2014 Photos/Pastor's Seminar 4

We will keep our last blog short.  We finished up our pictures in the morning then traveled up to Lahatte, our poorest school.  It's eye opening seeing the school and village.  We all left humbled and changed.  In the evening we packed up and got ready to head home.  We miss you all and look forward to seeing you soon. Prayers for our travels would be welcomed. :)

2014 Photos/Pastor's Seminar 3

Today we took on MPCA Primary, our largest school with nearly 450 students.  Things went smooth though and we will be going back to MPCA tomorrow to get a few absent student pictures.  When we returned we witnessed the closing ceremonies for the pastors seminar.  All the pastors prayed over us and thanked us for coming.  It was truly a humbling experience.

2014 Photos/Pastor's Seminar 2

Today we traveled up to Chardene to take pictures of the primary students.  Also, Teresa and Jean were able to see their sponsor children.  After the photos we were able to play and sing songs with the students.  Once we returned back to the mission center we got to enjoy the pastors seminar.  Danny and Franklin have been doing a great job leading the pastors seminar.  Thanks for all the prayers. Hope you're all doing well.  Hope you enjoy the pictures below.

2014 Photos/Pastor's Seminar 1

Sorry for the delay!  Everything has been going great this week.  Saturday night the team made it in safe and enjoyed the spicy spaghetti dinner.  On Sunday we joined the Haitians at church and spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready to take photos for the sponsorships.  On Monday we hiked up to Dupin for our first set of photos.  The school looked great and the kids were very friendly.  Later in the afternoon we took photos of high school students at Chardene Secondary.  Overall it was a very productive day.  That night the pastors from South Carolina joined us (Herb, Danny, Franklin).  Today went for another hike only this time up to Degeance.  Photos went well there too.  It was fun watching the kids play and seeing their village.  After lunch we drove down to MPCA to photograph their high school students.  Before we started, Joe and Tom enjoyed a quick game of soccer with the Haitian.  They both agreed the Haitians were very good for their age (Tom would like to recruit them for back in Ohio).  Teresa, Sandy, Jean, and Darren cheered them on.  After the photos, we came back to the mission center to witness hundreds of Pastors singing and praising God.  We are excited to see God continue to move this week with both teams.  More to come tomorrow!  Keep the prayers coming. God Bless.

November 2014 Medical Trip - Wednesday

Hike. Hike. Hike.  Today we went to Deageance, which is a little drive and then a strenuous, steamy and beautiful hike uphill.  God blessed us with another great clinic day, seeing over 100 patients (135+).  The school and the area is very remote and poor, and the people are VERY sweet and kind. The school has dirt floors, but the kiddos that attend there are lively and fun!  They made us realize that children are the same everywhere.

Our fearless leader, Pam, turned 25 today for the 32nd time!  We had fun celebrating her birthday with a Haitian birthday cake.

Here are a couple of pictures from our day:

Things have cooled off slightly with a nice rain shower this evening. We may or may  not be practicing dancing the "Macarena" for tomorrow.... See you then!

November 2014 Medical Trip - Monday and Tuesday

From Pam: Hi Ayden, Truett, Ellis, Wyatt and Bo.  Love Nana

From Kendra:  Shout out to my GRUBBIES!  LOVE  and MISS YOU!! Hope you enjoyed your SNOW DELAY.  The ocean felt GREAT :p

From Jim: Your prayers for us are appreciated.  The youngest member of the team is doing and feeling great! Nathaniel got to use the EvangiCube today and did great! Love to Wendy, Jaden, Abby, Ellie!

From Diane: To Carrie, Dan, and beautiful Vivian, Anna, Tim, Matthew - I'm loving the heat!  Love - MOM

From Dave: Family and friends, working hard and at the end of the day, serving, we have been able to swim in the ocean every day.

From Nikki: Gavin and Hayden - hope you enjoyed your delay today!!  Mommy is super hot here, but looking forward to seeing you soon.

From Carol: Hello Rachel & Austin (AND SELAH!), all our love from Haiti.  Let me know if anything is going on at home, especially with Grandpa Memch.

Monday -
We did a medical clinic at DuPin.  We drove as far as we could and then HIKED up the mountain through rivers and steep inclines.  We saw over 120 patients and the dentists pulled over 50 TEETH!! We were also able to share the beautiful good news of Jesus with the patients as they were waiting to see the doctors.

Tuesday -
Today the medical team went to LaHat and again saw over 120 patients.  The dentists returned to DuPin to see people who still needed dental attention.  The Lord specifically answered our prayers for strength for the day.  We loved all the time with children today!! We enjoyed walking through LaHat and seeing the beautiful Haitian people and the beautiful mountainside.   Of course, we enjoyed another Haitian meal for dinner, had a great time sharing at our devotion time and now the heat is on through some Euchre Games.

Tomorrow we head to Deageance. Please pray for continued strength for our team, for opportunities to share Jesus and for God to use the medical team to treat patients. We will be hiking to the school once again.

November 2014 Medical Trip - Sunday

Today is Sunday, November 16, 2014.  Our day started with a humbling, praise filled church service with the local Haitians. Wow, what a way to start our first official clinic day!  After the service we were visited by 120 locals in our medical clinic.  We provided medical care, dental care, and a place to fill prescriptions for men, women, and children.  

Two of our medical bags were delayed and they are arriving tomorrow!  Thanks for your prayers.

I was very much looking forward to the cooking by our own Haitian cook and I was not disappointed.  Haitian food is sooogood!!!  We are definitely blessed with some wonderful cooking at our mission center home.

Enjoy the pics!  

Hello to my kids, Hayden and Gavin, and my husband, Trevor.  I know everything is going well back home.  Love you all and see you soon J

Tomorrow we’re off to another school and are planning on seeing and treating approximately 200 people.  We will be hiking through a creek and up a mountain, looking forward to the exercise!

Upon embarking on our journey to this foreign country, I was expecting delays and troubles.  I must say I am pleasantly surprised at how smoothly everything is running thus far.  Our team has come from California, Florida and different parts of Ohio…amazingly we are all meshing very well, as though we’ve been brought together by an outside force.  Oh wait, we have!  Thanks to God for a safe and problem free travel thus far, please continue to be with us this week!

November 2014 Medical Trip

We made is safely to Haiti today - no headaches.  Please pray for a good night's rest as we are exhausted and for two dentist bags that did not make it today.

June Gateway 2nd Youth Team 2014

Below are a few photos of our construction crew from week 2 finishing the ceiling of the 2 rooms we built.  We actually took one large room and made it into 2 rooms.  Both weeks crews worked very hard to get this all done. (I think Supervisor Jaxon  - see first photo - made sure of it)

And our beautiful sunrise that will be missed by all...

Dear Blog,

            Today is our final day on this trip. Tomorrow we will all wake up and leave at 6:00 in the morning and everything we have done here will be left behind. No longer will it be something that we are doing but rather something that we did and this amazing trip will be just a memory for us all. For some it went by fast, for me it did, and I’m surprised that it’s all already over. The days were long and full, and we were all tired most of the time, some of us were even sick, but I’m sad to see it end.

            As it is our final day, we had to end with a party, which seemed fitting enough. All the kids from the camp, including others, returned to school for their end of the year bash. They ate food and received their final report cards, (which were all adorably filled in by hand) and we said our last goodbyes. We also headed over to the preschool and got to meet a few of the youngins, and some of us even got to see a few familiar faces from past years. It was extraordinarily awesome.

            After, we were on our way to the beach and we took a stop at the Creole church. It was mind boggling to see the work that had been done at the church in just the past year. I can only imagine what it felt like for those who hadn’t seen the site since it was just a few holes in the ground. Then, at the beach, we admired the view as we looked around at the reef. It was beautiful and relaxing. It was a nice change of tempo from what we had been dealing with all week. The water was perfectly clear and warm. So warm. We all had a blast searching for crabs and burying Sam in the rocks on the beach.

            We ended the day by buying some souvenirs and machetes, and then cleaning up our rooms. They were pretty disgustingly dirty. . . so, I suppose everyone should get excited now, because we’ll see you all soon.

                                                                                    ~Sarah Frendo

Hola to all my Americano Amigos,

            I’m honored to be the last person to write on this blog and to wrap up our entire week. In retrospect, it feels like our very first day was just yesterday. All of the past 9 days blur together with our sports camp fun and VBS lessons and amazing church services. I feel so lucky to have had this time to get to know the people around me, whether they be American or Dominican. It’s exciting to know I’ve made some friends this past week and made some memories I know I will never forget. Even though this trip was extremely awesome, I think I speak for all of us when I say that it’ll be sad to have these moments turn into memories but it will be wonderful to come back home.

See everyone again soon.

With Love,

Caitlen

June Gateway 2nd Youth Team 2014

Both weeks have been awesome!  Tomorrow we get to go to the beach again!  Volleyball, soccer, and basketball camp was great!  The Sunday night church service was really cool.  We clapped and Daniel and I danced by kicking our legs out.  It was so much fun!  I wish every church service was like that.  I was so happy!  We went to the sports complex again today.  The Dominicans were a little better at soccer.  They didn’t use their hands as much and I scored a goal.  We also had track races which was fun.  I got 2^nd place.  Tonight at dinner, we celebrated Sam and Jeremy’s birthdays, so we got cake.  I love it here and I feel amazing!!!!

~Ian Rath

 

         The first thing that I noticed as soon as we arrived in the Dominican was that the airport had become much more organized in the last two years. The second thing that I noticed was that the bus ride from Santo Domingo to Barahona was longer than I remembered.  The week as a whole has not been nearly as hot as I remember it being here four years ago, but we were also digging holes for five hours a day in the sun. The first day that we had sports camp I was teaching in the bible study.  I was impressed with how my Spanish speaking has progressed over the last two years. That day was the only day that we had an American versus Dominican basketball game, which is disappointing because we lost. Saturday was more of the same minus the basketball game of course. Sunday was pretty amazing actually. It is really amazing how the Dominican people go all out in their worship and are not afraid to look stupid or pull out all of the stops. The second service in particular was more like a party than a church service, if you were out of context you would have thought you were at a party.

            Monday we had more sports camps, and for the first time we had a soccer station so Griffin and I lead that. Tuesday Griffin was sick so I was on my own at the soccer station, but other than that it was pretty much the same. Tuesday going into Wednesday was when I was not feeling so well, so on Wednesday during the competitions I sat out most of the day.  Today I feel better and it was the day I had been looking forward to all trip playing a legitimate soccer game against the Dominicans. It was nothing like playing a high school soccer game in the U.S.  For one, they have like twenty people playing on their team and we only had eleven. We ended up tying  2-2 so nobody was too upset. Overall, the experience has been different in some ways and better in some ways.

~Jake Bixler

 

Hello to all back home!

The past 7 days have been absolutely amazing.  June 12, the first day we arrived, was a very long but exciting day full of travel. All the flights went very smoothly. It was not until 7:45 pm that we finally arrived to the school. It was great to be greeted by those who were staying for another week, and old friends that I made last summer. After the first day, the rest have flown by. We have been quite busy having the sports camp for the younger kids until 12, and then lunch and one hour to spare before we start camp with the older kids. It was awesome to see so many old friends at camp the first day, and pick up with conversations as if a year had not even gone by! Sunday of course has been one of my favorite days of the trip, because of the amazing church services we attended. They are definitely full of lots and lots of singing and dancing. From outside the church, it might sound similar to a party. One song at the end of the service lasted for 17 minutes! In the US, that would never happen. We don't have “enough time for that”. Our nightly devotionals that have been held with only our group, have truly pressured us to think and pray for what God wants us to do when we return back to the states. I know that all of you will help and encourage each and everyone of us, which will help tremendously.

Today was our last day with the campers, and it was a great time. We took them to the Olympic Villia, and played soccer with them. To get to the Villia we had a 20 minute walk. It was great to see more of Barahona, and see some of the houses of the campers. Of course the game of soccer we played was Americanos vs Dominicans. They played with many different rules than what we do, played with 19 people on the field, had four goalies, and called everything a handball. We were losing 2-1, with only a few minutes to go when we scored to tie up the game. It was great to be able to play a game of soccer while I was here, even if it was similar to running in sand with a few patches of grass. To conclude the day we had a homemade meal that Ruth and Carlota cooked for us, with birthday cake to celebrate Sam and Jeremy’s birthdays. Tonight we will also have to say goodbye to all of our older friends!

-Kayla Trevino

June Gateway 2nd Youth Team 2014

This week in the Dominican Republic I have helped kids with sports. Some of the kids are not very good at basketball, but some are very good.  There is this kid named Frailin who has a great time playing the games and sports, but is not very good.   It’s fun to watch him have a great time no matter what.  This trip has made me realize how fortunate I am, but I think if I was born here I wouldn’t know the difference.  These kids enjoy the little things and use what they have, like playing baseball on the street with a stick and rubber ball.

                                             ~Logan

 

This trip to the Dominican Republic has been an eye-opening experience. Seeing the kids have a great time playing soccer with an empty Gatorade bottle is really interesting to watch. It seems like they could have fun with no matter what materials they have, even if it’s nothing. I feel like if the people here saw the kind of homes that we live in in America, they would find them completely unnecessary. A lot of these people live in tiny one to two room shacks with tin roofs. It really is amazing to see.

                                               ~Trevor

   

June Gateway 2nd Youth Team 2014

This trip has been surreal for me. This was my first mission trip ever, and I was kinda nervous about coming, but I am so glad I did. The entire experience opened my eyes to how the rest of the world lives. I knew I was blessed living in Findlay, but I had no idea how sheltered I was until I came to here. The DR is such a beautiful country, even though the people here have absolutely nothing. The kids we work with every day are incredible, and I’ve been having so much fun using my Spanish when talking to them.  Mrs. Murray (my Spanish teacher) would be proud. I have made so many friends here, American and Dominican. The sports camp is an awesome way to help us relate and have fun with the kids. So far I’ve only been a group leader, where you lead a group of kids around to the different stations in the camp. It’s hard to keep up with all the kid’s energy, but I can’t stop laughing when I’m with them. The girls here have a fascination with my hair; they could probably play with it all day. At one point I had five Dominican girls tugging my hair all over the place. Sunday has been my favorite day so far. Watching how the people worship here is unlike anything I’ve seen before. Literally every single person gets up and claps, dances, and sings their hearts out. The service is so loud the entire time. I honestly think I lost some of my hearing because it was so loud. Even so, the joy everyone felt in the tiny church was indescribable. All in all, in some ways I miss home, but I know I’ll be coming back here next year for sure because this trip has been unforgettable. Our God is the same here as He is in America, and He is so good.

~ McKenna DiRe

This trip for me has been really eye opening in many different ways. As like many other people this was my first mission trip ever and to be honest I never thought I would be on one. I am so glad I am here, at this amazing place with these wonderful kids. Helping out at camp, playing with the kids and teaching them different sports and about God has been one of my favorite parts. They come into camp with big smiles on their faces and leave with even bigger smiles. Seeing the people here and knowing they have absolutely nothing but can be so happy has really been something I will never be able to forget. My favorite day would have to be Sunday; I have never seen anything like it before. They make church and worshiping something you could never forget. Seeing how everyone is standing up, clapping, and dancing brings a huge smile to your face. It really didn't matter how old they were they would be standing up dancing along. I love how everyone here is so kind and warm welcoming to us Americans. I have made so many little friends who I will never forget. The little girls here are absolutely adorable! All they want to do is play with my hair. The boys are all pretty crazy, but all very loving. Being here in the Dominican has really shown me that being happy doesn't mean everything has to be perfect in my life.

                       ~Laura