The house is finished.......

As you can see, the house is still getting more work done to it. Even though we're no longer there. Thanks to more willing hands to get the job done. We had a great time , together with the local congregation, to build this house. We thank God for this opportunity to serve Him.



And thanks to the team from Sioux Centre, Iowa, for finishing the house for us.
This past Sunday we did our presentation to the congregation. Afterward we all got together at Allan and Joan's cottage. A good time was had by all. I also gave everyone a DVD with the pictures from the trip on it. Also included was the presentation we did in church.
This is the last blog for this trip. Once again for the D.R. Team, we thank you for your interest and support.
In His service, Randall Nieuwhof.
For more info , you can contact me at: barnyard4@hotmail.com

Going home.........

It is Saturday today. I tried to get another blog done yesterday, but I had no internet connection last night. We do this morning however, so here goes.
We spend yesterday going into the city. There we visited "Little Haiti", it is a place where there is a Haitian market where a lot of Haitians sell their wares, as well as souveniers.



It was fun, trying to haggle for a better price with the sellers. After that we drove by the presidential palace (top right), on our way to the beach for a little R & R.


The water was great and the weather cooperated, no rain. Just a few clouds to keep us cool.


After that we had Chinese dinner together.





Today we are getting ready to leave, we are glad to go home, and see our loved ones again.


We hope you enjoyed our blog, and we hope, the Lord willing, to see you soon.





The D.R. Team

p.s.

Happy birthday Mary.

Last day on the worksite......

I,am glad that Amanda was able to fill in a little for me . I uploaded the pictures last night, and just like, that the internet was gone. We didn't get it back until after supper today. I'm sure it was frustrating for all of you to go to the blog and not see a new post. Well, we are getting used to that a little by now.

Last night we were invited by Max and Kina Van Til to come for supper at their place in downtown Santo Domingo. It was nice to meet Kina. She and Max have been here for fourteen years. They are going home in March. The house they live in belongs to the mission. It is a beautiful place. And after Max let us in he chained the gate shut behind us. That is how most people live here on a daily basis. We enjoyed a nice relaxing evening with them. In bed early again, so we could get an early start.

Next day, Thursday morning, and we are of for our last day on the job. Our day went well and we are happy to report that the house was finished today. In the picture on the left you can see how we put the steel on. After the steel was started, we had to form the front of the house up again. So we could finish off the front. The steel is placed halfway the cement block and then the cement is poured on top of the steel to keep it down in a big storm

This spider we found in a bucket that is normaly used for cement. They told us that it was a Tarantula. It was huge. Quite a novelty. It rained again in the afternoon. But this time we could shelter under our new roof. It was quite exciting. We are happy to say that the roof works. We didn't get wet. The guys are looking up, just amazed . And the last picture shows the whole team, with some of the locals in the picture too.

It was a great experience to work side by side. Learn a few words of Spanish, altough the people we worked with , talked Creole. That is a mixture of French and African dialect. After we were finished, we all, locals as well as us gathered in the house and prayed altogether holding hands, first Guid prayed in Spanish and then Allen in English and finaly the pastor of the local church prayed in Creole. Then we all sang : Praise God from whom all blessings flow together. It was a great way to close. Great is our Lord. To Him be the Glory, now and forever!

This is Randall for the Charlottetown team.

p.s. internet permitting we will post again tomorrow. See also below for Wednesdays blog

Another warm day.....

Thanks to all of you for your interest, it is always fun in the morning to go and check all the comments. It is always one of our highlights of the day. We had our first injury today. Stanley did not see where he was going, and tripped over a cement block. Thankfull... This is where the power cut out. This is Amanda again, Dad called and said that he was working on the blog last night when the power cut off, but thankfully he had something saved. At least we have some pictures although I apologize for lack of proper captions to acompany them. In the above picture they are putting up the roof... and I get to share the most exciting news. The house is FINISHED!! They made quick work of it and will spend tomorrow seeing some sights in Santa Domingo. It looks like everyone put in a lot of effort to make sure the house was done on time.

Dad explained to me on the phone what Angela is doing here. She is pouring cement into the bond beam. This is the same thing you can see them working to create in Tuesday's post. More information may follow, but thats all i know.

The News is that Flat Stanley is recovering well. If you look closely you can see his

bandaids... It's definately not a Barbie or Spiderman one but it's doing the trick.

Everyone is still healthy and well. Dad said he will leave another entry as soon as possible. Your comments are greatly appreciated keep up the great work everyone!

Fourth day at the worksite........

We started again early this morning, get up at six, clean up, have breakfast about fifteen minutes later. Then we are off again on our daily commute.

We took Stanley as well today, I hope he doesn't get hurt. He doesn't listen real well. Here you see him helping with the rebar.

The house is coming nicely as you can see in the pictures. It was hot today, it felt like it was well over thirty degrees. It was sunny all morning as usual and then we had showers in the afternoon, as usual. When that happens, the sky just opens so quick, you just can't get to the shelter quick enough. So today we placed some plywood forms over two corners, and quickly hid under our makeshift shelters.
Willem's shelter was a little small , but he found a good place between Allan and Stephen under their much bigger one.

The rain lasted for about ten minutes. The soil has a heavy clay content. So our boots got very heavy, very quickly.

Beside us on the right you can see our team making twist ties, you know the same ones I half five thousand of in my warehouse. And in the back, you can see Steve and Pete working on making bond beams. They are used to strengthen the cement girder we build around the top outside of the house. We poured three quarters of it today. And we will do the rest tomorrow, the Lord willing and weather permitting. As we noticed, a lot of things don't happen according to plan. And plans can be changed any time. We are starting to get it. At the end of the day , this is what the project looks like. As you can see, it is starting to take shape. And when we came back to the compound, we had a big surprise. Pizza all around, with pop as well. There was pizza with pineapple, mushroom, corn, pepperoni and sausage. Not what you would get at home as far as flavors go, but after a day like we had , it just topped it off. And then when I phoned home I heard that P.E.I. had snow and cold weather, while we were getting sunburned, all on the same day.

Thank you all for you comments, by the way , that is Phillip working hard in the bottom picture with the white shorts . Have fun in the snow ya'all. And let those sleighbells ring Jim.

From the very warm D.R. we wish you all the best. The team

Our visit to Jarabacoa .......

Today we went to see Leona, April & Jeff . We enjoyed a beautiful drive through the country side. It took about two and a half hours to get there. We took lots of pictures. On the left you can see a truck loaded with feedbags. And on top of the load , the guys that are going to unload it. Everything goes. It is kind of scary by times. You hope that nobody falls off.
Beside us on the left is Angela, she is holding Bill and Krista's sponser child. She talks about a mile a minute. All the kids at the school were really cute and loved to get their picture taken.


On the right you can see the Luymes family reunited for a picture with Flat Stanley. Our friend from PEI. He seemed quite impressed with Jarabacoa. He did learn a thing or two as well. Leona toured us around in the school. It is a wonderfull building, with lots of smiling kids and teachers. On the right you see Stanley hanging out with the kids and their teacher.

On the right is the school where
Leona is teaching. We had coffee with her in the lunchroom. While the kids were getting their hot meal for the day. For a lot of kids, this is the only meal that they get.

We also took Flat to the coffee factory in town. The coffee is grown locally. Here he is getting right into the picking of the coffee beans. We figured he might as well do the whole tour. On the right you see coffee beans drying on cement. These beans have already been hulled. Normally, when it doesn't rain as much as it has been lately, the beans dry in four or five hours. But now it takes more like three days. After the tour we all had a sample. Even Pete who never drinks coffee. We may make a coffee drinker out of him yet.
This picture was taken behind the school. Jarabacoa is located on a platue fairly high up in the mountains. It is surrounded by a ring of mountains.


The scenery was breathtaking. I took a lot more pictures of the scenery between Santo Domingo and Jarabacoa, but we will save that for another time.
We are all doing just great, still growing in our faith and as a group we are getting to know each other pretty good. Tomorrow we are going back to work. We put our supplies together this afternoon. And we are getting up at six again tomorrow.
Thanks to everyone of you that has posted comments. It means the world to us here. The first question I get when we get back to the compound is: Any comment? So you can see, it is big around here. Until next time, this is your team in the D.R.

Sunday worship

This is the picture about the wedding here at the compound.
It was supposed to start at 5 o'clock, but like everything else around here, nothing really happened until about six. Everyone was dressed in their Sunday best, mostly black and white. Our supper was at seven as well. We had our supper at six, and the bride didn't get out of the car until after we were done with supper.

As you can see on the left, Flat Stanley has made it to the D.R. as well. We were happy to meet him. So were the local kids here. Herman wasn't as excited about the whole ordeal. He was just having a little siesta.

And for those of you that requested a picture of Hans in action, here it is. In this picture you can see him pouring "concreto" in the forms that will form the collumns on which the roof is going to rest. We hope to do that on Tuesday. Tomorrow, Monday, we hope to visit with Leona , April and Jeff at Jarabacoa. It will be about a two and a half hour drive. We shall bring greetings from PEI as well.


This is the church where we worshipped this morning. It is located at the batey(village where the cane cutters stay).The house we are building is located in this neighbourhood. It will be the house of the minister that preached to us this morning. The service was quite exciting. It was loud, but it came from the heart. They sang a lot and then we did a few songs as well. We all had fun for about three hours. It was mostly the same people that we worked with all week. The picture on the right shows the inside.
In the evening we went to the local C.R.C. Church here in Santo Domingo. It was quite a difference, a lot more money invested here. This service was good too, we were able to follow it a little better because the minister here switched back and forth from Spanish to English. It was a five minute walk away from here.
And now it is bedtime. So until we get online again, this is your team from the D.R.

Greetings From the DR via PEI

I know how much we all look forward to an updated Blog, My Dad does too. This is Amanda, Randall's Daughter. Despite the unpredictable power and Internet supply Dad wanted make sure all of you had something to read when you look for a new update. Everyone is doing well in the DR. They had a good day again today. They got up at 6AM and worked until 12noon. This was when all the locals shut down their businesses. They were getting ready for a Wedding at the compound, Dad thought it should be interesting to see how this occasion would be celebrated. He ended his phone conversation with me by mentioning he had a tidbit of news. That got my attention. He tried sugar cane today (notice the picture) and when asked how it tasted he said it was really hard, so hard, it broke his tooth. He said everyone thought it was quite a humorous situation... poor Dad. But he took it all in stride and was able to laugh at it himself. Other than that I don't know a lot, the phone calls are short and costly but he said to mention that he would add an update as soon as possible. So this is Amanda signing off for the Dominican Team. Have a Good One!

P.S. Want to see the pictures enlarged? Simply Click and View!

We are making progress....

Thank you for all the comments, it feels good to hear something from home.We continue to be amazed by Gods blessings to us. We continue to be healthy and able to work. Today we could only go until two o'clock because there is another team coming in tonight.

We got rained out three times today. But were still able to lay that big pile of blocks in the picture below. You can see the rain in the picture beside. It takes less time to get soaked, then to get out of the rain.


We are continue to grow together as a team as well. There are many things we take for granted, that are just not available here. Like uninterupted power, I had to write todays entry twice before I was able to publish it.
I don't know if I can post tomorrow, it looks like a long day.
Until the next time, the Lord willing.
Your D.R. Team

We have arrived......

We were a little time getting going with our blog, our appologies to you who tried yesterday to find a new entry in our blog. Our delays were of a technical nature.Yesterday we had power, but no internet connection. Today we had an internet connection but no power in our room. The power comes and goes here.
Yesterday was the first day we reunited in the D.R.
This pictures shows you the Dominican from the air.

After a good breakfast we were off at six thirty o'clock this morning. For one thing to beat the heat and for another to see first hand what the project would look like. And this is what we found. The first row of blocks plus the corners were up .

The picture beside it shows you the view from the pastor's back window. As you can see in the next picture, we actually worked today. We were back home in Santo Domingo again at about 4:30. It got pretty hot at the site this afternoon. So we drank lots of water. We are all doing well. Tomorrow morning same thing again.Get up at six, have breakfast, and pile in the big van.
But that will be for another day.
So we will try to update as often as we can, not as often as we might like.
Your D.R. Team