Tuesday - Day 4

After a hearty breakfast, we were off to another day of work. I can't wait to show the new picture of the women of Christ Church at work, this will not be cleaning the kitchen I can assure you¡¡¡¡¡ This mornings prayer was very touching. It began with a pretty traditional prayer for any US Christian group, and then a young DR boy, no more than 14 gave an incredible heartfelt prayer in Spanish, followed by a Creole prayer by one of the Haitian workers. I thought for a second that we were at Pentecost, not only from the varied languages, but the real presence of the Holy Spirit that came upon us as we worked our tails off and enjoyed every minute of it. I know what they were saying in Spanish and Creole it was praising God and thankfulness to work with brothers and sisters from the US who cared enough to come and help. That may not qualify for interpreting tongues in a pentecostal congregation, but we all knew....

The manual labor continues. I can´t begin to imagine how many wheelbarrow loads of heavy rock and gravel we moved to fill in the foundation. We took a vote and decided not to count¡ George and his boys had a wonderful opportunity to help a man who performs all the maintenance at the local health clinic, as they replaced a thatch roof with tin sheets to keep the rain from pouring in, and keep the sun out. Sam told me that 12 people lived in the house, and we guessed it was no more than 600 sq ft. This was certainly an eye opener for what 3rd world conditions are like, and how we are truly blessed as Americans.

Tomorrow, is only a half day of labor as we will do some site seeing and visit a Batay, which is where the Haitians live, and they are what you expect, incredible poverty. For those Haitians that worked the sugar cane fields, they have nothing now, since most of the work is mechanized, but these living conditions are better than Haiti... Haitians have no rights in the DR, even if born here.

A few of us are down with a bug, and some physical exhaustion, and a couple will be on mandatory bed rest tomorrow, but we are really finding this to be a rewarding experience. I passed out the baseball gear this morning which was greatly appreciated, and got to teach several youngsters a new cheer, that they must perform every time they get a big hit, and it went like this. Two chest pumps, say SOLI. Raise right arm to shoulder height and say DEO, and extend right arm to the sky, as you round second place and say GLORIA¡¡¡ now that was a thrill for me...

Soli Deo Gloria,

Your brother in Christ.

Frank