Catching Up and first day of work

I will start with a better description of our travels yesterday. There´s not a whole lot to say about the flights, they both went very well. The interesting stuff started when we arrived in the Dominican. First we exit the plane and head to customs. The first thing you have to do is buy a $10 tourist ticket and get into another line where the guy shreds the ticket and tells you to proceed. Then you proceed to get your passport stamp and go wait for your luggage. There is more to this but a little to confusing for me to type out. Just ask anyone of us to explain in more detail the experiance at the airport and they will tell you. After getting through everything we proceeded to exit where Guille, Shelley and the kids were waiting for us. Now remember that my sister Kim was a surprise the whole time. I was about the 5th person out and I dont know if Shelley was thinking I was ignoring her but at that time I was scrambling for my camera. Kim stayed back in the pack and stayed hidden pretty good. Once I found my camera I said hi to Shelley and the family and proceeded to the back of the line where Kim was hiding behind 2 other guys. Once Shelley made it to them Kim jumped over behind me and waited for Shelley to finish welcoming everyone. Once that was done Kim jumped out and tapped Shelley on the shoulder and asked her if there was room for one more. It took Shelley a couple moments to figure out that it was Kim but the picture below explains the emotion that was experianced at this moment.



After all the emotion we had to get going so we loaded the majority of the 42 pieces of luggage and carry ons into Guilles truck as shown below. I like the way Pastor Heino jumped right "on" and helped out.





Its amazing the differences here to the USA. We can load a truck with all these suitcases and nobody blinks twice at it.

After finishing the loading we headed off to Santiago in a bus that a friend of Guille and Shelleys has. The driving down here was an eye opener to most. One comment that was made was that it was the first time that they ever rode in a vehicle that passed a car that was passing another car. No worries anyone we made it and we are safe.



After we arrived at the host house, we had dinner, which the food is excellent, was led through the do´s and don´ts of the DR. After that we all were pretty exhausted and headed to bed.

Day 2 The first day of work.

The day in all was a success in my eyes. The team worked extremely well and achieved alot. We had to finish off the remainder of the rebar for the foundation work that the team before us was unable to finish. We finished that, moved a TON of clay dirt that was piled inside where the classrooms are going to be. We cut more rebar to tie into place along with move all the block on site into position for when we pour the foundations tomorrow. All in all we did a great deal of work and our next step is falling into place with the foundation. Once we pour that tomorrow we will be able to let that cure and start building the walls on Monday. See pictures below.












After all this hard work we were able to shower have a nice light dinner and serve with Guille and Shelley in their Thursday service. The team sang 2 songs and had to testamonies about how God has affected thier lives. Along with this we were able to meet and greet with the church members as well. It was a very wonderful and enjoyable time experiancing the services of Guille and Shelley.

All in all it seems to me that everyone is having a good time so far. I know we are all excited about being here and helping out.

I will try and keep everyone updated as much as possible. I am getting pretty tire and plan on going to bed.

Chris