Update from Phyllis Schmid

Sunday May 23

Hi,

I usually try to do an update before Sunday so people can have it to share in church if they want to but yesterday things got away from me. I was planning on 4 visitors for lunch and at the last minute invited 4 more people so there was a little bit of scrambling but all were fed and the fellowship was great.

Big news: the container the church in Boca Raton Florida sent to us is out of customs and at a mission compound outside of Port-au-Prince. It contains a LARGE "Quonset hut" that we will be putting on the cement slab basketball court near the demolished building. The Quonset hut will be constructed and used for storage of all the materials rescued from the building. Currently all of that material is in various locations all over campus. The container had extra room in it so the church filled it with all kinds of things for STEP like plywood, desk chairs for classrooms, and all kinds of other things.

Bruce and Deb Robinson, our co-workers involved in Community Development on the north coast, were here this week and a plan was developed. He is experienced with putting the Quonset hut together so will come back on Wednesday and get the foundation work done on the cement slab. Then in early June he will come and meet a team of men he put together and they will put up the building. Then we will be able to empty the places containing much of the material saved from the building.

Another organization has offered us two pre-fab buildings to place on the original site of the demolished building to be able to have classes there in the fall. One of the empty houses on campus will be remodeled for use by the seminary

David and Bruce have prepared an empty house (where we used to live) on campus to receive those coming to work on these various projects. Our main guest unit is occupied by the displaced families who had been living in the "motel" building which also was demolished after the quake damage.

Duane Brown is returning for a month to work on the retaining walls and other projects damaged in the quake on campus.

McMartins have a team of 4 men to do some work at Jehu's building. They had planned to come early this year but the quake changed those plans. They also have a group from Washington who will come the end of July to work in a community outside of Port-au-Prince where a STEP grad has a ministry.

Many of you have expressed a desire to come help and believe me when we know what kind of skills we need we will let you know. It may not be a situation where we can give a lot of advance notice but we will try to work up a plan. No one has told me exactly but I would think the kinds of skills eventually needed would construction, electricians, plumbers, carpenters. Then later those involved in painting and finishing work.

I share all of this as prayer requests for:

• safety in hauling all the materials to the campus from the container
  
• safety in putting up the Quonset hut preparation of the other buildings for the beginning of the seminary in the fall
  
• planning for the other projects needing to be done daily
• strength, patience and wisdom for Jacques, Bruce, David and Robert as they manage their time
• energies this summer Cindy and I to keep everyone fed and happy :-)

All for today,
Phyllis