Remodel time.

Perhaps God has a silly sense of humor, or maybe we are just plain nuts.

We are fixing up our third home in the last two years. We bought our house in Fallbrook and right away gutted the entire kitchen and living room, making it beautiful and, well, perfect. After we parted with that sweet house, we went to Haiti. When we moved  to Port de Paix, we had to remodel the entire campus which was about an acre  of concrete. We made the kitchen for OTB, and rehabbed dorms and a huge group kitchen. Then we moved to Cap, and enjoyed five months of living in a quiet home that didn’t need a much work done to it. And here were are now, August, and we are remodeling a gigantic house. The house we’re in now is plenty big for the two of us, but it’s not always just the two of us. When groups come, two small rooms and one bathroom just won’t cut it. In addition, LWI now has 7 large cargo containers needed for supplies and no where to put them. So the new place can accommodate all that and then some.

The cool part about all of our remodeling and working is we’ve always had people there to help along the way! (And a special thank you to all of you,you know who you are!) This time was no exception, and three Americans came  to help, along with a whole crew of Haitians  that have been working already.

Meet Bob. He’s been coming to Haiti for about ten years, what a great guy. He’s lead  repair teams, and helped with dozens of construction projects. He had planned to rehab a compound for LWI, then hoped to build one. Because of that, almost two years ago he shipped in an entire container of building supplies-complete with paint, screens, doors, all kinds of tools..it was amazing to see him set up shop! The first day we got there he dedicated an entire room and it was dubbed ‘home depot’ as it pretty much had everything and was just about as complete as the two tiny shops we have downtown! Incredible side story-all the tools he packed we so special because when his dad passed away, he gave them to Bob. But since Bob had all his own stuff, and he still of course wanted to still use them, he had them packed up and shipped over here! And they have been such a blessing, and been put to great use! In a place where on a good day we can find just a few things-what a huge gift it was to see him share such special treasures and have the all the right tools we needed.

Meet Jo and Charl. What a stinkin’ cute couple they are! They are dairy farmers (yes, real live legit farmers! Being from CA and all, I found them so fascinating!! ) They are from Wisconsin, and we sure had a fun time with them!! And wow, they know how to put in a full day of hard work! We needed a huge area leveled with rock where we wanted to set the containers, and we needed a way to remove the 200 or so plantain trees we had cut down to make room for trucks and containers. Turns out, Jo has been driving tractors since he was about four, and he did an amazing job clearing that acre! Charl was just a delight too, she was always so excited and positive-she was so refreshing to be around. Everyday when we headed home she would say, “Man we sure got a lot accomplished today!” and we did! Her and I tackled the inside of the house-cleaning, wiping, scraping, trimming, rolling, painting, painting!

 

 

 

You wouldn’t know it, but all that was done in just about two weeks! Thankfully we still have our other house, so we don’t have to live there while all this is going on.  Don’t worry, more pictures of the work and progress to come…