Some time later...

Greetings to all of our friends and family. We have been back for a little more than a week. In some ways, it seems like a lifetime ago. In other ways I can still feel the rain soaking through my hat or smell the aroma of the landfill that we passed by daily.

This coming Sunday we will be showing some slides and sharing a little bit about our experiences. Another way to see a little more is to view the video that our team produced. You can find it on YouTube at this link

Consider joining us next year for another mission opportunity.

Day Eight: Celebration

We had a time of relaxation today.  It is even more special being at the beach when the temperatures back home are hovering around the single digits.  A couple of us paid for it with sunburns.

The best thing about the day, however, was celebrating the completion of the church building with the congregation. We brought some soda and cake to help with occasion. It took a while for the congregation to assemble but when they started to role in, the building was soon packed.

Giving thanks and singing praises with fellow believers of another culture is an amazing experience.  We shared greetings from Shalom and they, in turn passed along their gratitude to our congregation.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and support. We are looking forward to sharing more of our experiences with you in person.

Please pray for safe travels.

Day Seven

Between the torrential rain, the dirt roads that doubled as lakes, and the timing of supplies, we were able to complete the church today. What a wonderful feeling to get as far as we did. And by we, I mean our team working with the Haitians. They were wonderful partners. When  we arrived this morning they were well on their way with the concrete work. So we finished the roof and then started working with them on the floor. 

While we were away yesterday, they made huge strides in finishing the walls of the church and they also had a good start on the raised platform in the front of the church. So with all of the hands working towards the finish line, we made fast progress. It was hard work, but very rewarding today. 

Tomorrow, we will have an opportunity to visit a couple schools and a beach. In the evening we are planning a celebration with the congregation to help them celebrate the completion of the building. 

Please pray for Paraiso Christian Reformed Church as they begin their time in their new church building. Pray for the oppressed here and around the world. Pray for our team as we begin packing for home. Finally, pray for our families. 

Day Six: Lamenting

Today was a sad day. While the whole team has been very positive and upbeat throughout our time her in the Dominican Republic, I have felt a sense of sadness. There is such a powerful oppression for the Haitians here. It is not just poverty of the wallet. We had a few great opportunities today that were bitter sweet. We had a chance to help with the breakfast feeding at a school that was started by Dr.

Sylvia, who works for the Luke Society. Some of us helped with washing hands and others began the serving process.

We left that location and went to another work site in order to help that congregation laying some blocks for their walls. It was a nice change of pace for us to work with the concrete blocks instead of the roofing.

When we got back to the ministry center, we had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Sylvia and to present her with greetings and a contribution from the Shalom Congregation. Our evening finished with a presentation by Mario Matos. His story is a rare story of overcoming countless obstacles to be in a position to give back to the culture and community he came from. Mario’s grandfather came to the Dominican Republic from Haiti many years ago to work the sugar cane fields. His father taught him to read and although they had no books, he gained reading proficiency by reading all of the newspapers that were used as wall paper in his house. Tears welled up in his eyes as he told us of the precious gift of a Bible that someone gave him.

When he was 9 years old, his father, a pastor, accepted a call to a congregation in the slums of Santo Domingo. He reflected how much their quality of life improved by moving from the batte’ (farming community) to the slums. Eventually Mario went to Calvin College for his masters in education. He came back to work with the missionaries in the Dominican Republic as an educator. He continues to help his family with tuition assistance for those who want better themselves.

Pray for those in poverty. Pray that Christian in Shalom and throughout the world will feel the call to be the hands and feet of Christ. Pray that each of us on the team will keep the passion for those we have been serving. Pray to know the ache of God’s heart for his children.

Day Five

We began the day with enthusiasm and vitality. It was great to see our fellow workers already on the work site preparing for the days work. We said our greetings and began the work of putting the roof on. There were a few rafters to lock into place and some rebar that needed to be bent over and moved out of the way. We were making great progress. But shortly after lunch, we ran out of materials. A slight miscalculation must have happened on the corrugated sheet metal for the roofing, so we got as far as we could while Duane went on the hunt for more.

There was still a lot of hard work to be done, mostly in using this clay and gravel mix to try to level off the floor of the church. It was a lot of hard work in heat of the day, but it felt good to get as far with that as we did.

Today is Al's birthday and there was a surprise birthday cake and a birthday song sung in Spanish to mark the occasion. There were several old man jokes throughout the day at his expense, but he took the ribbing quite well. He certainly carried his share of the work. Happy birthday, Al! So glad we could share it with you!

Tomorrow we will have a little different day starting with a visit to Dr Sylvia. Then we will work on a different location with a different church. The work will mostly be block laying. More on that tomorrow.

For today's prayer request, we ask that you pray for our family members who have been such a wonderful encouragement to all of us. Another prayer of thanks is for our congregation who have been such a wonderful source of encouragement and support. We also want to thank our employers and supervisors who, in some cases, needed to make alternate arrangements for work or have had to wait on some projects while we are away.

Day Four

With all of the rain that we had over the past couple of days, we decided to visit La Colina Christian Reformed church. That church was one that a team from Shalom helped last year. The pastor was excited to see us and to show the progress that the congregation had made since our team left. They have never stopped making incremental improvements as they could.

On the way back, we stopped at a small beach to have our lunch. Some of the team managed to get a little swim in, but then we were on our way back to Paraiso to continue our work. We made some advances today with getting nearly all of the rafters up and a good start on the roofing. We still have a great deal of work to do, but even with the abbreviated work day today, it was a joy to see the progress.

It is already getting late, so I will only be posting one picture this evening. More to follow. Please continue to pray for each of our team members and all of he churches in the Dominican Republic.

Day Three: A Day of Rest, Worship and Visiting

So sorry for the late post. We have been experiencing some internet malfunctions, but since we now have limited access, we will try to catch up with the news and progress.

Today (Sunday), we went to the San Miguel Christian Reformed Church. The minister and congregation were glad to see some of the team that was there last year to help them build their sanctuary. It was so much fun worshiping with them and sharing their enthusiastic singing and praise. The singing and the praying was all done in Creole (a variation of the French language). We each had the opportunity to introduce ourselves. Al passed along greetings from the Shalom Congregation. Ken delivered the message which Duane translated into Spanish. Since it was the first Sunday of the month, we were also blessed to share the Lord's Supper with them. At many throughout the service and particularly with communion, the pastor presented in Creole, someone else translated to Spanish, and then Duane translated into English. It was an interesting treat.

After lunch, we went down to the Colonial Zone and toured some of the interesting spots along the water front. The oldest church in North America was a great place to see, although we could not go inside. There was a Hall of Heroes which is a mausoleum of some of the great warriors of the Dominican Republic.My favorite was our visit to the Fortress of Santo Domingo. This is the first medieval style fortress in America. The day was finished off with another rain shower that persisted through the evening.

There might have been a geocache or two found as well. More about that some other time.

Please pray for good working conditions. Pray for the relations between the congregations we are supporting and our team. Finally, pray that our hearts stay focused on the Word.

Day Two: And it Rained!

Day two started out with much more progress than the day before. We arrived at the work site and began the task of setting out our materials and tools. It didn't take too long before our Haitian friends started to show up as well.

Our progress was interrupted by a number of rain showers throughout the day. We would no more get going and getting into the rhythm of our tasks and the heavy clouds would start to roll in. Soon after, the skies would open up with torrents. They wouldn't typically last very long, but there were a few times that it was impossible to return to work for quite some time.  Never the less, we were able to get a long way with the progress. Our rafters are over the half way mark.

One of the fun aspects of today’s work was the teamwork with our partners in faith. Even the children were getting involved with the work. They were hammering nails and carrying fill dirt (or fill clay) with excitement and enthusiasm.

A little piece of humor that I will relate today was regarding one of our team members who kept saying Grenada. It turned out he thought that he was saying de nada, a Spanish term used in response to a thank you. By the end of the day, Jason was culturally educated. There were a number of other humorous events, one that included a toilet seat and an outhouse, but those tales will need to wait for another time.

Our ride home turned out to be the biggest adventure of the day. With all of the rain, the dirt road in front of the church was transformed into a lake of mud and muck. We loaded up during one of the more intense torrential downpours and off we went. We just didn't get very far. We soon ran across a dump truck that was stuck in the mud to the bumper. There was just no way around the obstacle. So we turned around to try to find another path back to the mission center. With perseverance and prayer we finally made it through and back onto hard surface roads. What an adventure!

In the evening, we all gather for devotions after our dinner. I will leave you all with these two questions that Ken posed to us at last night’s devotions. Why are people poor? Why would God in His sovereignty chose to make some people poor and some not?

Tomorrow we are looking forward to a church service at San Miguel, one of the congregations that Shalom helped with construction two years ago. In the afternoon we might look around some of the other areas of the city.

Thank you for your prayers and for the support you give. Just by following our progress, we are blessed. 

Arrival and Day One

We are so grateful! After an exhausting day of travel, we finally arrived in the Dominican Republic safe and sound last night. The only casualty of travel was one of Jason's bags; the one with all of the tools. It will likely catch up to us soon. After driving to the ministry center, we all managed to fall asleep in short order, despite the rooster that mistook our 1:00 AM arrival as a signal for his morning alarm clock routine.

After breakfast we packed into vans for our first day of work. All of the cinder block walls were standing tall. Progress was slow on the construction side of things, but we did begin to form some relationships with some of the members of the congregation that we are supporting. Communication was a bit challenging with a lack of translators, but more often than not, we were able to make our points clear. Our first task was to put on the top plate for the trusses. As part of the team worked on that process, others began making calculations and measurements for the trusses. We did have some work that will need to be redone, but we have the resources to make short work of it. We are hopeful for a much more productive day two.

Al had a chance to hold a baby for a while and it was quite obvious that he was in the grandpa zone.

A couple of us were inspecting the lumber and wondering as to where it was from. One of the team members said, "Oh. We got it from behind that building over there." We did have a chuckle at his expense.

One of young local boys suggested that Jim looked like John Cena of WWF fame. That also gave a few of us a chuckles.

I'll start our prayer request off with a call for prayers for Shelley Postma. She has been having some significant health issues and medical attention has been very challenging. Please keep our whole team in prayer for building on the relationship seeds that have been planted. Pray for our construction efforts and safety on the job site. Pray for the congregation that we are partnering with.