The UmBlog

We arrived in Haiti on Saturday, July 13th, and went to church on Sunday, July 14th. I took a brief video clip in church so I could remember it. Here it is. Before the earthquake, there was a concrete block building here, that was also a school. It partially collapsed and killed a few people. Although the church leases the property, they took care of it, and removed all that concrete and rebar down to the cement pad, and they built this 2x4, tarp, and tin roof structure. They have met here for three and a half years since the quake. However, the property owner decided that he no longer wanted to rent to the church. Our team had to dismantle the church. Every piece of lumber and tin was saved. We pulled so many nails out of the lumber. No matter how bent, they were all saved to use again, when a new property becomes available. This was service of closure. The congregation worshiped God out of gratefulness for what he has done and in anticipation for what he will do. This is ...

I've been back for almost a week since my trip to Haiti with my daughter through the organization Mission E4 . The picture above is before their front gate at the girls' orphanage in Cassagne, Leogane . This is a picture of us from day 3 at the outdoor dining area of the guest house in Gran Goave. Our team stayed at a beach house in Gran Goave owned by Mission of Hope International . There is another group named Mission of Hope Haiti . They also do great work in Haiti, but we didn't stay with them. They do not have air conditioning, you need regular electricity for that, but I was able to walk right out the back gate, down the boat ramp and into the Gulf of Gonave every afternoon for some resuscitation after a hot work day. I don't know, nor did I want to know, how (un)clean the water is. It was very murky, but so refreshing. On the horizon, we could barely see Gonave Island . Mission of Hope has a small motorboat that they take out to the island to d...

First of all the credit goes to Owen Geiger and his EarthBag Building Blog for, yet, another great find . Second of all, I like the idea of repurposing grain bins into homes. Third of all, I was thrilled to see that this business, Sukup, is donating these houses to Haitians in Les Cayes, map , and  Croix-Des-Bouquets , map , through Haiti Relief Fund, Inc . This video shows a representative excitedly looking over a demo house at the Sukup factory. This is Sukup's explanation of the house . Sukup Safe T HomesTM are engineered structures that are suitable for all phases of recovery effort. They are quick and easy to construct, making them ideal for emergency situations. The all-steel construction makes the Sukup Safe T Home perfect for longer-term use, since they are weather-, fire- and termite-proof. They are also movable, making them well suited to transitional shelter needs. The round shape of the Safe T Home allows the unit to withstand high winds. They are also virtually ea...

First Kelly Hart, at the earth bag building blog , posts a link to the bottle brick house in Africa. Then I found a BBC report on it. Eventually I ended up at Eco-Tec Soluciones Ambientales , which I think is the Latin American nexus of this technology. This video seems to explain how it started way back in 2000. My brain is exploding with excitement especially about applying this to Haiti, which has an abundance of trash water bottles all over Port-au-Prince.

I brought this book along with me on vacation, but I'm an abnormal person. This is not light beach reading. This book is about a wrestling match between the author and God. It's not a flashy, staged, professional wrestling match with a certain outcome, but more of an amateur match, at the high school level. This is not an insult of Kent Annan's writing, but, if you've ever been to some of those high school matches, an analogy to the long and drawn out contests between kids who are evenly matched and make slow progress. If I may reach for a Biblical metaphor, this is like Jacob's long night of wrestling with God, from which he emerged, crippled but with a stronger faith (see Genesis 32). The earthquake in Haiti, which killed his friends, yet also enabled others to fly to the US for expert medical care, and destroyed his friends' homes and churches, and fractured families, fractured his faith and crippled his soul. He found solace in the blues catalog of the Bib...

A couple weekends ago, a couple guys from my church and I trekked over to Patti Stouter's house to learn from her how to build with dirt and bags and barbed wire . We want to provide permanent shelter for Haitians in a sustainable, affordable, culturally appropriate, disaster resistant manner and she has already designed and seen constructed a few buildings in post-earthquake Haiti. She has a website, Simple Earth Structures , which has a page for training workshops at her house. Her classes are not just for relief minded people such as myself, though she has had much interest from ex-patriot Haitians who want to go back and do something for their friends and family. There are Americans who want to build additions or entire domiciles out of earth bags for themselves, in the USA. One such couple was also in our class. The class was great. We worked on rubble bags for the first rows of the foundation. Then we mixed dirt to the right mixture of clay and sand and moisture and added th...

Conscience International is doing alot with rubble and housing in Haiti on the southern finger of that nation in Grand Goave , which was 90% destroyed in last year's earthquake. I visited the nearby towns Fouche of Petit Goave , on either side of Grand Goave, last year. Their website is full of pictures, construction drawings, volunteer opportunities, funding, and video from a report by the Discovery Channel. They have done engineering for these houses. They don't seem to use a bunch of gabions to layer up a wall, but single cages for each wall. It's very impressive and earthquake safe as well as hurricane safe and thug safe, for about $3500. They are also trying to avoid sourcing any materials at all from outside of Haiti. They want to support Haiti, and Haitian businesses, as well as abundantly available Haitian labor. If you have any ability to contribute to this effort please do. They seem to be ahead of the progress of Oxfam in this style of house, see this note by...

In light of my experience of visiting Haiti before and after the earthquake in 2010, the idea of aid, and how to do it right, is a struggle for me, and this book, When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Yourself by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert has been very helpful in sorting out the issues. I learned a great deal from these authors and I think any church leader who wants to jump into ministry to those in need would benefit from the research and anecdotes presented in this book. This explanation of how the poor view their poverty is an enlightening example. "While poor people mention having a lack of material things, they tend to describe their condition in far more psychological and social terms than our North American audiences. Poor people typically talk in terms of shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness." p.53 Since that is the case, one should recognize tha...

World Buildings Directory - Project R (The Rubble House) This page has a great idea for a place like Haiti, which is filled with concrete rubble since the earthquake last year. The only thing I'm not quite sure about is the availability of wire to make strong cages. But this picture is beautiful. I know of at least one house being done in Haiti like this, as described in the comments at the Earth Bag building blog . Owen Geiger is also proposing to use rubble but in bags. Anyway, this house in Lebanon is gorgeous. Update: Good news. Oxfam is indeed doing this in Haiti . They are planning 100 houses and are using chicken wire and rebar to hold the rubble together. Another update: More gabion houses have been built in Grand Guave. Discussion and picture here . Website, Haiti Replacement Homes .

I'm disappointed that none of my posts in 2010 made the top 10 in popularity for this year's hits. I am surprised how many people come here to read about bicycles . Only a few posts in 2010 cracked the 100 hits ceiling. My cinema review of the Book of Eli got the most. My post on the Binishell , generated a cluster of hits recently, that pushed it over the century mark. None of my Haiti posts exceeded the 100 level, but collectively, the ones in February, generated many hits, including my trip report from February . Here are the top 10 hits overall for 2010. 10. Yummy Land Shrimp 9. Picture of the Electra Royal 8i and my bike crush on it 8. my personally positive experience at Family Life's marriage retreat, A Weekend to Remember 7. Someone else's negative review of the Cruzbike, which I pointed to (but I still want one) 6. the announcement of my new bike 5. a review of my Actionbent recumbent , which is still for sale, email me to buy it 4. a picture of the Gabion ...

I gave this sermon this morning at my church . Two Wednesday nights ago, four 50 somethings from this area, could not fall asleep again. The previous nights were due to the heat and humidity, but this was humidity on a new level of misery. These Yankees had never experienced a thunderstorm so loud and violent and rain so hard as this one. But then, none of them had ever been in Haiti before, in July. Although this house in Jacmel, on the southeastern coast of Haiti had remained standing after the massive earthquake of January 12th, 2010, it apparently had lost some strength in its roof. With this much water coming down, so hard and so fast, all the cracks in the flat concrete roof let the rain in on the team, who were alone for their first night. So they got up in the night and started to mop out the wet rooms. At least they were on bunk beds off the floor. Compared to tens of thousands of Haitians throughout SE Haiti, they were living in luxury: electricity, flush toilets, showers, ...

These were built for Haitian families in Fouche before the quake and survived. From Haiti trip Feb 2010 These are only two buildings, but Mission E4 would like to build 1,000. They are small, but so are the stick and blanket shelters and tents. Unlike the stick homes, these can also withstand hurricanes. From Haiti trip Feb 2010 One of these suffered a little damage at the door lintel . From Haiti trip Feb 2010 It was quickly fixed. The tin roof keeps the weight down on the walls. They cost $1500 each and can be built with local technology and are culturally acceptable. Local workers can make these easily and be paid which stimulates the local economy. They only hold a bed, clothes, cooking supplies, a few other things. They have no bathrooms or running water. But they provide solid, reliable shelter for poor families. These shelters won't suffice. From Haiti trip Feb 2010 This won't do in a hurricane. From Haiti trip Feb 2010 The spring rains have started in Haiti and I don...

This was starting the day I left Haiti on February 12th. Haiti - "A Call To Fasting & Prayer" from anthony gehin on Vimeo . It was in the place of the Carnival. I left Haiti last year during Fat Tuesday. It was crazy then. It was a different kind of crazy, a holy crazy this year. I hope God continues the revival of this land. The earthquake in Chile is crazy to me. I've been to Santiago, Chile. It was my first trip to another continent. It was 1993 and my first flight in a Boeing 787, but we landed at such a small airport, but in the country's capital city. Now another country I've been to, where I saw God at work, has been hit by a huge earthquake. There was also one in Japan and one off the coast of Argentina yesterday. I pray these countries also, though more prepared for such acts of nature and not facing as much loss of lives, will, like Haiti, turn to Jesus. Here is a short video of Jesus time in a tent hospital, courtesy of the Livesay blog . These ...

There are many ideas on how to provide shelter in Haiti. This group, Shelter2Home wants to provide temporary shelters that can be incorporated into permanent structures. I'm sure that means the upfront costs are higher. Here is their 8 minute presentation. The permanent solution is being done in partnership with REACH at a Catholic orphanage in Haiti called Pwoje Espwa , whose blog I've been following before the earthquake, because they built an earthbag house , which survived the quake. The technology REACH is using comes from Virginia based Stucc on Steel . It's a revival of stucco but on metal lathes. Because they use galvanized steel, they bury their walls into the ground and foundation to provide earthquake and hurricane strength.

This footage was taken by Pastor George Small of Horizon Christian Fellowship in Fitchburg, Mass. He took a lot of footage. I'm impressed by how he was able to distill the essentials down to 10 minutes. If you can sponsor a Haitian child for $30 a month through Mission E4, please contact them at MissionE4@yahoo.com

Degaje is the Haitian Creole phrase meaning, "make it work." In a country that is so dependent on foreign assistance and without any substantial manufacturing, when a piece of higher technology breaks down, there are no replacement parts and either it is made to work or left to decay. When I was in Port-au-Prince last year I was impressed with the welder at the Calvary Christian Fellowship Orphanage . From Haiti, Port-au-Prince His personal protection for welding consisted of flip flops for his feet and dark sunglasses for his eyes. That was not out of ordinary for some people in the US, but his power source for this arc welder was an example of "degaje." From Haiti, Port-au-Prince It looks to me like a battery with lots of metal wire coated around it. In principle, perfect, but nothing I've seen stateside. On this most recent trip, I had to live out "degaje" in small ways. After the earthquake, the American style toilets in the Leogane orphanage of M...