Thursday, June 22.

Wonder of wonders, we all awoke in good health!

Breakfast at the school, then part of the team went to the construction site, and a few to home visits. At one of the homes, we visited with the “Maestro” from our 2003 mission. The Maestro had been our “job boss” on the school construction project. He had not been available for the 2005 kitchen project, as he had paying work with the stadium in Yamasa. He sent greetings to his brother, Tom Klingbiel. He asked about John and Esther, and the rest of the family. We told him they were doing well, but unable to come to the DR. Maestro’s wife was ill, so we gathered around her and prayed for her.

Another home we visited had many roosters. We asked if they raised them for food, and were told they were raised for the cock fights!

At another home, we were given a gift of pineapples. We took them to Millie and her team of cooks to be properly cleaned and prepared for lunch. They were a lighter color, but very good! I thought it was a more pineapply-tasting pineapple than we get from the store. I don’t know how else to describe it!

After lunch, it was a busy afternoon! Part of the team continued with construction, while part of the team did VBS, part of the team met with the community leaders, and part of the team hosted an outing for the women of the church!

At the meeting with the community leaders, the team invited them to ask questions. Someone asked what the team members do at home. Rick told them he works with a government program to get benefits to the needy. They were quite surprised that anyone in America was needy! They also asked how many more years we’d be coming down. Our church made a 10 year commitment – and we’ve sent teams down for seven years. Vonda said we’d be coming back as long as the Lord led us to do so. This, of course, is a second hand report, as I was with the VBS team.

We had about 130 children at VBS. It was more orderly. For one thing, it seems word had gotten around, so there were more mothers and men from the community. Calvin, the youth pastor, and Elvis, who wants to start a Christian radio station, were both there. Also, we asked Victor to explain to the children that if they weren’t willing to wait their turns, and started rushing around us and grabbing, we would simply pack everything up and send them home.

After VBS, we handed out the foam airplanes to the children (after they mobbed Rick, Victor made them all go back to their seats, where they were handed out one at a time), and dismissed them out the side door, where the women were meeting. Big mistake! They all wanted to join the women’s group, which was meeting in the shade of the trees near the church. All the children wanted to do the women’s craft, which was making cards. With Martires, we shooed them back. I always dislike turning children away, but we felt it was important for the women to have some time as well.

At our evening meeting, the construction team shared that the Dominicans had been working very hard on the community center. It was almost as if our team was slowing them down! We were thrilled, as this is part of the “Vision of Community” that Food for the Hungry emphasizes. (If you’d like to learn more specifics, visit www.fh.org. I won’t plagiarize their material here!) After all, these trips aren’t about the project – we could hire local contractors if that was all that was needed. The real purpose is to share Christ, and help the community grow in Christ, as we try to help develop the community in more earth-bound ways. (Clinics, good nutrition, education, etc.)

As we were going to bed, Vicki asked if Fred would be taking the teens on a tarantula hunt. It’s become a tradition to spend some time looking for tarantulas. I said he was already in bed, so probably not. When I told Fred, he said, “Well, it’s drier than it has been all week, and it’s late enough, so this is probably the best night for it.” So, he got up, got dressed, and he, Kati, and Brandon went tarantula hunting. They found a few, but none as big as the one Kecia saw the first year.

Turns out they played right into Vonda’s hands! Allegedly (all evidence is circumstantial), she and a couple of accomplices used red duct tape and wrapped it around Brandon’s mattress, door, and anything else to which it would stick. (His other nickname, because of a long joke he tells, is Rojo, meaning red.) They’d also put his picture on the mirrors and walls in the men’s room.