Still No Water, but We Have Food!

We still do not have running water, but overall things are going really well. The kids are getting used to hauling water to the house and washing clothes by hand. Below, Talitha has a bowl of water to help Melissa clean the sink. Melissa went to spit in the sink and ended up spitting out one of her molars. Jordan and Melissa have both lost baby teeth since we arrived in Haiti. They grow up so quick! 

We are still praying for running water. Apparently we have two issues. One, we do not have consistent enough electricity to run our pump (it will not run on the battery system we have). Two, our holding tank on the roof is somehow defective. The water is not storing in the tank. If it were (and we were able to pump it up there), we would have a gravity feed system into our home that would provide some water even when the power is off. Our ladder is not tall enough to get up to the roof, but the owner of the house is supposed to send someone out again to investigate the problem. This is apparently on Haitian time though because we've been here over a month and still no water. But, we have high hopes for running water someday! 

We have some exciting news though: We were able to purchase 220 pounds of flour, 220 pounds of sugar, and 25 pounds of lard. We are able to make bread, pancake mix, and various other things to help reduce our overall food budget. There's a missionary here that helps women earn a living by helping them establish a business. One of the ways they do this is by helping people establish bread baking businesses. We were able to get in on their bulk order of ingredients for making bread. Unfortunately they were out of yeast, but we have a small amount to tide us over until we can purchase a larger amount. We may also be able to get oats at some point. Just regular oatmeal is incredibly expensive here.

David immediately made some amazing donuts from all the flour and sugar. They were a big hit. He made some later that even had frosting and sprinkles. He ended up making over 50 donuts and giving some to our neighbors. We're trying out various recipes for various things. Last night we made pizza. I had brought some pepperoni and cheese from the states and hamburger is actually relatively inexpensive here. We continue to try to cut our overall expenses and figure out new ways to save money.

We appreciate all the prayers for our family and for Haiti! David was really sick last night and this morning. Some of the kids have struggled off and on with various intestinal issues. Our kids from Haiti seem to have a really strong immune system and haven't really been sick as much as some of the other kids. It's never fun though to see any of them sick. We pray that David recovers completely and will be back up at the school tomorrow teaching. David has committed to teaching computers and English in Gramothe for the school year. He also continues to teach English online to his students in China.