In Search of a Roof....

For many years now Vila de Woz Church has been a congregation in search of roof.  The foundation and walls are at least five years old and were constructed with the assistance of a group of expatriate Haitians from the community who were living in France and other countries.  Unfortunately, the group was not able to finish the funding after a certain influential banker in the community misappropriated the money transfer from the group (the banker since fled the community to avoid lynching).  For this reason, we were very stand-offish when the Vila de Woz project was first proposed by the CRC of Haiti.  However, we agreed to a small project to demonstrate the willingness and capacity of the congregation to manage the project.  The small project was successful and the plans for the church roof were approved (budgeted at nearly $18,000 USD) and funded generously by SON-BEAM International of Jamestown, MI.  As of today, all 25 wood trusses have been built out of the lumber pictured above.  A group of volunteer masons poured a bond beam on the walls and built a peak on the back and front of the church.  This week, Kesnel Ady and Elihu Metallus are working on fastening all the trusses to a wood sill plate screwed to the bond beam by some large threaded rod poured into the bond beam.  Unfortunately, there has been a problem with the phillips drill bits used to drive the screws attaching the sill plate to the trusses--they all broke (often the tools imported into Haiti are of low quality)!  This means an extra trip by small bus to Port-au-Prince (8 hours each way) and back to purchase new bits.  Please pray that the time lost waiting for these bits can be made up and the church can be finished on time.