Where's Norm Been

Good question.

If you’ve emailed me and I’ve not responded, you’d probably have to take a number and stand in a long line of people. I’m sorry, but it’s hard for me to getting around to emailing. After you spend your energy on putting out fires of all sorts and trying to push things forward, the other important but less urgent things get pushed aside. But, thanks for emailing. It is a great encouragement. And, to be honest, given what's ahead I'm afraid I'm going to get worse at it, not better.

Got back here in September to a half finished project (more like 80% finished) of a resource center we’ve purchased and we (me and Tim/Lisa Bynum most) immediately dug into finishing it up. It consumed far my of my time than I expected. Not quite finished yet, and it's been almost two months!

It’s going to be a nice place, very nice, has needed a lot of work. And, the work that’s needed also comes with foreign help, Dominican’s, (local electricians, tile layers, plumbers, etc.) and their skills are minimal at best. So, it’s been a huge challenge to deal with. I’m accustom to extremely skilled craftsman and technicians. That’s not here. More growing pains.

Lately, even though we now have internet 24/7 and I’ve installed a battery inverter system to use when there’s no city power, the electricity has been very bad. Not even enough electricity to charge the batteries, so for now we have very little. And thus things like internet and emails are hard to come by. It’s amazing how different life is with electricity. Everything, everything uses electricity. When you don’t have it for months on end, it gets really tiring.

So, that must mean I’m about ready to toss in the towel, or at a minimum slow things down. Well, not really. Quite the opposite, I’ve made plans to start on building a house. And we’re suppose to start next week. I must be mad. But, in the final analysis of whether to start or not, I see how employing 10-20 people to build a house sustains many families that need the work. Frankly, all things being equal, I wouldn’t start now, but I’m going to anyway. I’m sure it will be unspeakably difficult. But, I also have a peace about it. Not the house or the outcome, just that I’m starting it. We’ll see how it goes.

So, keep hanging in there. I will eventually blog, if not email.

That's where I've been.