Matt & Kevon share the experiences of Day 2 and how the Tarrytown New York team sweats through the hottest day in Haiti, as they bless families in Pignon with painting and farming.

Once again we’re up bright and early, however, we did get to sleep in an extra 30 minutes and then went out and about our adventures.

Unlike day 1 and previous years of tearing up and pouring cement floors, today we split up into 2 groups and went about our mission. Group 1 assisted a professional painter in completely painting a house inside and out for a family who had been blessed earlier this summer with a new safe home coordinated by Many Hands for Haiti. In the words of our Operations Manager, Christi, their old home was considered “a half house” simply for the fact that it was a building consisting of three walls and sticks.

How and why we chose this family you ask? Well in June another missionary group passed through the village by her house and saw the conditions this woman was living in and wanted to help, so this week our group was given the opportunity to make this house look complete and beautiful for the first time.

When we arrived, the woman of the house, Jezula did not know we would paint the inside as well. She was able to move all of their belongings OUT of the house in 5 minutes. Our team wondered if this might be a way of life more people should ponder. It made us think.

Before the house was painted. Jezula picked the colors Guerby

Group 2, on the other hand, had the more difficult task of helping farmers with agronomy. What’s this? They got the opportunity to temporarily remove 25 banana tree and raise the soil for around a thousand plus peanut plants. Sounds easy right? Today happens to be one of the hottest days of the season making the day quite rigorous. To top it all off these part time missionary farmers dealt with the wrath of fire ants. Yup! Immediately after uprooting the banana trees we’d be swarmed in ants. Upon our return to the states some may see these battle scars some of us endured.

Around noon, all headed back to the compound for a well deserved lunch. After seeing our exhaustion we were given the choice of either continuing agronomy or paint another house both outside and in. One individual, Owen Steele, was a trooper and pledged to continue farming.

Everyone else heading over to another little home to paint. Though it was later in the day it was still extremely hot and humid. This family had originally sold part of their land because the father needed to pay medical bills. The house the family had was partly on the land that had been sold. Another ‘half house’ in a different way. So in response, a previous mission team raised money to build a brand new house that sit solely on the land still owned by the family. Again, to finish the project, our team got to make the house look complete. A few teens made their own personal touch and painted the scripture reference “Sòm 114”, meaning Psalm 114.

2nd Half House

Katie and Fabian Hunter and Nathan We are Better Together Katie and Juliette Tesher Psalm 114

Whole Crew and Family copy

Whole Crew and Family

During this time Haitian kids kept us interested by playing simple hand games with us and eventually feeding us some juicy ripe mangoes.

Ended the day with a trip to the bridge

To end a long work day we headed back to the compound for a community movie night and play cards. Our connections with everyone, especially those Haitians who assisted in any way possible, definitely grew stronger as we developed a trust and reliance between each other.

May the Lord bless us in our time here, with these amazing people, and guide us in serving Jesus Christ and his people.