12th of January 1 year later

It is exactly 1 year after the tragic earthquake. We went to a memorial service this afternoon at the city park. There were prayers, songs and the reading of the names of those that were lost in the area on that day. I think there were 47 people that passed away in Grand Goave. After this a basket of flowers was put on the roof of a nearby structure.  It was quite a time of reflection.

I started the day as part of a round table discussion. This was the last session in the leadership conference that is happening here.There were questions from people on things such as hygene, earthquakes, construction, leadership,etc. The geologist put to rest some false rumors that have been spreading about another big earthquake. I was able to speak about construction techniques. Something that captured peoples attention was my mention of earth bag construction as a lower cost alternative to cement structures.

Out on the job sites things have been crawling along as we wait for the part for the skid steer to show up. Also with the activity around the conference etc it has been hard to focus on the construction projects.

As an update on our projects we have a crew of men doing the excavation of the technical school and the community houses are going up.The other projects we hope to resume as soon as possible.

 The pastors that are here now are leaving early tommorrow AM and a team of 12 arives from California later in the day.