Le Grande Fromage

Le Grande Fromage

Every organization has it top guy.  In the military it’s the President of the country; or, perhaps, a private like the famous Radar O’Reilly from M*A*S*H* fame.  In business it is usually the CEO or the President of the Corporation.  In the case of Samaritan’s Purse the President is Franklin Graham.  Street term for that person would be ‘the big cheese’, or Le Grande Fromage.

Word leaked out last Friday that Franklin would be flying in on Monday for a four hour visit; mostly to review the building program at the Lamb Center and secondly, to review the building project across the wall.  Every minute of his visit was preplanned and coordinated in order to make the most of every second for his time here.

The chopper he flew in on circled the base at 9:15 today.  It did a quick overview of the new compound and then landed in a cloud of dust.  Quick greetings ensued from the Regional Director of Latin America, who had been staying with us for the past week.  He, too, had been touring the projects gaining further insight into how to make further budget cuts for 2012.  Charles, the Country Director of Haiti, also welcomed the entourage of three men.  Franklin was also accompanied by the VP of SP, a man named Ken who has been at Franklin’s side for some 23 years.  He pretty much oversees the financials on all the programs around the world.  The third man was a representative from a mega church in New York who was reviewing the projects with the possibilities of doing some partnerships.

After ten minutes of so, the group was ushered away in some new vehicles for a tour of the Lamb Orphanage in Leogane. 

In the meantime I worked with Kiki on the water truck.  It came over from GOES base yesterday and had some faulty air hoses.  To be blunt, they needed to be replaced.  But since we don’t have any parts to replace much less repair that type of system, we had to resort to Haitian style.  I found a piece of rubber tubing that was close to the same size as the nylon tubing.  I sliced it lengthwise and placed it over the nylon split and then reinforced it with a hose clamp.  That one worked.  On to the next.  The air supply to the PTO unit had crushed tubing and a collar that had collapsed to the point where it wouldn’t hole the tubing in the fitting.  Kiki wound a pile of cotton around the fitting and squished it back together.  It worked, but still leaks air … the point being that it worked.  The basic concept here is to make it work; doesn’t matter how, just make it work.  As long as it works no repair is needed.  When it breaks again, the repair that worked is redone so it works.  Then the correct repair is not needed … again.  So the cycle continues.  At least Travis said he would order the correct materials so it is fixed right.  Seems he will order whatever I suggest.  We’ll see how that goes.

Lunch rolled around and the entourage from Lamb Center rolled in.  They were quickly ushered into the newly decorated dining hall.  We even had tablecloths for the event….imagine, table cloths.  Their group huddled at one end of the tables and the rest of us went about our regular lunch.

A quick church setting was set up in the devotional area immediately after lunch.  The group of three was introduced by Charles.  Franklin presented a quick ten minute evangelical message about the crucifixion story, related that to Christmas and us as a family.  Then they pretty much moved to the chopper and flew out.  Quite the whiz bang visit.  I did manage a photo or two as they were moving deliberately to the aircraft.

The balance of the day resumed.  Francois was in the middle of tearing down an earthquake damaged house with the excavator.  Travis and I went over to watch him after lunch.  Francois loaded Kiki’s truck and I accompanied him to the rubble dump site an hour across town.  It was a slow bumpy ride, but a necessary evil in order to have permission to take the house down in the first place. 

Tomorrow that house site should be finished and we’ll move on to building some roads nearby.   I’ll be loading trucks at the river and Francois will be road building with the dozer.  Next week we’ll install another septic system, this time with a new backhoe that Travis is picking up at Port tomorrow.  End of next week we’ll demo a church in Port au Prince with the new excavator that is also ready to pick up in port.  Following that Travis is expecting the rubble and road building to pick back up as he is planning on moving to a town outside of the Leogane jurisdiction.  That relocation will free us up to start building roads out of the rubble instead of taking it to the recycling location near Leogane because it will be in a different town with a different mayor. 

Have to keep you posted on how that works out.  In the meantime, I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.

SP entourage getting ready to leave

Mr Graham sharing the gospel message

Mr. Graham talking with Penny, our financial officer