Hi all,
If anyone ever wondered, 2 kids is enough to keep anyone busy 😉
Mara is now 2 years and 2 months old, and Aiden is 5 1/2 months. They are such a joy and blessing in our lives. I cannot even begin to put it in to words.
We returned to Haiti with both of them at the end of March and have been trying to settle in/keep up with work ever since then. It’s been a struggle at times, if I’m honest, and it is exposing how much more we need to improve on time management and communication within our family, and within our work crew.
The crew is doing great. Honestly, one of our biggest challenges since we’ve returned is that Gayly and Waly have been getting more work requests as welders than ever before, so I actually have to verify their schedules before I can plan jobs. It’s a good problem to have, but it is teaching me to plan ahead much better than before.
One of our other recent challenges has been vehicles once again, but I think that is trending in a good direction now. Our family car, the Isuzu Trooper, took a few sick days in Port Au Prince about 2 months ago when the front U-joints went out. Since then it has been running as a 2 wheel drive vehicle, but we have the parts and it should be healthy again soon.
The work trucks keep trading off which one is running and plugging along, but they both need some work. We anxiously await our “new” 2002 Nissan Frontier 4-door pickup that is finally at the docks in Miami ready to ship into Haiti. It will give us a better people-moving truck, and it also has a bunch of parts to remedy the ailments of the other work trucks. Once it is here, we will likely sell our F150 to recoup some of the shipping costs as well. We definitively don’t want to keep running 3 work trucks due to maintenance expenses here.
We’re also eager for the truck to arrive for the generators that it holds inside. Our “shop generator” that is used for welding died about a month ago and we have been unable to get parts for it, so we finally had to break down and buy a generator here as well.
We got this Daewoo 6000 Watt diesel one 2 weeks ago. All the guys in the shop agreed to pitch in their pay for our big project last week towards this purchase and I’m sure it will help us a lot as we continue our work in the future.
Speaking of last week’s project. We were excited to get out 2nd big project in as many months. First, we did an installation for Haiti Christian Outreach in Peredo (just outside of Jacmel). It was (30) 260 Watt solar panels and 7200 Watts of inverters. And since that quote was fresh in my head, we were able to turn around and get another project for (30) 315 Watt panels and 10.2 kW of inverters for Deux Mains, a sandal manufacturer in Port Au Prince that is setting up a new factory space this summer.
Here are some pictures from the Deux Mains installation. I’m proud that this was probably our prettiest installation to date, with some nice new features like putting air filters around the inverter installation to try to increase their longevity.
This was an exciting project, and I am super proud of the guys. They did a great job this week, especially because I was gimping around (or just sitting down) most of the week after taking a fall off the ladder at my house last weekend.
Please pray for us Jamie, Mara, Aiden, and I head to PA for 3 weeks to celebrate my mom’s 60th birthday.
And pray for those involved in our ministry, including our work crew for their safety, growth, and salvation, as well as the Smith Family and our newer friend Anna who are looking to maybe come join F1 Engineering’s efforts down here.
God Bless.
