FOOD!!

"Come and see what the Lord has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man." - Psalm 66:5

As I alluded to a few posts ago, the Baptist Haiti Mission was contacted by Samaritans Purse because they wanted to send money to Haiti and make sure that it got distributed as best it could (see their article). They are sending a lot of money - more than enough money for food for one thousand families of four. I will be checking out the truck that is going to get the food today and then when it gets here, we'll be packaging up the food for delivery as soon as possible. We are buying it in country (which benefits the country, too), packaging here and then delivering it to the most needy areas. Check out this article. There is GREAT NEED here!

Boring car stuff...
I was feeling a little tuckered out yesterday because of my face infection (for lack of a better term), so after lunch my plan was to go to the shop and further organize it. Those plans were shot the instant I found out that Kyrk thought it would be a good idea to use the four wheeler and a small trailer we have to haul the wood from the cut down trees down to an area for storage (we use the wood to give to our churches and schools for them to cook with). The Haitian workers were taking the large pieces of wood in rickety old wheelbarrows down the hill one large piece at a time. I got the four-wheeler ready, hooked up the trailer, and started helping. So much for resting...

There is nothing like making a vehicle work to know what needs to be fixed. After bringing about 5 loads of wood down the hill, I learned a number of things. I was glad that I changed out the rear tires and that I replaced and fixed the front brakes - the hill was steep and the load was heavy. Going back up empty was a little challenging because the front wheels were not driving (I haven't gotten a chance to check that out yet). After five loads, the four-wheeler was overheating - the fan on the radiator wasn't running. Not only that, but after shutting it off to cool it down, I found out that the engine wasn't charging the battery. So, I took the four-wheeler to the shop and hard wired the fan so that it runs all the time. I also started taking the trashed four-wheeler apart so I can take out the part that charges the battery. I hope to have enough time today to get it working again - it was helpful to have it working! It does make me think that I am taking jobs away from people though... If this thing can do the work faster and easier, why do we need all the workers that we have. These are the types things that I wrestle with lately.

Something that we have to get done is a make a gas tank mount for the rear of the small box Landcruiser (I'll take a picture later). The Samaritan's Purse organization is sending out some people and they want to use the small box truck to go. It has a 26 gallon tank, but an additional five would be good (you never know when you will be able to get diesel/gas somewhere). We have to figure out a way to mount it by Thursday when they plan to go out.

We are also going to be working on a cage for the other new Landcruiser this week. I'll get before and after pictures of this, too. The cage is needed because we want to keep the honest people honest as we drive around towns delivering food and supplies.