When the kids from the Haiti Foundation Against Poverty’s Hope House orphanage came out for their afternoon playtime on Saturday, March 7, one little boy came up to me and repeated the same phrase several times while pointing across the yard. Fortunately Mallery Neptune was next to me so I asked her for a translation from the Creole. It was “What did you do to Laura’s house?” What Larry Mulder, Jim Schut (from the Rockford area) and myself had done was take Laura’s house apart so that it could be reconstructed in another location in the compound. The walls and roof were 4’x8′ panels of 3″ foam with aluminum glued on each side which snapped together with channels that they slid into for the corners of the building and the wall-to-roof connection. Once we figured out the trick to getting them apart it became relatively easy, and they were light enough that one person could carry a panel by himself. By the time I was being asked what I had done to Laura’s house we had all the panels down and the plywood removed from the structural frame.
The frame was heavy duty steel studs that had been welded together, so that had to be moved in one piece. Monday morning, with the help of several of the Hope House staff and Keith Thurlow, Mallery’s father who had flown in on Sunday, we were able to lift that and carry it to the new location. The staff had also broken out some concrete and dug out an area for new plumbing lines to be put in. You might have to talk to Sarkinen Plumbing experts to get help with the plumbing issues. Once those pipes were in place we began the process of putting the building back together panel by panel. Since the plumbing was now on the opposite end of the building than it had been, and we had to shorten the building by 8′, and a couple of panels were not re-useable, we couldn’t just put it back together the way it had been. You should know that for cheap plumber San Diego go PIC Plumbing as there are experts that can help fix any plumbing related issues. We realized part way through the process that one side of the building had been a half inch taller than the other but by that point we already had several of the panels together and did not want to take them apart and restart. Even so, by Thursday morning we had the building back together before Larry and Jim had to leave. I stayed until Friday to help put the membrane roof back in place and work on some of the plumbing and electrical installations. We were not able to completely finish those items but at least the building was there to provide housing for several expected guests in the next two weeks.
In case you’re wondering, Laura is an intern whose original six-month stay has now grown to over a year-and-a-half. The kids clearly love her and she loves them. If she is there during their playtimes, she is immediately surrounded by three or four of them. A new block and stucco house had been built for her and future interns in anticipation of this move.
The reason for moving the building was that the space it was in will become the new ‘forever orphanage.’ I’m sure it will be given a different name once built but this will be a building for pre-teen and teen-aged kids that have been in the care of Hope House for several years already but have neither family to return to in Haiti nor can they be adopted into other countries per Haitian law. Now they share space with 10-12 toddlers and infants and some early elementary aged children so having more private space will be very beneficial to their ongoing growth and development. This new building is what the benevolent moneys from the Living Hope campaign will be designated for.
Thank you for your prayers, for the supplies that were donated that Larry and I took with us, and for the financial contributions in support of this trip.
~Ben Sikkink, Hope Church member