Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Sunday


One thing I failed to mention about our first day on the work site was that there was a bit of rain. Enough rain to make people who have lived in the Dominican Republic for decades comment that it never rains this much since it is the dry season. That trend continued Saturday night and by Sunday morning, the once a month joint church service  we were going to attend was postponed because some roads were impassable because of the amount of mud. Our team opted to have church together on the hotel balcony after breakfast. 



After church, some of us took a walk where found a park that used to be a military fort, complete with rusty cannons. We watched some locals fish from the rocks below and a few of the young group members climbed down to chat and check out the fish.





We also had our fancier restaurant meal so we went to a lovely open air restaurant. We got to choose our fish before they were cooked, and it was very tasty.






After we were stuffed to the gills from our seafood dinner, we said goodbye to Sandra and Guido who went back to Santo Domingo, had some afternoon rest time, followed by more exploration of the small town of Boca De Yuma, and success after looking for ice cream shops.





To wrap up the day, Duane told us about the  history of Haiti, which is fascinating, complicated, heartbreaking, and also very relevant because the churches we partner with have Haitian congregations. 



Please forgive the lack of posts, wifi has been sporadic at best out here since our hotel’s wifi no longer works. We are trying to write offline now, so we can copy and post them when we do encounter wifi



Sunday, February 6, 2022

Days 1&2

 

Friday began very early with a 2:00 AM departure from Sioux Center. We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare which was fortunate since there was an additional online form that everyone had to fill out. We caught our first flight with minutes to spare. After we arrived safely in Atlanta, we. discovered that we only had 20 minutes to rush across the airport.  We were the last people to board our flight to Santo Domingo, but we made it and is what is important. Don't ask where the airport photo of our team is, we were too winded to remember. 

We drove 2 hours to the town of Boca De Yuma, had supper, did group devotions, and went to bed.


Saturday morning brought us to the church work site. The congregation did the block work in the weeks before we arrived so we jumped in with them and began tying rebar, building forms for columns and corners, mixing cement, and pouring cement into the forms. We experienced more rain during all of this than anyone local can remember for this time of year.


Jordyn, Duane's granddaughter, quickly made friends with some local girls. They did quite a bit of coloring and learning about each other.  Jordyn was happy with. how well she could communicate in Spanish. The girls. were kind enough to invite Jordyn into their home when the rain began to pour.












Saturday, February 29, 2020

Wrapping up and heading home!

Wow.  This is fun!  Friday morning found us taking off a few of the last forms, and having a time of "dedication".  When the last minutes of time together draws to a close, it is not easy for this team to say goodbye.  We really cemented some relationships, as well as church walls.  Lots of hugs, and it is bittersweet knowing we likely will not see these people again.  Knowing our Faith Church family extends to these people warms our hearts, and encourages us to continue this ministry.   


Well, I will be completely honest we got the roof on except one sheet; but at the beginning of the week I didn't think we would get that far.  The Lord blessed us with excellent local workers and we would not have gotten this far without them.  It was such an awesome time working side-by-side them even as well as praising God together each day.





Thursday, February 27, 2020

Bittersweet


Day 5 on the jobsite.  A day like today is bittersweet.  Coming to serve with our brothers and sisters in the Dominican Republic has been a joy.  The church is not quite finished, but there has been a ton of progress.  Rafters were placed.  The tin was put on the roof.  The columns for the front doors were poured.  More importantly, relationships were formed in the progress.  The local church was fully invested in building the their church.  Many individuals were eager to learn and stepped in on most of the tasks.  And so, it is a bittersweet day.  Our project is as far as it will go with our assistance, but now we need to say our goodbyes to our new friends. It is a joy to walk alongside and know that our brothers and sisters in Christ are excited for their new place for worship, even the kids want to be in the new church building. We are looking forward to the celebration tomorrow with Christ’s body.  







Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Building and pizza

Just a quick update tonight as we aren't having great internet service tonight.

We had another great day!  Today, we continued the work on the walls and finished those up along with the top bond beams.  This afternoon, we built the rafters and got them ready to go up tomorrow.
This evening, we enjoyed pizza at a local pizzeria that is owned by a couple from Kansas City who moved to the Dom. Rep. 2.5 years ago at the calling of the Holy Spirit.  One of the Pastor's sons works here and had invited us earlier in the week.
Tomorrow will be our last work day at the site.  We hope to finish the roof and a few other small things.  

Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers over this trip this week.

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Birthday Tuesday

Today was another great day for our team and members of the church who have been helping to grow a little more in relationships.  Now you may think because of the language barrier and culture difference that it would not be possible to get to know each other very well, but those differences will only stop you if you let them.  The people are extremely hospitable and are starting to open up to us and we are having lots of laughs and enjoying working together.

Today was also a special day as Brent Kooiman celebrated a birthday as well as a young man named  Modesto.  He is one of the pastor's sons and is the man who runs the show because of his expertise in building.  We got to sing happy birthday to both of them and it was a joyful moment for the both of them.

Our work day consisted of laying block, making re-bar cages, forming concrete corners and bond beam, and ending with pouring concrete.  With all the mortar and concrete work it is not an easy job since both are mixed on the ground and carried from there by hand.  The Haitians are pros and their system is very impressive and we work together to get in from the pile to the walls by human chain.  Its one of my favorite parts of the project to see people different race mixed in a line to accomplish the same goal. 

We finished our work about 4:30 today so we got an opportunity to jump in the river and the ocean to cool off before supper which was very refreshing.  We again enjoyed a Dominican meal of rice, chicken, noodles, toastones, and they even made us mashed potatoes!! We ended the day with devotions and some history of Dominican Republic and some snacks.