Our Project Help compound at Borel has been in existence since 1967 . Some of the buildings we built during our first five years others were built during the years American Fruit Company held ownership from 1920's to 1940's. Though several of the the houses have been torn down for construction of other building five of the former mission houses still exist. The largest house though built as a home for the Jim Wallace family in the late 60's now serves as the main guesthouse. The house I live in has at times over the last 8 years served as the missionary house or a guesthouse. Three of the other houses range from livable to needing a serious makeover. The fifth house which is in the worse shape we have at times considered tearing down but since it's still I think we can find a use for it.
With new missionaries arriving soon we are working hard to prepare a nice family home for them by Jan. It is my hope we will recruit a few more missionaries to help with the abundance of work at hand in the coming months and years ahead. If you read these blogs you know that we are embarking on a new path as we refocus and direct our work here. With the existing medical ministry and the new agriculture, community development and micro loans work we are planning. The Borel compound will become once again a hub of activity. most of our teams coming our helping us give the compound a new look and bring many of the unused buildings back to use. We will have one of the houses finished later this year for the Snyder family. Earlier this year we converted the old butcher shop to a mission team work shop. The poultry barn is planned to become a tilapia fish rearing facility. The original mission dorm may become four small apartments for our visiting agriculture experts and short term volunteers. The present guesthouse is in need of some serious updates to provide more of a guesthouse appearance than a ranch house style. New rules are being implemented for our workers and daily visitors, tighter regulation of the day to day operation will soon be forthcoming to better control how the facilities function. These things don't happen over night especially in Haiti but progress is on the way. Teams this week have been cleaning up much of the junk to be disposed of at a scrap yard in Port au Prince and trash is being cleaned up to haul to a land fill. A new incinerator and trash holding area are being built . A new security building that all visitors must pass through will be built before the end of the year. I'm looking at new infrastructure to make things such as communications, water and electricity more dependable. We have already installed a smaller more fuel miserly generator and battery inverter system for the mission houses and more dependable and quicker Internet and phone service. I'm looking at locating a central dining and cooking area in the bottom of the LDTS building as better than having it located in the guesthouse where it is crowded, hard to clean and attracts rodents. Instead of each missionary having a separate fully equipped kitchen they eat together and only have a small fridge and microwave or small apartment stove in their houses. These are all plans that may be coming in the months ahead, some are being implemented as each new team arrives to help out. An extreme makeover maybe not but a makeover for sure.
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