A Day of Firsts

Today we used the new kitchen for the first time!  We also ate a delicious vegetable sauce courtesy of Ontario Christian Gleaners for the first time!  We had running water for the first time. And last, but not least, a backhoe arrived on the property for the first time!
Today's weather was very unusual for Haiti, it rained almost all day long.  The teachers and myself weren't too concerned as we had a lot of work to do indoors. Yesterday, we purchased a lot of books to replace the books lost in the school or in family's homes and they all needed to be taped and plastified (to help them last longer).   So we worked on the books and set up the classrooms for Monday morning.  The men hired to work on the property continued to work on leveling the land by hand, despite the falling rain.  By mid-afternoon we had given up any hope of the backhoe showing up and the rain wasn't letting up, so we started to pack up and decided it was time to head home.  Then, out of the blue the backhoe showed up!!  I've never been so happy to see a vehicle in my life.  This guy didn't mess around and got right to work.  We all watched and cheered him on as he quickly started leveling the land!  What a blessing!  What an answer to prayer.  Now the land will be leveled and the gravel put down and there won't be mud EVERYWHERE when 120 kids arrive on Monday morning.  YEAH!!! 

One of the classrooms, ready for students.

The water tower (and Samuel).

 The backhoe busy at work.

 Several of many supervisors.

Last, but not least, the new office!  I love it.  A HUGE thank you to the many team members who helped make this a reality!  We really appreciate all that you've done. And another HUGE thank you to all those of you who donated money to enable us to pay for everything!