These eager food samplers decided this was the best rice and beans yet!

Recently Grant and Trinity accompanied us to a nearby school (Torbeck) to see a Haiti lunch program in motion. One of their first comments was, “No one in the U.S. would be content eating the same thing every day like this!” The kids we saw were not only content with their school lunch, there was not one piece of evidence left that there WAS any lunch! Contrast that with the times we ate with Ohio 1st graders and saw almost entire lunches get tossed into the garbage!

World Relief currently supports four MEBSH school lunch programs in fairly close proximity to the Child Care office, and many other school directors are begging for this as well. The children we observed waited patiently until everyone was served, sat through a prayer and then thankfully finished off everything on their plate. It touches us every time we see this.

An expertly managed fire, float some hot peppers in there for flavor and it soon smells great!

The perfect water to rice ratio produces fluffy rice!

Hot and nutritious — the ideal Haitian school lunch!

Proper hygiene before meals!

Making a few little friends!

Being thankful for today’s lunch!

Thank You Jesus for my food!

God cares for me!

Be content with such things as ye have!

(A note to Rittman/Smithville: recognize those white things?)

We also recently visited the local MEBSH elementary school in Simon which feeds 265 students every day. The cost for each student is $16 per year. Over and over you hear how thankful the administration and kids are for the food — the same meal every day, every week, every year!

This is a mountain of rice to make every day!

Everywhere you see such thankfulness for the food!

Thank you for helping us in Haiti!

Ready for the roof!

The finished product with God’s stamp of blessing!

We had a wonderful opportunity to help out at the Cancer Redemption Project (CRP) last weekend when a team came from Roanoke to add a large roof on the building that will house the church and school. It was one of the largest roofs to date (139 x 74 ft) and the construction department put months of preparation into the whole project before this weekend. 3-1/2 miles of lumber were used, and 27,000 total lbs of material!

Months of careful planning for the graduated trusses that would produce the hip roof.

On Saturday Mike and Grant worked together with the team assembling trusses (that just means pounding nails) in the hot sun. Trinity and I worked on benches and desks and we had our eyes open to all the work that goes into a finished bench or desk. Even Grace got to be one of the water girls! It was enjoyable to work together and to get to know the team from Roanoke. Grant also helped on the roof once some of the trusses started going up. A lot of prayer went up for the men that worked high off the ground!

We thought of Zach often as we were there working, and just marvel at how God is giving the increase to the vision He gave Zach. So many are being blessed by his time, effort, and work on this center. We are sure Zach can see from Heaven the progress being made. Could he be one of the cloud of witnesses cheering us on for the work of the Kingdom?

Working with friends created a special day!

The stacks of benches grew quickly!

Precut lumber had to be moved to assembly areas.

Mike was not used to hammering an entire day!

Taking a break from the heat!

The first trusses are being placed over the two-story sanctuary end.

Moving the pieces around on the ground was hard enough…

The short storms that came up each day were awesome to see!

A really busy yard and the first trusses going up!

Two days later…the roof takes shape!

Three days later…let it rain!

On Sunday we had another opportunity to go to CRP for their church service. The kids from each of the four current Homes of Hope sang. What a blessing to see these kids being well taken care of and have a loving home! God be praised and glorified! We couldn’t help but think again of Zach and Jenny and their time invested, and their heart’s desire to place orphans in Christian homes, and how God provided for funds for this all to come to pass. What a God we serve!

Making new friends and sharing God’s love!

Grace doesn’t really like anyone doing her hair, but she was patient this time…

Too cute for words!