StephenByxbe.com

The alarm clock sounded – 5:15am…. snooze. Again at 5:20am… snooze. Again… no snooze.. just turned it off. Finally I got up and ate breakfast.. I didn’t get to finish breakfast. I had to go out to the gate and make sure all the workers were here and ready to go. When I got up I had a pretty bad headache, so I had decided I wasn’t going to the job site in the morning. They didn’t need me there anyways. I had worked out the majority of the problems yesterday.

So.. I returned to my room and finished with breakfast. I went back to sleep for a little while.  I didn’t get to sleep too much longer because we were shipping the group out for some touring of PAP. I sent the group off and headed to the depot… aka the soccer field. At the depot the guys were starting to put together groups of 1/4 rebar. They are tying it 20 pieces at a time to use for the foundations. They are also moving stuff around so we can build the storage shed for all of the supplies.

I then headed to Cite Soleil to check on the work that is going on. We are building 1 house and 2 roofs. The houses are starting to look really good. I was happy to get to see the workers in Cite Soleil. It has been awhile since I have seen them.

After C/S I took a nap to try to reduce my headache. It didn’t work very well. After the nap I went to the welder’s house and picked up some doors for the houses we are building. I brought them to the “depot.”

After lunch I sat down and started working on the numbers for the houses. I am trying to squeeze the budget a little bit to be able to offer a couple different things. I spent a good hour or two working on the numbers. I ended up going to Cite Soleil again to look at the work and saw one of the home owner’s. He was so happy. He is planning on bringing me some creole chicken when we are finished. These families are so nice. I love them all.

The day ended pretty nice. Some of the loudest thunder and craziest lightning I have ever seen. It was a fun time. I will admit I jumped a few times. The devotion was fun tonight. Talked about hope… hope for the Haitian people.

Tomorrow the team leaves. Always sad when a group leaves, but good news – BILL FUDGE is coming. FOR A MONTH! Bill Fudge is one of my favorites.

Anyways, thats it for today. Nothing crazy. Just a regular day in the life of an American-Haitian

Always with Love,

Stephen

This morning was a typical Haitian Sunday morning. Everyone up at at ‘em early. Off to church we go at 6:15am. We went to church at Blanchard first and then hopped over to Cite Soleil. We stayed until the end of the service at C/S which was the first time I have done that in a while. When church was over we were swarmed with little kids. It was awesome. I love it so much. These are the cutest kids in the whole world. I want them all. There are days where I want to try to help everyone of them… knowing that if they just lived outside of C/S they would live a much better life. One day at a time… that’s how I make it here.

After church… yes you guessed it.. Nap Time. I slept until 1 o’clock or so and then woke up and did the schedule for the week. It was fairly easy this week since all the teams here are very independent and came with a preset agenda.

When I finished the schedule, I decided I felt lazy enough, bad enough, out of shape enough – however you want to phrase it, so I did a good ab, biceps & triceps workout. I finished the workout and then ran the stairs over and over and over. Almost until I couldn’t move. It felt great. I think I will start doing that every other day. I finished running and hopped on my bike and rode over to Repatriote. I checked on all the job sites and on Bill Fudge’s team that was still working out there and then came home. I slept a little while longer on the roof when I came back and then dinner time. We celebrated a girls birthday at dinner tonight so we had birthday cake from Epido’r. Amazing.

Anyways.. that’s about it for today. It’s gonna be a rough one tomorrow. A lot of stuff has to be done. Pray for me and all of the workers here.

Always with Love,

Stephen

Quick over cap of the day – went to Cite Soleil (while feeling awful) and worked with an American team on a roof project. We got it knocked out today and it looks great! The lady is so excited  – she is painting her house tomorrow so I can take a photo. This is so much fun.

Also in Cite Soleil we started pouring one floor and blocking to other sites. We are making a lot of progress. However, I’m ready to move on to Repatriote to build some new houses. Also, we will be filming a Extreme Home Maker Haiti style some time soon so that will be a lot of fun.

Ok. So on to the exciting stuff. Yesterday I was really adventurous and ate lunch again with the workers in Cite Soleil. I ate my first lunch with the lady that normally cooks. She does a really good job of cleaning all the foods and preparing everything very well. However, when I ate my second lunch – the lady who prepared it didn’t do quite as good of a job. Last night I pretty much slept in the bathroom on the toilet. I don’t remember what time it all started but I know I was puking my guts out at 2:30am. I was laying on the ugliest tile in the whole world while staring at a dirty toilet (dirty only because they just installed it and it is just now functioning – Praise the Lord) feeling like I was going to die. Just kidding… I knew I wasn’t going to die, but I knew I had to get up in the morning and work withe 3 different groups of workers. So I started off today feeling weak and nasty… and not having anything to eat. I went to get on my bicycle to ride to Cite Soleil and it had a flat tire.. I think that was God saying I needed to wait. So I waited on Marconelle.

I didn’t feel bad all day. I slowly got better and ate a good lunch – not Haitian today. Hopefully tonight I will get some good sleep.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Always with Love,

Stephen

Today was a beautiful day. Not just the weather – but everything. Don’t you love those days. When everything flows and things work out right and productivity shows up for once (I treat productivity like its one of my workers.. it picks and chooses when it wants to show up for work). Overall today was great.

Starting out. Up at 5:15am… Gave a wake up call to the guests of the “Blanchard Resort” with my new megaphone!! I call the midwives – hippies – not sure why.. it’s just fun. I explained the continental breakfast and let them know the schedule for the day. They were excited that we had coffee, since we had no coffee Sunday morning. After breakfast my team started showing up. This morning was the first day for the FULL team of Haitian workers. I now employ 19 Haitian workers on a daily basis. If I spoke creole that would be music to my ears… however, the language barrier makes it a little difficult. All the workers are very good. I have to explain to them constantly that we are hear to work – that if you want to have social hour that’s fine… but there is no pay involved with social hour.

This morning it took about an hour to get all of the workers together and then sort them out to job sites. I ran 5 job sites today ranging from setting re-bar columns in concrete, laying block, removing a bad foundation, digging a new foundation, bending re-bar, moving stone, block, sand, and all sorts of other things.

We will complete one if not 2 houses this week! That is so exciting to me to be able to complete these houses. The home owners are so thankful and appreciative. It is so sincere when they thank us over and over again. It just makes me want to build a thousand more houses. For example, the house we built in Cite Soleil – if I go anywhere in here neighborhood, she finds me and gives me a huge hug. That is a feeling that is indescribable.

During the day I had to go to the airport and pick up 3 people out of a group of 6. Their plane was about an hour late. So I had to stand outside for a long time. I let them ride with me to the hardware store to buy some tools on our way back home. They were amazed as we rode through town. It is so weird because all of this feels so normal, but everyone is always videoing and taking pictures!

As soon as we got to the compound they got settled in and then joined the Haitians laying some block. They finished almost half of the house today.

Around 2pm I jumped in the car with Pastor Leon and rode to Cite Soleil to check out some new job sites. Cite Soleil is so different than Terre Noir. The houses in Terre Noir are so much nicer and have what seems like a TON of space around them. All the houses in Cite Soleil seemed to be connected together or there is a 16″ walkway in between them. We picked out 2 full rebuilds and 2 roofs. So as soon as we are finished up in Terre Noir we will head to the C/S.

At 4:30 the other half of the team joined us to make 6 total. This week we have a small number – only 12. A little bit of a break from last week. We were all able to relax for a bit and then ate dinner. Once again dinner was top notch. Fried fish, fried plantains, rice and beans & some sort of salad.

Had a great talk with Bill Glass tonight. Discussed some plans for the future and made plans for his upcoming trip. It was good to talk with him. He will be here next week & it will be good to see him again.

Pray that work will go smoothly and that we will be productive in our work this week. Thank you for staying in touch with me and reading my blog. Please don’t forget about Haiti. They still need your help.

Always with Love,

Stephen

Sunday always starts out great. Up at 5 am :/ breakfast, getting ready and at church by 6. I love the music at church. It is refreshing to hear so much praise in another language.The only problem I have at church is that they run the heat all morning so trying to gain weight is pointless because I am constantly sweating out more than I take in. I think getting the A/C going might be my next task!! The good thing is that my clothes get steam cleaned.

After church today I had to run to the airport to pick up a lost bag and another team member. I didn’t have much luck on either. Bag wasn’t there… neither was the team member. Nadege called me a little while after I got there and told me that the person wasn’t going to make it so I headed back home.

When I got back to the compound the new medical team was touring around Blanchard. I took a bagillion pictures for them of their group and then told them the story of the trouble at the airport the day before. Then Pastor Leon turned towards me and said get in the truck… Im taking you to one of my favorite places for lunch.. go get NatON. I ran to get NatON, told the team we might be back later (haha) and then jumped in the truck. We went to this very nice Haitian restaurant called Medali- something or another. They have some of the best smoothies ever. It was very nice to get to relax with Pastor Leon, Mrs. Jacky & Nadege. We stayed at the restaurant for awhile and talked. Part of the conversation was about some **real estate** that is for sale….. more info to come later on that topic. We headed back to the compound while scoping out a few properties on the way.

Me and Nathan both missed our Sunday afternoon naps since we went to lunch- sooo we crashed. We slept a few hours while everyone wandered around. I finally woke up and took everyone for a walk around town. They really enjoyed it. They needed to get some extra lunch supplies, so after the walk we headed to the store. I also needed to get some diesel fuel so it was a productive trip.

While we were gone to the store the rest of the team painted and prepped two of the new classrooms on the 3rd floor. This group is a very driven team. They get stuff done.. there is also 13 of them so that helps too!

Dinner was our classic – but delicious – fried chicken, rice and beans. I love it. After dinner, one of the locals wanted me to read to him so he could record it and practice his English. It was a lot of fun. He was so excited.

Today was an overall great day! I love it down here.

I hope everyone is doing well and I can’t wait to see you again.

Always with Love,

Stephen

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1 Corinthians 3:7 – “So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.”