Eleuthera Part 3 (The fun stuff)

Once the work was done each day we packed up and headed to the beach to cool off . Most days this included snorkeling and spear fishing. Unfortunately I don't have great shots of the beaches (we were too busy playing) but you get the idea from the shots below.

One evening we went to visit "The Cliffs".

For supper the last night we went to a local cookout by the beach. You can see Z playing with his new buddy Wayne. They had fun throwing rocks in the water.

On the way to the airport the last morning we went to "Preacher's Cave".

Where's Zac?

Here is the team at the "Glass Window Bridge". It used to be a natural land bridge until a storm made it collapse. Now it is a one lane wide road. This is the spot on the island where the Atlantic and Caribbean meet. The Atlantic side is deep blue and you can see the Caribbean side behind us in this picture.

Eleuthera - Part 2

While we were in Eleuthera Rob worked with the team from our church to fix the roof on the Medical Clinic in the settlement of James Cistern. The clinic was damaged in hurricane Francis in 2004. The Bahamian government has been promising money since then to repair the damage done to the clinic but very little of it has shown up. Meanwhile, the nurse is working out of a room in the library and occasionally having to work by the light of her cell phone to treat patients. Our team worked on the two porch roofs (the completed one you see below was the wrong pitch so it had to be redone) and the front half of the building.

Here are a couple of before pictures....

Midweek

The completed project!

The other task was to build a swing set for the Special Needs school in Governors' Harbor. Not an easy task to get it anchored with such rocky soil.

Check out "Bahamas Fastzkie Mission" on Facebook to see some other pictures of this project and fun activities during the week.

www.facebook.com/pages/Bahamas-Fastzkie-Mission/110849512271654

Eleuthera Part 1

We had a great week in Eleuthera! The kids did great on their first plane ride. As you can see Zac was entertained with his videos and once he got used to taking off and landing he liked looking out the window at all the little houses and cars below. On one leg of the trip we flew into Miami. Rob told Zac where we were and he heard it as "My - ami". A few minutes later Zac told me we were in "Daddy's-ami". If he was talking to Rob he would say we were in "your-ami".

Zac also enjoyed the drinks on the plane. On one plane Rob let him get a Coke. From then on we would no sooner board the plane and he would announce that he wanted a Coke!

Here is the team from Grace Church who were with us for the week.

This was our view for the week. We stayed on the grounds of the Eleuthera Bible Training Center. It's the big building you see at the bottom of the hill. The rest of the Grace team stayed in the training center.

We stayed in this two bedroom "apartment" at the top of the hill.

We arrived a day early to get our family settled before the rest of the team arrived. In our down time we enjoyed the sea breeze on the porch.

Zac enjoyed the yard outside the apartment which was pretty much a big sandbox. In true Zac fashion he wouldn't sit or walk in the sand but would sit on the sidewalk and play.

...more pictures to come!

Miss O

And here is Sweet Olivia Caroline... she is almost 8 months old. She is a happy, laid-back baby. She is beginning to interact with Zac more and more. She likes rolling around on the floor while he is playing. I have to keep an eye on her because (unlike Zac) EVERYTHING goes in her mouth.

She is definately a Daddy's girl. Here she is in her favorite spot....snuggled on the couch with Daddy.

Oh! Did I mention that she can say "Da Da" too?

Olivia will almost always give me a great smile for the camera, except on the days I try to pretend to be a photographer. :)

We are working on sitting up. Most of the time it looks like this except for the few seconds she will sit up straight like in the oustide shot above.

...and the excersaucer is a blast!

My First Attempt

Well here goes. My first attempt at blogging. We've had several requests lately from family for some recent pics of the kids so I figured why not try to update the blog. We officially have a 3 year old! As you can see we had a Lightnin' Mc Queen ice cream cake this year. Zac was so excited about his cake. He went with me to pick it up and could hardly wait until we got home to see what it looked like. I showed it to him and then we put it in the freezer. A little while later I was in the other room and I heard Zac in the fridge. Then I heard a crash. I went running into the kitchen to find Zac standing over his cake. He had tried to pull out the cake by himself to look at it again and dropped it in the floor! Fortunately it was frozen solid and all we had to do was put Lightnin' back on top and we lost only a little icing on they "y" in birthday.

Zac loves most anything with wheels and toys that have parts to be taken apart but this was a sports birthday for Z. He typically doesn't play with balls much but the goal was to find some outside toys to play with. As you can see he'd still rather take apart the toys than play with them as intended.

I think we are gonna have to work on the golf stance.

And who needs toys anyway...boxes are much more fun!

Stay tuned...Olivia will be the star of the next post.

For all our blog friends...sorry this has taken so long to get posted. It was an intense trip to Haiti and one I highly recommend. It will take a few posts to get it all in but let's start with the first two days.

We had all met only one time prior to loading up in our Sequoia for the 12 hour drive. We were somewhere below Savannah when we decided to stop for lunch. I was headed for a Steak and Shake when Bruce (a late addition to the team) spotted the GA pig across the parking lot. I was a little suspicious b/c there was only one car in the parking lot but we figured we'd give it a try.

Sketchy, scary, a guy and his mom (the owners) that remind you of Adam Sandler in The Waterboy and we almost left. We did eat there...but revoked Bruce's restaurant picking priviledges for the rest of the trip.

After a stay in Port St. Lucie with a great host (and Grace ex-pat), it was off to the hangar for our 6:00 appointment with a WWII era DC-3!

Sunrise over S. Florida

We were able to ride in the jumpseat right behind the pilot and wear a headset to hear what was going on with the traffic around us as well as talk to them.

We had a fuel stop scheduled in Exuma. They came back while we were still in the air and offered to order us breakfast in the airport over the radio. I hadn't eaten since about 5am, so I took the opportunity to refuel too. The eggs, grits, and sausage were awesome!!! So if you are ever in Exuma and craving grits, they know how to make em at the airport!

We then make a short stop in Cap Haitien to drop off some supplies as well as clear immigration. There were a few hundred people lining the fences and filling the waiting area. There was a truck load of UN troops as well as local police. Then right behind us a Spainsh C-130 landed, backed down the ramp a little way and out jumped a dozen Spanish troops.

When we get inside, we find out the reception is not for us. Michele Martelly is supposed to arrive any minute. He is a pop star in Haiti who is one of the two finalists for President. He picked up a lot of votes when Wyclef Jean was ruled ineligible for the ballot. That's him in the pink shirt.

Then it was back on the plane for a short hop to Port-au-Prince. After a brief stop in customs and navigating a swarm of guys in red hats and plaid shirts looking to "help us" with our luggage, we arrived at our limo for the ride to Fermathe. It is an 11 mile ride that will take 2 hours.

Even a year later, earthquake damage is everywhere you look. As soon as we left the airport, there was garbage a foot deep along the road and two large pigs rooting around in it. Almost all houses had 10 foot walls with either razor wire or broken glass bottles along the top.

The streets are lined with folks selling just about anything.

There is some really nice art work to be found...

Since the eq, motorcycles have become an even more popular mode of transportation. Most of them have at least 3 riders...sometimes 4.

Sometimes busses look like...well...busses...

...but a lot of times they look like this.

Seems like I heard there are still over 1 million people still living in tarp tents. The tent cities are easy to see and line much of the public spaces...parks, vacant lots, and just along side the road. There is a huge UN presence in Port-au-Prince.

We were glad to see that we were sleeping under a real roof and surrounded by 4 walls.

However, Haiti is a country of two very striking extremes. The poverty is very real and encompasses almost all of the population at the same time it is set in some of the most beautiful geography I have ever seen. This will be more evident in the next few posts.