Been a long time

I'm alive for starters. Not that there was any doubt save my lack of updating.

Hospital Update: it's coming along fast. All phase one buildings (nearly) have finished floors. All rough in electric is completed. 3 phase permanent power is wired to the hospital. Doors are on site and will be installed over the next couple weeks. Additionally windows have arrived on site and installation of those will start on Monday. Daylight is getting shorter and the work longer. It's tough to keep track of days now. They all run together. Often times the easiest unit to think in is weeks. I think that means we're keeping busy.

In my experience here, I have been pondering the idea of working myself out of a job. Eventually I will pack up my bags. I'll take this pair of work boots off for the last time. Turn over the keys to the backhoe and forklift. I'll get on a plane and go home to The Ohio State University and keep on studying Mechanical engineering. And when that time comes how will I have made sure that there is a smooth transition of knowledge and information. How will I have trained my co workers to perform my job?

And when I think about these questions I sometimes run up against the problem of figuring out how to communicate. Given the fact that most of my daily interactions are with people who speak Haitian Creole as their primary language, how do I express more than simple questions and commands to convey the importance of different tasks. I have spent a good amount of time unloading containers in the past 4 months. And for the most part I have to be exceptionally careful with the items I've been entrusted to unloaded and warehouse or distribute to the teams of workers and volunteers. And yet even in this I don't really know how to express to my Haitian coworkers how important the word "fragile" is to how we behave towards different boxes and hardware. Not ever item is made the same. So this is an issue I am trying to understand and deal with.

In all of this I am trying to not lose sight of the big picture. Not that I've become a detail oriented small focused person. I'm still global in my thought patterns. But in the day to day I sometimes lose sight of the wrongs I am having a small part in righting and how it is all playing into building a future where the sick are healed. It is a small act in restoring creation to Jesus and bringing forth the Kingdom.

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." -Karl Marx

I aim to do just that.