December 2022

Firm Foundations

Written by:

Luke, Levi, Caleb, Thomas & Steve

Day 3

We believe in freedom of the press so the guys will be writing this blog post.

As is Dominican culture, we hit the road right on time, which is about 30 minutes late. Carlos, who is our contact here in the Dominican, drove all 14 of us back into the new Jerusalem community in our van that seats 13. Our favorite part of the morning is drawing straws to see who gets to sit on the cooler.

The women spent the morning in fellowship with the teachers, helping them learn English, and in turn learning Spanish songs/dances that will forever be burned into our memories. The goal of the teachers is to learn 4 languages, namely Spanish, English, French and Haitian Creole. The community is a mix of individuals that come from Haiti as well as the DR so multiple languages are spoken. Food hampers were also distributed to the teachers as a new years gift, as they are not monetarily compensated for their work.

Shorts was the wrong call for us today as we were knee deep in concrete 10 minutes after arriving. Caleb and Willy hammered up the forms for the columns while Thomas Luke and Levi formed a concrete bucket brigade. No amount of marching will take this wall down. After taking down an old storage building yesterday, the foundation was poured for a new school office. With the funds that we raised the office will be completed in a few weeks. The water filtration station will also be operational soon providing clean drinking water for the community which eliminates 75% of all preventable diseases at a 90% cost discount. We leave New Jerusalem with a lot of new friends and memories, but unfortunately without our backs.

Our time there was extremely valuable and we had many meaningful conversations with Pastor Edison and members of the church. There is a lot we can learn from them and although they may have less than us, their joy and faith in Christ for daily and spiritual needs should be a lesson for us all.

Thanks for reading,
The island bois