14July12
Status Report:
Spent the last two days in La Croix (near Gonaives) working with Pastor Pierre.
It’s weird to spend time at a guest house when there is no short term team around. It
perpetually feels empty.
This is where I was working with Cherith and the crew from Purcellville Baptist Church a
few weeks ago.
Anyhow, as for the work, it’s gone well.
I fixed a minor wiring issue on the inverters, so now they are playing happily together.
Plus, I reconfigured the auto-start on the generator, so it will work just fine now.
All that to say, this system is up and functioning with 12kWatts of inverter power, two
large battery banks, 7kWatts of solar panels, and the generators and grid all tied in.
My second large project was to get the non-inverter systems wired properly. And now they
are. There are a bunch of air-conditioners here, so they only run off of generator or
grid power. That is what we “broke” when we left last time. The last night we were here,
we had accidentally screwed up that part of the system. So now, there is new wiring for
all of that, and if i want it, i could turn on the A/C tonight. Though, we’ll see if that
happens or not…
Since I had some extra time, I also managed to sketch out the electrical work into 4
diagrams and left a hardcopy with Pastor Pierre, and will send pdf’s to the guys who work
here more often.
It’s nice to actually wrap up a job properly.
Funny part is, I’ve been bored. I came up to spend 2 days here, and I could have left
after one and a half, but the trip is too long to start after lunch.
Tomorrow, I will be heading back to Jacmel for Church on the Beach. It’s been a great
trip.
However, I did skip the most exciting part.
If you read my last post, you’ll see my admissions that I am “my father’s son”.
Well, that extended even further. When I was a teenager, I was helping my dad work on
some electrical stuff at our house, and I asked, “shouldn’t we turn off the circuit
breaker first?” He replied, “No, just don’t touch anything you shouldn’t.”
That day resulted in my screwdriver getting thrown across the living room involuntarily.
Yesterday, I set a new record for current passing through my body. I’ll be honest, I had
turned off most of the stuff in the building, but the particular circuit I was on
apparently wasn’t off. My knife went flying, and it was a pretty good hit. Getting
shocked is kinda common around here, but this was a good one.
Gotta thank God for keeping me around for a little while longer. 🙂
Anyhow, I have a couple quick thoughts for you as well.
(1) I’m coming home August 8th. I’ll be the “missionary of the month” at Emmanuel’s
weekend services August 11-12, and then I’m going to share about ministry down here later
that week.
I’ll do 2 presentations. First, on Thurs evening (August 16th) at 7pm at Crucified, and
then again at Emmanuel on Monday (August 20th). They’ll be similar presentations, so
don’t worry about getting to both, but if you’re interested ni what is going on down
here, I’ll give you the best updates I can.
(2) August 22nd I’m heading to Africa for a month. Uganda, and maybe South Sudan and
Kenya. Pray for that trip, it should be sweet. I’m expecting that Africa will be similar
to Haiti in at least one regard.
Nick Mangine says of Haiti, “The amazing thing about Haiti is that you never know what
you purpose will be. But, if you let it, Haiti WILL provide purpose everyday.”
I figure Uganda will provide plenty of purpose for me while I’m there.
(3) I’ve come across some good quotes today, so you get to take them in as well.
“Christian’s like to paint themselves as the happiest people in the world. But as we
grow closer to God, shouldn’t we be LESS satisfied with the fallen world we live in?”
(said by Nick Mangine)
A similar quote from C.S. Lewis is ““I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always
knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really
comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”
So, it really continues to make me question the idea of “happiness.” I’ve realized over
and over that my “comfort” leads to complacency, and leads to me being less attentive to
God’s desires. Therefore, my prayer continues to be, “Lord, keep me longing for you. Keep
my uncomfortable on this earth, so that I remember that I am not home yet, and that You
have something much better.”
(4) Another quote, this one directed at preachers…
”Preacher, you cannot persuade people that you and God are great at the same time.”
found on Dr. Cook’s facebook. He’s a pastor at APEX and bible professor at Cedarville.
Just thought it was pretty good.
