (this certainly favors names at the beginning of the alphabet and ones that have a nice sound to them). Those who voted yesterday were certainly more informed and interested in the ballot measure based upon the fact that they came to the polls at all.

Regarding the merit of the vote itself, I would caution against the knee-jerk no-taxes concept that citizens throughout the U.S. are naturally drawn to. Some portion of the projects slated to be built would be shelved without the SPLOST money. However, a vast majority of them are geared towards Transportation improvements designed to improve our quality of (driving) life and enhance the livability and economics of being a resident, employee and employer within our County. If this SPLOST would have failed to pass, these projects would be funded through the County General Fund, being paid by our property taxes, which in themselves would need to be increased to cover these expenses. If one has the option, it is better to spread the tax burden out to continual transactions of the millions of people passing through the County on a day to day basis rather than on the yearly property tax bill of the much smaller pool of property owners within the County. This was a good decision, and the County has proven themselves generally responsible for their coffers (not including the County Board of Education, a continual source of local embarrassment).

Things I learned in Haiti

1. Mardi Gras is NOT the best time to visit the country, especially if you want to move through Port au Prince.
2. Schedules are more like intentions.
3. The camp never sleeps. With 15,000 people sleeping in shelters at the base of your window, someone is always talking, dogs are always barking, and roosters are always declaring their territory.
4. On Wednesday night, Ash Wednesday, the end of Mardi Gras, we were able to enjoy listening to either (a) a yelping voodoo women from 3am to 5am or (b) a woman having a baby. There was some contention on which it was. I suppose it depends on how soft-hearted you are as to what you heard that night. You decide.
5. 
   

My Day

4:30am - Wake up, look around, and see everyone else asleep. Scheduled to leave compound in an hour for the airport. Lay back in exhaustion.

4:55am - Get up. I should shower, but what's the point? We're just going to drive through PAP anyway.

5:30am - Packed, eaten, ready to board. where's the big blue cage (BBC) flat-bed 37-Haitian passenger bus?

5:50am - The 7 passenger panel van arrives, but we have a team of 15 and our luggage...

6:10am - Team Leader Rex makes the call: the team of 9 who fly out first are to board the van and leave now. We'll figure out what to do next.

6:20am - Van is packed and heads to the guarded compound gate. There it is stopped by the guards - the BBC driver called and told the guards to NOT let the van go. Hence the early morning shouting match: "WE'VE GOT TO GO!"

6:25am - I run across the compound, through the camp and into the girl's home to get the boss.

6:30am - One hour late, the first 9 teammates, their luggage, a driver and a security guard exit in a 7 passenger van for the airport (they make it off).

7:00am - BBC driver shows up, a bit late.

7:15am - The remaining 6 teammates, myself included, are loaded up and out the gate for the airport.

8:00am - Arrive at Port au Prince airport.

8:35am - Sitting at the gate after 3 rounds of security checks and ticketing.

10:15am - 4 teammates board for their flight to Ft Lauderdale. The 2 of us remaining are scheduled for a noon flight to Miami.

11:15am - Miami flight time is changed to 1:21pm

12:15pm - Miami flight time is changed to 2:21pm - we are not making progress here.

1:15pm - Miami flight time is changed to 3:56pm - this does not bode well - we go to the counter and reschedule our 7pm flight from Miami to ATL to 10pm - otherwise we won't have time to catch our connection. "Can we have a meal voucher?" "NO"

2:00pm - We return to the counter. "I don't have any money." She gives us two $10 vouchers, which we spend on something akin to fair food.

2:20pm - Miami flight time is changed to 4:04pm. Strangely, this is good news - the time to flight is actually reducing.

3:50pm - We board after 7 hours and 50 minutes in PAP.

7:10pm - Arrive in Miami, losing an hour in flight thanks to Daylight Savings.

8:15pm - Through immigration, picking up checked baggage, dropping off checked baggage, being force to LEAVE the airport and then reenter and go through security again (excellent airport design, mind you) - at the Gate to ATL.

8:50pm - Co-waiting Teammate arrives, having gone through customs as a Canadian citizen. We go eat at an neighboring restaurant and toast the day's adventures.

10:00pm - Board our flight - in honor of the remainder of the trip, it is 15 minutes late.

12:20am - Arrive in Hartsfield Airport - ATL.

12:45am - With everyone else walking away with their luggage and the conveyor turned off, I begin to expect I won't be coming home with my bags tonight. I walk Dave to his Hotel Shuttle and run outside to tell my Dad that I still need to get my bags.1:12am - After filling out a claim form for my bag that is still sitting in Miami, I crawl in the back of my parents' car and am headed for home.

1:56am - Am walking upstairs, giving my kids a kiss, hugging my wife, and heading for a shower.

2:23am - Fall asleep.

Day in the Life in Haiti

It is Mardi Gras, arguably not the best time to take a team to Haiti. They are closing the roads in Port au Prince, which happens to be between our beds and our jobsite. So, rather than heading North, we move West. Goodbye Latifeau (the reason we came). Hello Lambi (last November's site).

Today we Stake (laying out the November design on the ground). We intended to do this work later this week, once the Latifeau design work was complete. You learn pretty quickly here that schedules are more like guidelines.

The site has changed a bit since November. It turns out that since Grace purchased the property recently and word has spread that we are putting 58 homes across the 6 acres, a few interlopers decided to start digging footing-trenches around the site. At first glance you would assume that they wanted to build homes themselves. But a few investigative questions later it turns out they just wanted squatters rights, where they can claim ownership and ask to be paid (a second time, it turns out) for the land.

A few additional trenches here and there are nothing for a team of highly-disciplined and focused Surveyors. However, one of the local donkeys decided he needed a drink from the recently rain-filled trenches.

First front leg down,

then second,

then head forward, mouth leaning towards water,

leaning...

leaning (wait, this water is further down than I thought)...

wait for it.... and, roll rest of your donkey body into the ditch, head down, legs flailing, with a few 'HEE-HAWs' thrown in for a proper sense of decorum.

After a few moments of curiosity, sympathy and muffled laughter (we don't want to

embarrass the donkey), we turn our heads towards the pig (or is it a hog, I can never remember the difference), who happens to be wallowing in the fresh mud that we just finished tromping through, over a series of stakes telling the construction team where to dig a drainage ditch. How do you translate into Creol, "Dig the ditch under the pig"?

I'm pretty sure in our work contracts that we don't get paid to re-stake. I need to look up 'hazard pay' as well.