Roatan - June 2010

Last-minute trip to Roatan with the specific purpose of transporting the heavy material supplies to St. Helene while we had the generous offer of the free use of a barge through the end of the month. Unfortunately… or fortunately… (depending on how you look at it!) the barge owner decided it would cost him more to take his barge out of service for 3-4 days to do our job than paying to have another company do it, which is what he has committed to doing. This is a very generous donation and we are very grateful!! Also, this has now freed us up to wait until we are ready to begin the actual construction of the school before we transport the materials. This helps us in two ways. First, the materials will not be sitting on St. Helene for the next month or 2 at risk of being stolen or broken. Secondly, it allows us the opportunity to gather all the supplies we need, both large and small, and transport them together in one trip.

Since we had promised the north-shore community of St. Helene that we would be arriving that week with supplies, they seemed skeptical about us when we showed up empty-handed. We held a community meeting and explained the situation and that the project was actually going very well and is moving ahead nicely. The heavy materials that were to be transported that week do exist and are being stored safely in Roatan until time to build. Meanwhile, everything continues to move forward nicely. Everyone was satisfied with the progress.
We also talked at the meeting about how to clean up the community of trash and put processes in place to keep it ongoing. Their ideas centered around possibly finding a location for a dump site and using the dozer on the island to dig out a pit to use, but there is concern about the wind continuing to blow the trash around. A solution is still pending!


Also discussed was the idea that the donated land for the school be setup in a community foundation so that it can never be taken away in the future. They agreed, and the title work on the property has begun. At the end of the meeting they asked if we would close it in prayer, which we were glad to do.

Plenty of things to do to get the project completed before rainy season, but we are well on our way!