Final Day & Dedication

From Jeff Spencer, who worked construction all week:

The entire Trinity group spent the day together in La Lachosa.  Medical was done at a church a block away, construction continued at the new church and VBS was done across the road.  On construction, we worked a lot on landscaping the front of the church, laying the last of the tile at the entrance, doing stucco and trim work on the front of the church, laying block and painting both the inside and outside of the church.  We accomplished a lot today as we were all motivated to make the building as nice as possible for the dedication.  There were two special treats for me - to see the ironwork and windows installed, and to see new pews delivered!  My God-given talents lie in the area of organization and leadership so I was happy to accept Glenn's offer to lead the construction team.  It was my pleasure to work with my Trinity family and see the love and dedication they had towards helping our brothers and sisters in the barrio of La Lachosa.  The biggest treat of the week for me was the dedication service, to see the building filled with what is the real church - the people - brought tears to my eyes.  The people and pastor Ramon were so proud and felt so blessed by what God had provided.  It was a privilege for us to be a part of God's plan.

Iron work and windows installed!

The workers did an amazing job with handcrafted moulding around the front of the church

Trinity forming a chain to move a huge stack of blocks

Some of the crowd at the dedication service

Trinity singing "How Great Is Our God" in English & Spanish

This banner of the hand print of each of the Trinity team was left with Pastor Ramon

The La Lachosa kids had a blast making this banner during VBS today

Eben-ezer Baptist Church

Day 6

Dustin and members of the Mobile Baptist Church digging footings

Bruce, Katie and Dixie painting the decorative ironwork for the church windows

Chris and Pastor Mike breaking up concrete

Pastors Mike and Ramon working together at the La Lachosa church

Katie with some of her friends from last year in batey 106

From Katie Colson, who did construction and went with a group back to batey 106:

Today I got to work on construction. Being my first day, I didn’t really know where to start but I quickly jumped in and helped sift sand for the mortar. I later got to help paint the frames for the windows of the church but quickly got run off when the kids took over my job. They loved to paint and I just couldn’t say no. I then helped shovel some rocks out of a ditch in front of the church where they were planning to build a wall. I even got to swing a pick ax a few times! This was my first experience with construction this trip, and it was definitely a good one.

After lunch today, several people who came to the DR last year got the opportunity to return to batey 106 where we worked all last year. Honestly, I was very nervous to go back but at the same time I was very excited. I have wanted to visit with those people again, but I was worried about if they would remember us or not. Many people on the mission team had formed special relationships with many of the kids and people of the batey that I knew we would never forget. After we pulled up, I quickly found one of the girls I knew very well from last year and went over to talk to her. She gave me a strange look, and I told her my name was Katie and I came last year. She smiled but I could still tell she was confused. As soon as I said princessa, she remembered. I had to hold back tears as I gave her a big hug. We continued to look around the batey and we all found our old friends. By being able to visit with them, one of my biggest prayers was answered. Because of the fact that they remembered us, I knew we had impacted those people in ways I could not have ever imagined. I wished we could have visited longer, but they will always hold a special place in my heart.

Back to Work

From Brad who did construction today:

It was another fantastic workday at the Church construction site! Today we were blessed to work beside our brothers and sisters in Christ from Mobile and Jackson, TN. The Church is now completely painted with primer inside and they’ve even started the first coat of the final yellow paint inside. About half of the outside of the church has been primed. Also about five rows of blocks have been laid for the front wall/fence. This was a very interesting effort, as running the wheel borrows of concrete through the gauntlet of stones, holes, scaffolding and sudden turns was a challenge of balance (especially if you wanted to arrive at your destination with most of the concrete still in the wheel barrow  :o)  ). Other folks ran buckets after buckets of mortar to Dominican craftsmen on scaffolding applying the finishing coats of “stucco”- complete with cool architectural designs. We moved tons (okay maybe not tons) of dirt and rock into areas to help achieve the proper grade for drainage. 

Mike K., Susan, Dave, Robert and Bruce moving block

Jeremy directing his helpers moving dirt

Robert & Adina hauling buckets of mortar

Lisette demonstrating a popular position during lunch

Brad, Susan and Lisette helping with the block wall

Jeff, Mike & Bruce making concrete

Mike K. and Robert pouring concrete in the wall and into the wall foundation

From Emma who did medical today:

Wow! What an amazing day for the medical team!  After a 45 minute bus ride to Batey 30 (a batey is a small village with many huts and palm trees in the middle of a sugar cane field) we were greeted with so many smiling faces.  We set up the clinic in the batey’s church.  First, the patients get weighed.  Then I got to take their blood pressure.  And finally they waited on some of the pews to see the doctors.  Our team of doctors is awesome!  We have one American pediatric nurse practitioner, one American podiatric who is from the church in Jackson, two local general medical doctors, and one local dentist.  People on the team do everything from taking blood pressure, to deciphering prescriptions, to counting pills, to crowd control and handing out coloring sheets to the kids.  It takes all of us working together to make the clinic run.  The people that we serve are always so appreciative and grateful for our help and our presence in their community. The most striking story to me today was an elderly couple who came near the end of our day.  The man, who could not have been over 5 feet tall and about 80 years old, ran into the clinic, carrying his very sick wife.  She was also around 80 years old and was so weak that she could not even hold her own head up.  The whole team was touched by the husband’s determination to get his wife help and his obvious love for her.  His wife saw the doctor and was given medication and then some of our team carried her back to her hut.  We were all very encouraged by this beautiful picture of love.  

From Carolyn who did VBS today:

It was a beautiful and breezy day in batey 30.  VBS started in the usual fashion with a cup of anti-parasitic followed by a game of kickball and some nail painting.  Trinity youth acted out the story of Jesus with the children.  Andrew Oliver played Jesus and the excited children buried him.  The children made  backpacks that said “Jesus loves me” and their names.  After lunch, we went to the orphanage “Orfanato Nino de Christo”, where we received a tour and the kids sang for us.  We returned the favor and sang “How Great is Our God” with Brett accompanying on the guitar.  My favorite part of the day was painting the little girls nails in the batey. 

Andrew and a new friend

Emma and Larissa in the batey

Sally and Dixie doing VBS

Pastor Mike, Andrew, Jonathan and Emma playing basketball at orphanage

Riley painting fingernails during VBS

VBS