SCORE International was in need of a medical/dental clinic in the Dominican Republic to minister to the needs of the Haitian's that work the sugar cane fields there. They do not have access to the Dominican system and up until now the medical missionaries visit the many remote camps to meet their medical needs but do not have a facility for things like proper dental work or surgery. The building is to be used for services that cannot easily be done at a remote site.

  We arrived Saturday, unloaded our shipping container and prepared the jobsite to begin work Monday morning. Then Sunday morning we went to church in the town of San Pedro de Marco. This boy was selling coconuts outside the church.

  I obviously had some time to kill Sunday afternoon so I took this coconut off the ground, gave him a face, and named him "Wilson"

  We began work early Monday morning, laying up the block walls and setting the doors.

Much work was accomplished that day.

  When CWE builds a church building, there are usually local church members that will help us with the building of the church building. This was to be a clinic, there was no congregation to pull help from so we hired a few Dominicans to help.

  Here in the red shirt is Maximo. Maximo had never heard the good news that Jesus Christ had died for him. Through an interperator Ray explained and Maximo, and his friend chose to ask Christ to save them and forgive them of their sins.

  After we finished work that day, we had some free time, so I made a new friend with our security guard and we posed for some pictures.

  That night was also JW Peavy's 73rd birthday so the ladies gave him a piece of cake with a spoon as a make shift candle.

  and of course he had to act like he was blowing out the candle.

  As we usually do, we crowned our royalty for the week. This is Steve, he is a plumber from Michigan.

   Maximo showed up for work Wednesday morning with a big smile and a new bible. Someone asked him if he was going to read it. His reply was "Necesario!"

   Wednesday was hot, we had been working hard and sometimes we just had to rest.

   In the evening we would play card games and dominoes.

This is Luke "Bandana Tan" Pierson.

Jen "Jenerator" Brooks.

Debi "the Claw" Randall

Jeff "no nickname" Randall

and me, Kevin "0045" Kesler

   The five of us played some vicious games of spoons, you may laugh but the Claw earned her nickname playing spoons. Luke has marks on his hands to show for prove of it.  I have enjoyed every CWE trip I've been on in a different way but have to say that I had more fun on this trip than any other before.

   It hadn't rained all week which was good, you can't lay block in the rain. About 15 minutes after the last block was layed the rain started.

It was off and on the rest of the day. All we had to do was finish the plumbing and run some electricity. The rain actually made the temperature a little more bearable and we were able to finish our portion of the project right on schedule.

 That night we went to a SCORE basketball game in Santo Domingo. The Dominican national team played a US team from various colleges throughout the US.

  Friday we drove over to the eastern part of the island to visit a few of the villages in the sugar cane fields.

These are the people that will be served by the building we are building.

  Our driver that day was Kiko. His family lived in a town that we drove through on the way back and he wanted to stop off and see his parents for a few minutes. He told us of an orphanage in town and we decided to check it out.

  There were about 24 of us on the bus, I was probably about the 15th one to enter the gate. Nothing prepared me for what I was about to see.

    As I entered, each of the team that entered before me had at least one or two orphans attached to them. This little girl below grabbed me by the hand and led me to the swing set.

  I pushed her on the swing for a little while and then I just went looking around.

    Before we left the orphanage, we asked the woman running it how she would like us to pray for her. I am under the impression that she didn't really know who we were or what we do, just that we showed up on a SCORE bus and Kiko had brought us. Her answer was that we pray that God would provide a church building beyond the hole in the wall so the kids could attend church. Now if that is not a divine appointment, I don't know what is, We were all very touched by the great behavior of the kids. All they wanted was a little love, they didn't ask for anything. I hope we do go back to this place and build a church for them.

  We left the orphanage, Kiko spent a couple of minutes with his parents and we headed back to where we were staying.

  We knew the beach had to be close but never had time to see it so a group of us went exploring until we found it.

  We found some street artists painting.

   And eventually found the beach.

  After finding the beach, we headed back, ate dinner and then left for the airport at about 5:30 am. All I can say is that I'm glad I can be a part of this.

  Kevin

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