Stolen Items

I found out this morning that my parents sent three stuffed animals in the box that we received from them but there were only two when it got to us. We are concerned that anything else that is sent to us in the future is also going to get here incomplete. We are learning that "this is Haiti." There are good times and bad times as far as customs is concerned and apparently things had been pretty good. I hope that it just happened that one of our first two boxes had something stolen out of it. We'll have to start praying that our boxes get to us with everything in them - we're learning of new things to pray for just about every day. The list is long of things to pray for. God is big and is bigger than customs in Haiti. The things that we are shipping here are not necessities, but would make life here more comfortable. Grandma and Grandpa wanted to give a little blessing to their grandchildren and one will have to be left out (Lou, because he doesn't seem to like stuffed animals anyway).

Here is a picture of Tina enjoying the chair seat cushions THAT DIDN'T GET STOLEN (and a bit of the house)!!


Today has been a day of missing the things of the States for Tina and me. I made the mistake of looking at some of our old pictures last night and Tina continued today. It was tough to see family and friends, the old places, the old animals, etc... Then to have the customs mess on top of that...it's a downer day and we'll hopefully wake up tomorrow differently, Lord willing.

Things to be thankful for:

Mechanix Gloves (saved my knuckles and saved a lot of washing my hands)
This flower outside our front door this morning (high resolution):


Boring car stuff...

I got the clutch replaced and the transmission put back in the Hyundai Accent. I worked on it all morning and got done at 12:30. Yesterday we sent someone to get a clutch alignment tool, but they couldn't find one. So I eyeballed it with the help of Anes (I am not sure of the spelling - it sounds like Ah-nez). He and I wrestled the transmission back up against the engine. It was nice to have his help! Things are much more difficult here than it would be in the US. We don't have the right equipment (our transmission jack is broke), parts break more often because of the roads, the parts are damaged when taking them off which makes it more difficult...yes I am whining.

The car works fine after the work, but we ended up leaving the flywheel alone because to have that type of work done here is risky - they would most likely ruin the part. After driving it a little, it would have been best to have the flywheel resurfaced, but this should last about 20k miles or so.

I drained the big air compressor and it seemed like it was more like a water tank than an air tank. There was a lot of water that came out. The air is so humid here. The water sometimes comes through the air hose and through the air tool - which isn't good for them.