Church Basement Floor

This weekend we are working on the church basement floor. The floor has been painted but the paint never sticks to the floor. The advice we got was to put ceramic tile on the floor. We had someone donate the tile for the floor.

The men from the church agreed to get together this weekend to install the ceramic tile. Yesterday we worked on clearing everything out of the basement. Then we tried to get the rest of the paint off the floor. It was very difficult to do. We ended up using belt sanders and hand held grinders. It was so dusty you could hardly see from one end of the basement to the other.

This morning about 10:00 we began to lay tile. We got most of the tile laid. It looks really good. Monday we will finish laying the tile and begin to put in the grout.

Here are some of the men laying tile.

We had one man who has done a dozen floors, so he knew what he was doing.

This is most of what we got done today. I think it looks really nice.

Houseboat

We got back home yesterday from our time on the houseboat. In July at the Foster Parent Picnic our names were drawn for the free use of a houseboat on Lac Seul for a week. We had a wonderful time. We had quite a few guests who came to spend some time with us on the boat. Each of the children had some friends out for one night for a sleepover on the boat.

The houseboat was 65 feet long. It had three bedrooms, a bathroom with hot water, a kitchen, dining room and a screened in porch on the front. It was fully equipped with dishes and pretty much everything we needed except sleeping bags and food.

We also had the use of a 16 foot motor boat for the week. We used that to go fishing, and to pick up our guests at the dock and bring them out to the houseboat.

We took the houseboat about 45 minutes from Hudson and parked it at a bay known as Morning Bay. It was a beautiful spot with a sand beach. It was protected from the wind on three sides. The water was deep enough that we could jump off the top of the houseboat into the water.

Here is Dallas on his way off the houseboat into the water. It was Sunday afternoon. Jonathan Stoll's were visiting us for lunch on Sunday.

Here he is again just going off the roof.

This is Elaine running the 16 foot boat to go pick up more guests.

Here is the houseboat from a distance. The bay was protected from the West, South and North sides.

This is Dallas taking his turn at the wheel as we drove the houseboat back into Hudson.

Blueberries

The last few weeks we have been working on picking blueberries. I think this is one of the best years for blueberries ever! One day I picked two gallons in one hour. I have never done that before.

The children were picking berries to sell at the school auction in January. They each have two gallons in the freezer. Last year Elaine sold two gallons at the auction. They sold for about $40.00 per gallon. This year the price for berries here in town is $25.00 or $30.00 per gallon.

We live in blueberry country. Lots of people come out past our house to pick berries. We are fortunate in that we live really close to the areas where there are lots of berries.

Here are the blueberry pickers.

This is what the blueberry crop looks like this year. There are lots of nice big berries and the bushes are loaded.

Cadiac Seminar

Here are a few pictures from the seminar at Cadiac. The other teachers were Gerald Martin from Pennsylvania and Pastor Gabriel Georges from LaColline, Haiti. Gerald taught on Parenting and Pastor Gabriel was teaching about forgiveness.

Each of the three teachers had two one hour sessions a day. That made six hours of teaching every day. We would start at 8:30 in the morning and end for lunch at 2:30 PM.

Here is Gerald Martin teaching. Roland Devalcy is interpreting for him.

Here is Pastor Gabriel teaching.

Back From Haiti

I arrived back from Haiti last evening. My journey home was rather grueling. I was supposed to leave Port-au-Prince at 9:05 Thursday morning. I arrived at the airport just before 7:00 AM. I stood in line for the check-in counter until around 9:00. They told me the flight was delayed and would leave at noon.

Finally, at 3:00 PM we lifted off the ground in Haiti and headed for Miami. They had rebooked me on a flight from Miami to Minneapolis. It was supposed to leave Miami at 8:15 PM. We actually left Miami at close to 11:00 PM. We arrived in Minneapolis at just after 1:00 AM Friday morning. By the time I got my luggage and got to my hotel room, it was almost 2:00 AM.

Friday I drove back to Sioux Lookout and arrived home at 9:00 PM. It is wonderful to be home again.

Here are some stories from my trip. I found some comments interesting. Flattery is always very present in any culture, even though it takes different forms.

I was talking with some of the young men one evening after church. They ask how old I am. I told them I am 55. They acted shocked and assured me that I look much younger than 55. They told me I could tell people that I am 40 and they would believe me. I told them it is often hard to tell the age of a person from another race. They assured me that while that is true, most white people look older than they really are. They cited a few examples of people they thought were older than their true age. That conversation felt kind of good until the truth became apparent. The next morning Pastor Paul and I were having breakfast. As we were sitting across the table from each other, he ask me which of us is older. I assured him that he was older. He said, "Well, when we look at each other, we both have lots of white hair. Neither of us looks very young any more. Either of us could be the oldest". I told him I am 55 this year. He told me he is 60 this year. But, even after we agreed that he is older, he still thought I look as old as he does.

Then I was visiting Preval and his family. His wife commented, "Pastor Merle you are much bigger(fatter) than when you were here last time". I failed to remember at first that this was a huge compliment. I glanced at my belly and wondered how fat I really looked. Then I remembered that this was flattery. I recovered, smiled, and nodded my head. Yes, I am doing very well. Things are going well for me. I thanked her for noticing my larger size. Actually, I think I have lost about five pounds since I was there in March, but that is irrelevant.

One of the amusing moments in the seminar was the second day, rather late in the hot afternoon. The participants had already sat through 5 hours of teaching and I was now doing the sixth hour. Some people were a bit drowsy. It was 2:00 PM and we hadn't had lunch yet. I was teaching from Ephesians 5. I was ready for someone to read verses 22 - 33. No one responded to my request to read the verses. My interpreter looked over the audience. In the back row he spied Yvon. Yvon appeared to be napping. The interpreter called out, "Yvon, stand up and read the verses!" Yvon was kind of jolted out of his sleepy state. He opened his Bible and found the passage. Then he began to read. In the Kreyol Bible verse 22 begins with the phrase, "Nou Minm, Medam yo". This literally means, "and you wives". Yvon however, read it this way, "Nou minm mechan yo". The entire church was suddenly wide awake and burst into laughter. What he had said was, "and you evil ones".

Brother Ricky, I did see Lena Monclaire. She was singing in church both Monday and Tuesday evening. I almost cry every time I see her. I remember standing by her bed with you and praying for her. I was afraid she would take her last breath before we left the room that day. Instead, she is an active teenage girl. God is good, and he is a father to the fatherless and a protector of the widow.

Haiti Trip

I am leaving this morning for Haiti. I will arrive in Port-au-Prince tomorrow afternoon. I plan to be at Cadiac for the Sunday morning service.

We have a seminar at the Cadiac Church Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I am teaching from the book of Ephesians. Last year I did the first three chapters at the seminar, this year I will cover the last three chapters.

Gerald Martin will be joining me there. He will be teaching in the seminar as well.

Equipment for Cuba

We are making progress in getting ready to send medical equipment to Cuba. The hospital here in Sioux Lookout is beginning to donate things to MEMO Cuba-Sioux Lookout to be sent to Cuba. The Hospital has given us some things that will be very useful in Cuba.

The owner of Johnny's supermarket, here in Sioux Lookout, has given us the use of a storage trailer. We are raising money to purchase a sea container. When we get the sea container, we will begin the packing process.

We need about $5,000 to purchase a 40 foot sea container and get it here to Sioux Lookout. We have about half that much money so far. We are hoping to have a sea container here in the next month. Then we will begin the fund raising for the shipping costs. It will probably cost about $7,000 to ship the container from here to Cuba.

It looks like we will have enough equipment to fill a container by this Fall. We are hoping to ship the container by the end of the year. We estimate that we will have several hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment in the container when it is filled.

Here are Nate Hochstetler and Chuck Abela loading equipment on the truck and trailer to take them to the storage trailer.

Here we are beginning to put things into the storage trailer.

New Roof

For some unknown reason, the shingles on the one side of our roof were bad. Especially at the one end of the house they were all curled and the roof was beginning to leak around the skylights.

We decided to replace the shingles on the one side of the house roof. This week Sean Hochstetler began working on replacing the shingles. Dallas was helping him by carrying shingles and putting them in place for Sean to nail.

Here is the carpenter himself, with his audience. Dallas, Elaine and Abby and Aaron Bruce were all up on the roof watching him.