Good Evening:
All is well at Hope House this evening and a little livelier now that Eric, Tina and Matthew have joined Rene and Richard who arrived last night. The former three transferred over from Marie's this AM first thing. Rene and Richard's arrival last evening went smoothly. I got to the airport early enough that I got a prime location parking spot, right close to the exit..what a bonus! I had about 2 hours to kill though before I expected to see them, so I sat in a local park under the shade of a big tree enjoying the breeze, a cold coke and the passing scene. It didn't take too long for 3 young men to start up a conversation with me. Their chit chat was quite amusing and it helped consume some of the time. They couldn't believe I had been in Haiti, nearly as long as they had been alive...they were 2 yrs old when I came to the country. When I thought it was time to go stand at the exit gate, there I found a former colleague of mine from HAS awaiting the chauffeur so we had a nice chat until I saw tags saying flight 803 on the suitcases of people exiting. Then it was time to move to the next step closer to the fence to make it easier for them to spot me and vice versa.

Today we packed up two vehicles (mine and the Isuzu) and headed to the school. The pick up truck is still under repair. Jean is trying to piece together the items to fix the starter in order to save us a huge bill for the purchase of a new one..for that I am willing to be patient. Tomorrow two body shop guys are to come and make the repairs to the big truck so we can get it back on the road...just in time for another possible fuel shortage. It is not a definite thing, but folks have been warning me to stock up.......which I do to the best of my ability. I hope it does not come to pass, but time will tell.

Apparently there was another tremor yesterday that a lot of people felt. I am either getting immune to them or am just in a different spot when they are going by as I have not felt the last couple of tremors that people have reported or I have heard about on the news.

Today Clovis and I met with the parents committee at the school as they are concerend about their children's safety......a natural concern to my way of thinking. They wanted to know if we could/would consider the use of tents. We had a good discussion, Clovis and I explained all that we had done to help reassure the children and to prepare for this new reality that we are dealing with. I am happy to say they seemed satisfied with the information we shared and felt more comfortable with things as they are. It was nice too to be able to point out that the Ministry of Public works had given our buildings the greens sign which meant they are safe to use, in their estimation.

My step out in faith that I took about getting this week of Mission trip and medical clinic put together is paying off. I have two young bright Haitian doctors that are willing to work with us and several of the university students are set to help and I have one woman who has translated for us before working with us. Tomorrow we are helping Dr Laurent with his work in the Santo area and we will be working in one of the camps....actually the one set up at Santo 17 of which I have sent several pictures. It is going to be a new experience for all of us and I appreciate the team's sense of adventure as they delve into the unknown with me.

On that note I will bid everyone fond farewell for this evening.

Debbie