Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Day 5

 Dekkers is cheating (just a bit) - This is pretty much our every night ritual to play cards.

 Note the biceps/guns(comments by Kris :-)
 Looking for the lost ladies but found cane
Finishing out the rafters today.
 Sifting Sand
 Kids helping carry boards

 Hamming it up for Jon


Ryan and some buddies


 Rafters


 Kris is having a great time :-)
 So is George 
 Playing patty cake with the kids
 Had a train
 All those kids wanted to carry the boards
 Yah the rafters are up!!!
 This guy is getting paid for what he got out of the garbage.  See the scale
 These people are coming from going through the garbage for salvageable stuff
Riding a rusty bike on this playground of sorts

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

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.

Monday, February 23, 2015

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. :) 

Sunday, February 22, 2015

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