{"id":2599,"date":"2014-04-06T21:55:08","date_gmt":"2014-04-07T02:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/?p=2599"},"modified":"2014-04-06T22:38:22","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T03:38:22","slug":"a-day-in-the-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/?p=2599","title":{"rendered":"A Day in the Life….."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe days grow so full.\u00a0 I wonder how all is accomplished in the course of a few hours. \u00a0I\u2019m up\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>before daybreak. \u00a0It\u2019s too beautiful to miss the splendor of God\u2019s creation coming awake.\u00a0 With a hot cup of coffee in my hand, I watch as the One who loves us as deep as the blue of the heavens in the early morning sky and as wide as the sea causes the sun to break over the unending horizon and once again makes all things new!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Sunrise<\/a>

Sunrise over the ocean<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0And so, we plunge into another day, saying bonjour to the people as they pass by our porch, having breakfast, sharing that breakfast with the neighborhood children that call me Dad, begin work on the storage shed roof, come down the ladder to bend some flashing, stop to go across the hill to look at some timber with a carpenter friend to saw on the sawmill, back to work on the roof some more, stop for lunch and share with kids, make plans with a man for a garden, treat a lady with a bad back (need more Naproxen), finish the shed roof, see a pregnant lady and give her some prenatal vitamins, start drilling holes in the wall for the electrical wires, stop to give a towel to Martinee who had requested one, go to visit Soner, a friend and helper who has been sick, take a hike up another nearby hill to look at some land for a possible school site, continue working on installing the batteries and inverter,\u00a0 and finally stop to get cleaned up before supper.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>But the day is not over.\u00a0 Some ladies passing by are having trouble carrying a heavy sack of feed so I go to help, then answer a call to go and bandage a badly cut foot, give some food to a hungry neighbor, listen to some good music while children play on the deck, visit with some neighbors who come by, do some good reading before bed\u2026.. And so the days go by.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Many times I will see the last patient in the dark (need another head lamp), grateful for all the opportunities to share life and build relationships that speak of love and trust and the Kingdom of heaven!\u201d – Bill<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Bill<\/a>

Bill bandaging girl’s foot<\/p><\/div>\n

Medical needs are a daily occurrence. \u00a0We treat what we can.\u00a0 There are a lot of burns and cuts, especially to the feet, fungus on the skin, and people with respiratory problems.\u00a0\u00a0 We were able to give a diuretic (water pills) to a man with congestive heart failure who was retaining water badly.\u00a0 (If you are reading this and want to help specifically with medical needs, among the many things we use we are low on the following items:\u00a0 Naproxen (muscle relaxer), de-wormer, cold medications, anti-fungal creams, and oral suspension amoxicillin.)<\/p>\n

Once after rain poured all night, we woke up in the morning to the north wind blowing.\u00a0 Everything was wet.\u00a0 The neighbors could not make cooking fires as all the wood was soaked so there would be no breakfast and the children were cold. \u00a0It was probably 60 \u2013 65 degrees which is COLD to Haitians.\u00a0 We have two propane burners so we cooked up a big pot of labouyi, something similar to corn meal malt-o-meal, bought some bread from the bakery, and invited the neighbors for breakfast.<\/p>\n

\"Breakfast<\/a>

Breakfast with the children next door<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Meat is hard to come by on Ile a Vache.\u00a0 Someone butchered a cow one morning.\u00a0 We bought a hunk to cook for the evening meal and invited the neighbors.\u00a0 Sherlie and some ladies cooked for hours.\u00a0 By the time mealtime rolled around, children were pouring in the gate, more than had been invited! \u00a0It was a blessed time to get to share with the neighbors.<\/p>\n

After the sawmill\u2019s arrival in January, February saw it put to good use.\u00a0 A keel for a new fishing boat was cut.\u00a0 Boards for windows in a young man\u2019s house, boards for bookcases for the base, and many other items were made. \u00a0We are excited about the possibilities and blessings that the sawmill is \u00a0providing for the people of Ile a Vache.<\/p>\n

\"Raised<\/a>

Raised garden beds<\/p><\/div>\n

With the hope to inspire the neighbors to raise their own food in small kitchen gardens, we began one ourselves.\u00a0 Next to the base, five 3 x 15\u2019 raised beds with dead coconut trees for sides were put in.\u00a0 The plan is to raise vegetables from heritage seeds so the seeds can be saved to replant.\u00a0 We hired some young men of the neighborhood to help set up the project, building the raised beds, and hauling in the dirt to fill them.\u00a0 (The soil of our yard is mostly salty sand.)<\/p>\n

\"Children<\/a>

Children with OCC gfts<\/p><\/div>\n

Another Operation Christmas Child gift distribution was done at an interior village on Ile a Vache.\u00a0 The children from earlier distributions were finishing up their Greatest Journey courses, teaching them about Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0 It is always an amazing experience to share a gift with children who have so little.\u00a0 Please pray that the gifts and the teaching open hearts to the Lord.<\/p>\n

I was blessed to have several conversations with people about the Lord.\u00a0 A few requested Bibles and I was grateful a few extra ones were left from the gift distributions to be able to give them.<\/p>\n

Thank you for your prayers and support to make all this possible.\u00a0 We are still looking for 100 people to give $20 or more a month to enable us to continue working in Haiti.\u00a0 About a dozen have signed up so far and we are grateful for their help.\u00a0 If you can, please join in helping to bless the people of Haiti.\u00a0 May God bless you.<\/p>\n

Bill & Janet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe days grow so full.\u00a0 I wonder how all is accomplished in the course of a few hours. \u00a0I\u2019m up\u00a0before daybreak. \u00a0It\u2019s too beautiful to miss the splendor of God\u2019s creation coming awake.\u00a0 With a hot cup of coffee in my hand, I watch as the One who loves us …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","has-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2599"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2635,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2599\/revisions\/2635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}