Here is our group!
Top row from left: Lee, Katie, Kay, Carol S., Celeste, Mark Miller
Second row: Kim, Brandon, Anna, Chris Ritchie
Third row: Bria, Misha, Lauren, Linda Hansell
Bottom row: Gayle Shank, Andrew, Teri, Casey.
14 of the team were from Central then Mark Miller, Misha, Carol and Casey were from Rosedale Community Church.

The fearless leaders! Chris Ritchie and Youth for Christ staff member Mark Miller as they watch over our 19 duffel bags in JFK airport. Total we had some 72 pieces of luggage.

Celest, Kim and Lauren as we wait in JFK airport for our flight at 10:35am. The morning started at 2:30am when we met at Central to leave at 3:00 to make it to JFK by 7:30! By the time we reached our destination we each had 15 hours and several thousand miles under our belts.

On Tuesday we went to visit some villages and we visited this one called Caobete. The children just flock to you, always smiling and ready for a picture! A real eye-opening experience of how people live in the DR. Precious angels!

Pastor Jay Brown explained how when Pastor Radhamos asked him if they had the money to buy land in Caobete to build a church, he didn't think so. But then he realized that our group wasn't doing construction so he didn't need to buy materials. He told Pastor Brown to go ahead with it and used money from our trip fund to buy the land.

This is the Caobete land that we bought to build the church. On Saturday Gayle and Katie went back for the afternoon "Sunday" school and got to see all the work that had been done. We all felt a sense of ownership with this village since we helped buy the land for the church. Lee worked building the foundation during the week and we sponsored the building of a well for the people.

Here we are on our walk in Caobete back to the land for the church.

Every afternoon we went to a village called La Piedra to do another VBS program. We set up in an empty house lot and within 10 minutes, word spread and children and adults came to see what the Americans were doing!

We did a slightly different curriculum then in the morning but included the stories like Zacheus and The Giving Tree. At the end of the week Kay gave the salvation message and 10-13 children and adults come to Christ - Praise be to God!

Here we have Brandon helping one of the native ladies make a craft. It was amazing to see how God worked to make our supplies last between 500 in the morning and close to 100 in the afternoon! A little taste of Jesus feeding the five thousand!