Day 4

Day 4 - It was a hot day today! And we did a lot of heavy lifting. We finished pouring the Bond Beams around the top of all the walls.

Below is the Christian School doing their morning songs.

 Below is the Pastor of this church.

 You can see how close the houses are to the Church.

Rob is being super flexible to get access to the outside of the wall.

 This is trash pile next to the village of Du Quesa where we are building the Church.

A lot of the Haitians work in the trash pile and try and salvage the copper and aluminum to recycle and get paid for. You can see the little dots on top of the pile, that is all the people working out there sifting through the trash. This is how most of them make their money. They get about a $1 for a pound. 

This is the security guard to get into the trash area. Watch out for the shotgun peg.  

This is a picture of the building we are staying in.

Here is a view from on top of Mission Center Offices of the city around us.

 This is the Dinning Hall where we eat all our meals.

 We went to Steve Brauning's house tonight. He is the last missionary left here in the Dominican. The locals have taken over the missions down here and Steve is the the last one here. We had pizza and fellowship. He talked to us about the story of how World Missions got into the Dominican Republic.

Day 3

 It's our 3rd full day out here. I had a little extra time so I posted a video of our Church service from yesterday. They really get into singing!

Here we are putting up the top supports on the walls. We hope to have all the walls finish by the end of the day tomorrow.

 We have some very helpful locals that are helping us a ton with the project. We really appreciate their eagerness to get things done.

 This is the Church Bathroom sitting behind the church. It's an old toilet with a hole dug under it inside a shack that is only about 5' tall. 

 This is a view from standing on the rafters looking over the wall of the church. Very beautiful, yet so much poverty.

 These are the places these people live right next door to the church.

 We like the man made ladders they have, but don't let Osha see you up there.

 Peg and Maria taking a walk down the path to visit with the local Haitians. 

 Jennifer had a little follower most of the day. Her very own Superman.

Here are some cattle we had to drive around to get out today. Plus if you look in the mirror you can see Shelly. That's about the only way we can get her in a picture. :) 

Day 2

Update: We did finally receive our luggage last night at around 9:00.

Today we went to a church in another village in a church that Shalom Church built. Later in the afternoon we headed to the Ocean since we had a little spare time. It down poured again as we drove out there, but was done raining as we got there. Rob and Maria showed up around 6:00PM.

Sunday pose

This is the church we attended that Shalom church built 

Yep it's supposed to be dry season but should be four wheeling through here

                                         Afternoon spent walking along the water front        

Peg getting her workout in.

Notice a LOT of trash on one of the few beaches they have. We can't believe how much trash is laying around on the ground everywhere we go.

    Looking out of the gates where we are staying

Day 1

It is 7:00PM and we still don't have our luggage. It also down poured while on the site today, so we are still sitting in wet clothes that we wore when we left Iowa. We hope the luggage gets here in the next couple hours.

Here are a few pictures of the church we are working on.

 This picture above is George (Hor-Hay) helping the locals mix up the cement.

Trying to stay Hydrated

 Picture above is the newer building for couples to stay in which the Postma's took advantage of.

 This is the ladies still working in the pouring rain.

 This is the Lutheran Church right next door to the Church we are building.

This is the school on the same ground we are staying at.

Through this door is where we have all our meals. There is a large group of high-schoolers from Toronto Christian spending 8 weeks here.

We made it!

We finally made it to our destination at around 11:30 last night. None of our luggage made it, so hopefully that shows up later today.
Internet is too slow to post pictures so we will try again later.

Waiting for the plane in Chicago.

On our way out.

SALT Team 2015

We will start posting once we leave this Friday, February 20th.

George Bierma
Jon Dekkers
Jennifer Van Bruggen
Peg Eekhoff
Kris Hulstein
Duane Postma
Shelly Postma
Ryan Zomermaand
Rob Suwyn
Maria Suwyn