Dominican Republic 2024 Day Five
Hello Friends and Family,
We started today with devos on the roof and then had breakfast at 8:00am which consisted of scrambled eggs with ham, toast, and fresh fruit. Afterwards we got ready for another day of brick laying and painting at the vocational school in Villa Altagracia.
While we were on the bus, we played pharisees (Biblical Mafia) and then arrived at the worksite for 9:00am. We started where we left off yesterday for painting, completing the window bars and priming the storage room door. As for brick laying, we moved to the second floor of the school, working in teams of two to build up the walls. We were building a classroom with the help of some locally hired men and it was cool to watch Juan lay brick incredibly quickly. After working for 3 hours, we had finished the window bars and headed back to the compound for lunch.
Upon arrival back at the compound, we prayed for lunch and filled up our plates. The meal consisted of rice, some type of sausage mixed with vegetables, and salad. Following lunch we took a dip in the pool and got ready to go back by 2:30pm.
When we got back, the brick team continued the work they had started on the second floor and the paint team began the first coat of the big storage room door. Mitch (on the paint team) found a massive spider crawling on the wall and Kathryn told him to go kill it so he grabbed a rock and ran to the wall, but it crawled into the ground. The afternoon was better for weather as it was partly cloudy and quite windy, giving us a nice breeze for working in. By the time we finished up (just after 5:00pm) we had finished the first coat of paint on the door.
Dinner was ready for us when we got back, and it was chicken and rice with potato salad and also fried potatoes. For dessert we had some kind of Dominican cake and fruit. After dinner we jumped right into devotions, and we talked about how we can serve other people like we should serve Jesus. We read a story by Tony Campolo about an encounter he had with a homeless man in Philadelphia and accepted an offer to have a sip of the man’s coffee and gave him a hug instead of ignoring him… prompting us to ask if we would have done the same thing.
Right now, the winds are picking up due to hurricane Ernesta passing through the Caribbean. Don’t worry we are fine; it is not going through the Dominican Republic!
Tune in next time to stay up with the latest of news on brick laying and painting!
Brayden, Mitch, and Laura
