Building blocks

We have come a long way in just three months. Our last work team for the summer just left. We are both tired and sad . Tired from the 3 months of intense non stop action, sad because we truly love being apart of people's lives as God uses us and this place to change them forever. We overcame and accomplished a lot this summer. The goal is to have the 2 classrooms up and running for the fall, where Caitlin will be starting her English program. Look at all the progress!!

A dump of a day

This is the Susua dump. This is where my trash goes, along with several other towns and many hotels and resorts.

The dump is an experience that is hard to take in. It is filled with men women and children, all who go there to scavenge. They find and collect anything and everything they might be able to sell, like cans, plastic bottles, or wire. They also collect food. they know which food is good for consumption and they will use it in stew. Anything rotten they gather and sell to pig farmers. Some people even live in the dump. There houses are made from flattened out coffee cans, scrap metal, tarps, cardboard and anything else they can find. Some of the local farmers even let their cattle graze in the dump. Crossroads, our friends and next door mission organization, has been leading their groups to the dump for 10 years now. They were kind enough to lead some of our work teams as well. Going to the dump consists of walking around having fellowship with the people, talking and shaking hands. We end up under the shade of large tree where the Haitians gather around and sing songs, many praising the Lord, and beating on homemade drums. After a few moving solos by some of the braver men we start passing out food and water. A simple meal, bread, salami and cold water. With each man woman or child that passes through the line, you can't help your eyes from getting heavy with tears. We are feeding Jesus.

Close to Home

Our home church, Cape Bible Chapel was our second team, and first full week team. It was so nice to see friends and familiar faces again. This last week was a good learning process for all of us. Our team here, learned so much about hosting and organizing. And the CBC team is going back, all 20 of them, changed for life, I'm sure of it. We started the week off with some intense concrete work. We poured the footings for the next 2 classrooms. Normally there is about 12 Haitians for the job and they start at about 7 and don't get done till around 6 a lot of times. The 5 Haitians that were there were confident that we wouldn't get done and were very worried and nervous about having what they thought was to be 20 lazy Americans, 12 out of that 20 being girls. We sure proved them wrong. I have never worked around a harder working group of individuals in my life. It's well over 100 with humidity and yet ever single person worked above and beyond their potential. The workers were absolutely floored when we finished the job in only5 hours. The rest of the week was equally productive, as we painted the entire existing four classrooms inside and out. As well as getting a chance to build a little Dominican style with block and mortar. They were also heavily challenged each night to rethink life in light of the poverty they saw first hand everyday. I am confident that every single person will now look at their own life a little different now. I'm not a prophet but I also know some amazing things are going to come out of this trip for them. We pushed hard on child sponsorship, on other needs here, and the needs back home. If you know someone who went on the trip I encourage you to talk to them and ask them how their life has changed forever. Congratulations CBC on an amazing week here in our country. We love you all and can't wait to see you again.

We here by claim this street

I'm still devising a plan on how to go about stealing this sign.

No, really I am. The problem is its on a really busy street in Puerto Plata, and Dominicans never go to bed. I've never seen people party in the middle of the street all night long.

Our first team

We had our first team! They were only here for 2 days, and there was only 6 of them, but it was a good introduction to the busy schedule and very large groups we have ahead of us this year. This project was constructing a temporary roof for the new bathrooms,(that will eventually be tied into the classrooms) and also mixing concrete by hand and pouring a sidwalk. The neatest thing that happened though, was, there were only 6 of them, but they have already comitted to sponsoring 4 kids!!!!! They are taking back 10 pictures to their church and plan to get every kid sponsored. Now that's a story worth telling!!!

Our animals

We have 3 animal friends that live with us, although they are not all freinds with eachother. We got 2 pure breed boxers from some missionaries who were heading back to the states. Dillon is 5 she is the mama, and has the gold hair. Kila is the daughter. When she was a puppy she was hit by a car. She is now the cutest 3/4 dog I've ever met. She is 1 years old

Greg is here

Our friend and supporter, Greg Schwab is visiting for a whole week. I think it's a good experience for him because he's not just doing the normal tourist stuff. He got to see the country, people and way of life. He also helped us paint . Our house is a work in progress hopefully in a couple of weeks we can show pictures of it finished.