Dominican Republic Trip (Part 1 of 3)

I'm a little delayed in putting up these pictures from Lucas and my trip down to the Dominican Republic as it's taken a while to get "caught up" at home. We were gone for a week and a half in Feb. and David's Hedding Grandparents took great care of him while we were away. The first half of our trip was a Missions Trip with our Church. We helped finish the walls in a Latin America Child Care (an organization like Compassion International) school that is connected to a Church in San Francisco de Macoris, Dominican Republic. It was hard work and lots of fun!

Here is an evening of relaxation after work at the Pastor's house. It seems a national pastime here is dominoes. The pastor was my partner (he's the one you can't see) and he was a pro so I got to win a lot!

While we were working on the walls in the school, ALL of the kids classes were moved into the Church sanctuary. Um, it was a little noisy. Here they are praying before school started:

Here we are having lunch in one of the finished classrooms. The unfinished ones only have walls half way up.

On Sunday, Pastor Agapito had me translate for his sermon so the Americans could follow along. It was a little intimidating to translate in front of such a crowd. I only had to ask the pastor to clarify a few times though.

Here Lucas and I are working together on the wall that will separate the Church and the School. It was a little noisy with all those kids right behind us. The dominican foreman, Tino, thought it was neat the Lucas and I were always working together. He told me, "Melissa, you are always with your husband. That's beautiful."

Here I am getting to know some of the 4th graders. They were scared of me until the last day when they all decided to become my friends.

Here are Lucas and Pastor Agapito with their hammers. Pastor understood more English than he could speak and he was very cheerful and enjoyed getting to know the Americans. It's nice we all smile and point in the same language.

We also brought down some shoes in our luggage that were donated here in the US to give to the kids. Here's one of the younger recipients.

More to come on the second half of our trip and how David did while we were gone...