StephenByxbe.com

Working on the depot for 12 hours straight, with no real breaks, probably wasn’t the best idea. This morning I woke up and I think everything was sore and everything popped. To say I struggled out of bed is an understatement, but I was up at 5am getting ready to go.

This week has been very difficult with supplies. We are working 30-40 mins away from Terre Noir, 1 hour away from the block manufacturer and we only have 1 big truck to bring supplies to 8 houses. My phone has been constantly ringing with people saying we don’t have this.. we don’t have that.. I have been gong crazy. On top of that, Ronic’s truck broke down twice this week so we were left with absolutely nothing. It has been very stressful, but somehow productive at the same time.

I went and checked on all of the job sites this morning. They are all going very well. We spent 4 hours this morning checking out the sites and getting cement. I finally made it back to the compound and snuck in a small nap. Afterwards it was off to the bank and town for some errands. I took up the rest of the day driving around town with BMB.

Tonight has been fairly relaxing. Just taking some time to sit down and think. That hasn’t happened in a while!

Maybe I will make it to bed early tomorrow!

Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!! Hope everyone is doing well.

Always with Love,

Stephen

Finally.. it will let me write. I think my blog wanted me to take the night off last night. However, I stayed up late trying to make it work. No worries. I didn’t disappear… I am still here.

So let’s see. What happened yesterday. OOoooo some randomness on the job site. One of my workers (Fredo) stops by the compound before work. He has a headache, but is telling me something about gang members trying to steal from him or from the workers and shooting at him or someone else. It didn’t really make much since, even after Byambison came out there. But, this alerted me that something was going on. After Fredo left, Ronic came by to give me an update on everything. He told me there had been some confrontation at one of the sites resulting in him only being able to take what they could use in one day. Where we are working now there are a lot of problems with things “sprouting legs” and walking off. There also seems to be a problem with people forcefully taking items… What I don’t understand is why someone would pull a gun on a worker for a bag of cement. Really… are they going to pull a gun… hoist a 100lb bag of cement onto their shoulder and expect not to get hit with a shovel as they “run away” with a bag of cement. This is just me thinking.. this has not happened.. so please don’t worry.

Anyways, I am pretty good about rambling on and on about all kinds of things. I wish I could stay on topic, but I think the blog would probably be boring then. Ok. So, yesterday. I am on foot in Cite Soleil all morning checking out job sites. At first I was with Ronic and then I saw Marconelle walking around so he joined. We scoped everything out, fixed a few problems, heard the real story about the “stealer,” and talked with some friends. The real story about the stealer was – a guy robbed the grocery store next to one of the job sites. The whole community started chasing the guy and he got scared so he pointed the gun behind him and shot, kinda up into the air. If it had not been up in the air it would have hit Rigo or Fredo. That was what Fredo was trying to tell me. I wasn’t as concerned after I heard this. I thought someone came up to them stealing from them.

After this, I had no transportation, so Marconelle and I took a nice walk back to Blanchard. It was kind of relaxing. We had a good talk. I love Marconelle, he is awesome. His new title is “Driver and Body Guard.”

After lunch, I hopped on the bicycle and peddled around Terre Noir checking on the roofing projects. It started to rain while I was riding around which made it kind of nice. I stopped by a friends house and said hello. I hadn’t seen him in awhile. By the time I made it back on my bike it was time to call it quits for the day. I ended up having to run some late errands with Ronic so I made it back to the compound around 8:30pm.

Now on to today. I think 75% of the staff woke up today with a headache and other sickly feelings. We all took a little longer to get going today than usual. Long story short… today was a little more of slow day. However, we finished framing one house and finished with the metal on 1 other. I had to make a bank run and then when I got back everyone, including me crashed. I was out until 6pm. Not sure what happened, but I hope everyone is better tomorrow.

This next week is going to be sad. We lose Ella on Tuesday & Lucy, Gracie and William on Wednesday. Half of our American staff gone in one week… It is going to be a hard time adjusting to life without them.

Well.. look at the time. 11:15pm – only an hour and 15 mins past my bed time. This 10pm thing is hard. Maybe tomorrow…

Goodnight for now.

Stephen

After this weekend I am recharged and ready to go. This week we were blessed to have 4 teams that were amazing. They were all eager to help… and help… and continue helping. It was an inspiration. One group put on the retreat for the churches. They had over 200 Haitians from the 4 churches together in Cite Soleil for the week doing all kinds of things. The medical group provided health care to the people at the retreat. The construction group built more roofs and other projects than I can count right now.Needless to say – we had a great week.

One of the teams booked a trip to the beach on Friday and Saturday and invited me along. I was SOOO thankful. I haven’t been away from the compound for a real break in a long time – and now that I think of it, I haven’t ever really been away for a break. We are able to go to the beach with teams a good bit, but that is traveling there and back, translating everything, keeping up with everyone, spending time with them – so it’s really not a break. Going to the beach with a team almost makes me more tired than if I were to just stay at the compound. But being able to go for 2 full days was a great treat. I was able to kick back and relax. I went snorkeling this time at the reef. It was beautiful.

We all made it back to the compound at about 6:30pm tonight. There was an awful wreck on the way home. One of the crazy and incredibly dangerous buses collided with a sedan head on. It crushed the little car. There was so much traffic backed up. I think the driver was killed and the passenger broke both legs. That is just what I heard, but when we drove by it looked pretty accurate.

When we arrived home I saw Ronic and Daudier both waiting on me… to get paid. I snuck out of the tap tap so they wouldn’t see me. It was really funny. When I made it up to my room I noticed a water cooler that was out of place. I opened it and saw that it was full of water balloons. I quickly figured that there was something that was supposed to have already gone down. I was correct. Nathan and some of the other staff were going to bomb the people in the last two tap taps. Anyways, I found them and started throwing them across the compound to where they were eating dinner. They couldn’t believe I found them. They quickly came running. We had a nice water fight.The teams enjoyed it as well.

Today was great. I really needed a day or two to myself.

Also, I am ready for the staff retreat on Monday. It should be a very fun time. I’ll let you know.

Always with Love,

Stephen

Most teams that come down to Haiti to serve are ready to work. Some more than others. When teams show up that REALLY want to work – we work them like crazy. We have so much work to do here. However, at the same time – we work ourselves to death with them, but we love every second of it. I don’t want to speak for all of the staff but I thrive on teams coming down. Seeing their enthusiasm is so refreshing every week.

This week we have had 4 different teams – 3 that are staying with us. We have built 6 roofs in 4 days and completed a lot of other work. We have been building like crazy! It has been non-stop. I love it when I am constantly on the phone ordering supplies.

So, besides the fact that I am exhausted I am having a great week. One of the teams invited me to go to the beach with them for 2 days, starting tomorrow, so it will be a relaxing break.

Tonight we set up the movie theater on the roof. We had a huge sheet stretched out and watched “Pride and Prejudice” with a lot of the team members. It was a good time.

O yeah. I have some crazy skin problem on my legs. I thought it was ant bites at first but it has multiplied to covering my left leg from the knee down… so I started getting a little concerned (as I did not want it to start taking over any more of my body). I had the visiting doc look at it and the best we could come up with was to treat it like lice, just in case it was some sort of little bugs living on me. I’m not really sure. Please pray with me that this will get resolved!!

I hope everyone has had a great week! It has been great having Nathan back. He was exhausted when he got here, which doesn’t give me a good feeling about when I get back in September :/

Anyways, have a good night.

Stephen

This is my attempt to explain what happened yesterday.. and then some amazing things that happened today.

So.. last night… before dinner, one of the groups of workers came by the compound to get paid. They were working on 3 houses that we had already finished with the foundations. So, that being said, the contract would cut in half. Everyone knew this – I went over it numerous times. Anyways, they came by the compound to get paid. I went through everything with the boss and then I went and ate dinner. After dinner, I realized they were still sitting down there. I went down there and they were talking about how it wasn’t enough money. I assured him it was exactly what we had gone over. All of the workers were upset with the bosses. There are 3 bosses and 7 workers in each group. Byambison and I sat down there for a long time with all of them and tried to help them understand what was going on. After awhile they said that it was good and there was no problem. I went back up stairs and was talking with the engineer and working on bills when someone said they needed me. I said I would be right there. Madam Pierre then came and said she needed me… followed by Nadege and Pierre. Pierre told me that the workers were so upset with the boss that they had broken some bottles and had rocks and were waiting on the bosses to leave the compound at that they were going to attack them. I grabbed Byambison and headed down to check out what was going on. I walked out of the gate and found a mob of my workers waiting for the bosses to leave. When they saw me they immediately hid their “weapons” of choice. I walked up to the main guy causing the problems and started asking what in the world he was doing? He immediately knew that he, as well as everyone else, was about to have a BIG problem. My level of “upset” quickly started to rise. I called for everyone to go inside the gate. I made them sit down on a pile of blocks and not move for this whole conversation. This whole ordeal lasted for an hour and a half. I tried to figure out what the major problem was and he most I could figure out is that the bosses told them that they were going to make more money than I told them. So all the workers thought the bosses were keeping money from them. I explained to them what was going on and that no one was keeping money from them. At this time all of them are still ready to kill the boss. Next, I started going through a series of questions including: Why are we building houses? Who are we building houses for? What happened to those families? Why can’t they pay for their own house? These questions were followed by : How many people around here have jobs? The only response I got was “No one…” I said “That’s right. No one has a job around here. So do you know how lucky you are to have what you have? You see all the people everyday that cannot even afford food for their families, but yet you are complaining about a couple dollars when you know you are going to get paid again next week.” This all started to sink in with all of them. Nadege started to speak up now saying “Stephen and the rest of the American workers came down here to help and to work. They do not get paid at all and they do not need your help, however, they choose to give you a job. When you sit here and try to hurt each other and complain it really makes me sad.” This whole conversation brought me to tears. It is so sad when money and greed take over. These guys are such hard workers but something wasn’t working out. I still don’t understand what was going through their brains. Finally we began to work some things out, then everyone got fired, and then we started working out a new deal. I was mainly trying to change the guys mind that was leading this revolt. I worked out a deal with him and we were able to call it a night. I let the bosses go about 20 mins before the workers and then finally let the workers go. It was a crazy night.

I know there are probably a lot of details left out of that but I think that gives you a pretty good idea. Please don’t let this give you the wrong idea. It is very safe here. This was just a small disagreement.

Now for today. I got everyone up and got them started. We had groups for the retreat, construction and site seeing today. I went with the site seeing group to start off. They wanted to see some of the houses that we had built so I took them for a walk through in Cite Soleil. We had a really fun time. We the group got to the first house we ever built, the lady was so happy to see up. She is one of my favorite people. Her name is Michelle. The group wanted to pray for her and she gladly accepted. The lady that prayed was so awesome. She thanked God for the light that this lady was to the community and for all of the wonderful things that she is doing. There was nothing in the prayer about any situation that she is in or to get her out of the situation or to only bless her. She asked that God would continue to bless her with even more amazing things in her life. Michelle was glowing. She was so happy after the prayer. I was almost crying again. It was amazing to see this group come in and want to talk, pray and meet with people so bad. Their interaction with everyone has been so inspiring. When teams like this come it reminds me of what broke in my heart when I first came.. to see the love of these people towards everyone.

Well, it’s time for me to head to bed. Sorry for leaving out so many details…. I’ll try to do better next time.

Always with Love,

Stephen

I had a headache for the greater portion of the day… and have been up all day long, so this is going to be short tonight.

Up early this morning dealing with workers and broken tools.. maybe that’s where the headache came from. Also, from workers not going to the job site but thinking they were riding with me.

Made it to Cite Soleil around 7am. Took the workers to the new site and then walked my mom and crew around to see the houses we have built already. They really enjoyed it. Especially being in Cite Soleil – the kids are amazing there.

After C/S we drove out to Mission of Hope to pick up some pallets and tents. My head hurt so bad by now that I just laid down on some pillows in the back of the big tap tap. I slept the whole 30-40 min drive. We picked up 35 pallets and 25 tents and then came home.

Lunch was amazing grilled cheese sandwiches and a nap. I was supposed to go to the bank and the airport but the guy at the bank didn’t answer the phone and the flight was delayed. I was able to take a 2 hr nap and slightly reduce the headache. 4 o’clock rolled around and off to the airport I went. Autumn accompanied me to the airport. I am in the middle of reworking my deal with the administrators at the airport so I couldn’t use the easy gate today. I had to use different procedures, but it all still worked out pretty nice.

On the way back to the compound, we were following the tap tap with the bags and all of a sudden the wheel/axle broke on the tap tap. It just kinda flopped off in the road. Pretty sad… Marconelle wasn’t happy. Hopefully he will have it fixed soon.

The group that is here now is going to be great. They are passing out shoes to all of the students/teachers/workers at the Terre Noir and Cite Soleil compounds.

Only one more day with my mom. I think I am taking them to the beach while I go to the port and do some business, then I will join up with them. It will be sad when she leaves.

Off to bed. Talk with everyone tomorrow.

Always with Love,

Stephen

I don’t know how many days it’s been since I’ve written a blog. This is really gonna mess up the book you guys wanted me to put together Maybe I’ll just make something up for those days. This week has been intense and has required a lot out of the staff. The 4 – 5 hrs of sleep every night has left me too exhausted to write a blog each night.

Let’s see if I can recap on some exciting this this week. The first part of the week we had a small med group. Which was made up of a dentist, 2 pediatricians and a few helpers. The dentist fell out from exhaustion on day one. His comment was, “These Haitians jaws are so incredibly dense! It’s wearing me out.”

We have had another med group here at the same time. They have seen over 1000 patients this week. That is amazing.  They also were able to run a clinic in Repatriote 2 days. This team also had an eye doctor that has done eye exams ALL DAY LONG. He was giving eye exams last night at 9pm to people in the compound. He was so happy to be able to help so much.

We had a team of 25 join mid week. They brought a dental team, art team and 2 construction teams. The dentist has been working non stop. These people have so many needs. The construction teams have built a roof and new benches for the cafeteria at Blanchard. They have been full steam ahead. They are taking a personal trip to Jacmel today so we won’t see them until Sunday.

Everyone at Blanchard is leaving today. We will have no one here until 4:30pm. Hopefully it will be a nice relaxing day – however, I’m not getting my hopes up. It’s work work work here right now. I love it – that means progress.

The weather this week was amazing. Storms were brewing so we had cloudy nice days. The sun is out this morning hot and bright. I wish we could have another week like the last but I’m thinking we are out of luck on that.

We now have what seems to be a MONSTROUS staff. It’s actually kinda nice. It is a great group of young people that help make this place feel like home. I’ll introduce you to all of them. Everyone knows Nathan, he came down with me (harvestforhaiti.com). Next we have Autumn. She came down in March with a team from her church and then felt led to come back and serve long term. She has been here for a little over one month. She runs the clinic (autumnwhitby.wordpress.com). Next we have Jordan. He is an engineering student in Ohio that has joined us for 3 months. He is working on the compound construction projects. We just had another worker join us, William White. He came down with his church, who is here now, but will be staying for one month. He will be helping me with teams and home construction. Our Haitian staff is growing as well. Nadege, Pastor Leon’s daughter, now lives with us. She works in the Blanchard school but also helps with the teams. Byambison, mine and Nathan’s translator, still lives here. He works on home construction with me an helps Nathan out with projects at the compound. Jean Wadson just joined us a week ago. He is Jordan’s translator and helps with the construction at Repatriote.  We should be getting 3 more short term staff in July, so the crew will grow even more.

On an even better note!!! My mom and Aunt come on July 2nd!!! I can’t wait to see them. We are going to have a fun time. I am going to show them all of the sites and take them to some great places to eat – maybe they will get to work too

I am excited for Nathan getting to go home in a few days. I know he is really looking forward to it. September is approaching fast… it’s going to be a packed 2 weeks. Hopefully it will be semi relaxing.

This next week looks like construction… construction… construction! Let’s get it done.

Always with Love,

Stephen

Today was beautiful. It felt so good outside. Overcast and a high of 82 degree. That’s like working in paradise everyday. Right now on the radar there is a gigantic purple spot above Haiti. I’m pretty sure that means a lot of rain. I’m up for  it.

I felt very good when I woke up today… I thought for a second “Maybe I will make it today without falling asleep or being exhausted!” So I got up, took a shower, got dressed up for the airport and ate breakfast. Breakfast was amazing french toast by the way. After breakfast I headed to the job sites to answer some questions. I got everything taken care of at the job sites and headed home to get a notepad with an address. As I was leaving my room, I clearly wasn’t thinking, I locked my keys in my room. This isn’t the first time this has happened. I went down stairs and got a 1/4″ piece of rebar so I could fish my keys out. After a few minutes of skilled work I had them. Thank goodness I left them in sight and was able to fish them out.

It is now 9:30am, I need to be at the airport at 11am. I also need to pick up a load of glasses from a place that is potentially 45 mins away. That is with no traffic jams, no problems, no flat tires, no nothing. I said lets go. I was with Marconelle so I knew I could get there fast. We made it there in 48 mins. It took up 25 mins to pick up the glasses…. I told Marco “We’ve gotta get to the airport quick.” He responded with his typical answer “No problem my boss. I know a short cut.” So off we go. It took maybe 15 mins to get there. How in the world did that happen? And why didn’t we go that way in the first place? Who knows. O and here is where the exhaustion picks back up. I made it until 9:35am. I was passed out asleep in the front of the tap tap. I slept the whole way there and the whole way back. Crazy huh?

I made it to get the glasses, took them to Cite Soleil and then made it to the airport all in time. The group I went to pick up at the airport has 25 people, so I was going to use my new trick. I made friends with the security guys that watch the big gate that you can drive into and pick people up. We just randomly struck up a conversation one day and now we are best friends… they let me do whatever I want! I can back trucks in there all day long and the people at the airport don’t have to walk outside the gate. The police officer tried to stop us one time and my friend came over and pretty much said “It’s no problem, he can do whatever he wants.” The police officer was pretty frustrated and just walked off.

I got the team loaded up and to the Coconut Villa. We had another semi long term worker come with there team so I picked him up and brought him to Terre Noir. Exhaustion once again. I crashed for a few minutes. After I crashed we got everything set up in the dining room for dinner and did a few other things around the compound and that was pretty much the whole day.

We had a great time at dinner with about 50 people. This is going to be a great work week as well. We are building 9 houses, 5 roofs, benches for the Blanchard cafeteria and running a medical clinic! Praise the Lord.

Thats enough for now.

Always with Love,

Stephen

The last few blogs that I have published have supposedly been a little depressing & discouraging. I apologize for that.. however, you are getting to see exactly what is happening and how I am feeling. Sometimes I feel limited as to what I can share because I don’t want to scare anyone or give the wrong idea. Over the past few weeks we have had some amazing teams come in and work. Great teams every week – that was one thing. We had large groups for the last month. Back to back to back – no breaks. Large groups aren’t bad.. they just required more attention and work sometimes especially when they are accomplishing a lot.

During the last few weeks we had a few more people get sick than normal. It is my responsibility to take care of the teams while they are here so when GI problems are popping up left and right it gets a little stressful. After almost everyone was well, the girls dorm passed around a stomach bug. There was one day where the clinic was closed due to the fact that we had no workers. So this is where my stress has come from over the past few weeks.

On a good note. We finished all the houses in Repatriote and they are all ready for roofs this week. We are started 9 houses in Terre Noir this morning and made some amazing progress. The workers have been doing such a great job. They love what they are doing just as much as I do.

During this whole time I have been constantly reminded, by you guys, that my strength is found in the Lord. That I can do nothing on my own. I completely agree. We can only make it so far when we do not stay in the Word and draw close to God. When everything around you is so difficult and needs answers immediately and there is tension and pressure – it is hard to stay focused and rely on the Lord for strength. That is where we become weak and He is still strong.  A good friend of mine shared this with me, “There’s a fine line between doing something for God because we can out of our own talents and abilities, which is fine to do of course, and then doing what we do because of His empowerment and presence….doing those things which we immediately admit we could and would never do own our own…that’s when we see his presence and power displayed.”
I pray that I can live a life of service that isn’t based on my abilities but it is based on my willingness to be used by Him. I pray that everyone down here working will strive to be Godly people so that when people see us they see Christ – that all the glory goes to Him alone.

I feel like I haven’t written a blog in the past few days.. O yeah.. that’s because I haven’t. So much for the book idea of 365 days in Haiti. Who knows. Anyways, I am hear tonight – listening to the sound of the rain. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, and not sleeping deeply. Nathan will inform you that I have been talking in Creole during the night. Seems pretty funny, but it means i’m not sleeping well. If anyone reading this is coming down soon, some Valerian root or melatonin might be good.

Last night was a difficult night. That is why I didn’t write a blog. On the way back from dinner last night we saw a police officer pulled over and cones set out in the road. No person was standing out in the road the car was just pulled up. As we slowed down and passed we saw that a man had been hit by a car and was completely mutilated. Sorry for being graphic but this is how it was. His arm was ripped off and his head was busted open. One of his legs may not have been attached. It was really bad to say the least. Everyone was pretty shaken up. It just doesn’t make any sense why someone wouldn’t even stop to see what they did. How do you teach that? Is it even possible?

On to today. I was all over the place today. We are almost finished with 4 more houses. 3 in Repatriote and 1 at the church in Cite Soleil. We really have a process going now. I am very impressed with the workers.  They are a lot of fun to be around.

This afternoon, it was so hot. I was drained. I had to take a nap after not sleeping well. I woke up around 2 or 3 or I don’t even know when and helped unload some stuff.. Then I passed back out.

Josh leaves tomorrow, which is going to be sad, and Sabrina leaves next week. This is going to be tough to let go of them. We have a HUGE group coming next week… So hopefully after this slow week we will all be rested.

Well, the sound of the flood outside my window is putting me to sleep.

I hope everyone is well.

Always with Love,

Stephen