We woke up this morning to heavy rain and rolling thunder. During breakfast Fr. Sandino called to let us know that we could not paint the clinic or church due to the rain. That said, our team, which was more than ready to start working, headed over to the clinic to set up supplies and see if there were any dry patches we could work on. We ended up scraping paint all over the building for well over 3 hours -- in some places as much as three layers of paint peeled off. Many workers and clinic visitors commented on the amount of scraping and prep work we were doing. Thankfully, we were directed in our work by Juan Pablo, a retired banker from El Salvador who is visiting his son who just graduated from the Episcopal Seminary in Santo Domingo. Even though Juan Pablo is on vacation he insisted on joining us in painting and preparing for the VBS!
In addition to scraping we also had four members of our team Becky Nickels, David Mertz, Justin Cospito and Jack Hibbard head out into the surrounding poor neighborhoods to see how the majority of Dominicans live and learn from locals and missionaries about culture and life here.
Starting at 1:00 p.m. we began taking all of our supplies for VBS over to San Esteban school to prepare for VBS which was supposed to begin at 2:00 p.m. By 2:00 p.m. only three Dominican teachers had arrived and NO children had arrived. By 2:30 p.m. all the teachers had arrived, by 2:45 p.m. we had our full complement of 50 students (low because of the rain). Things went incredibly smoothly for VBS. We did learn that "Duck Duck Goose" doesn´t translate all that well from our culture into Dominican culture.
After VBS some of us went swimming at the Howard Johnson pool with Elizabeth Dohn (daughter of the missionary doctors here) and Ruth Sanchez (daughter of Fr. Sandino and his wife Ysabel who visited St. John´s). We had a great time and returned to the Kellogg Center refreshed for dinner.
Tonight and for the next four days we will be sharing the Kellogg Center with four missionaries from McLean, Virginia who are working in a sugar mill town about 30 minutes North of San Pedro. It was fun to talk with them about our work and their work.
This evening we talked about logistics at VBS, learned crafts, and are planning on sharing our emotions and feelings about the day, followed by Compline. Needless to say, things have gotten busy here.
Thank you for your continued prayers.
May Christ bless you richly as he is blessing us,
Peter+
-- Peace in Christ,
The Very Rev. Peter Swarr
Associate Rector, St. John's, Plymouth
www.stjohnsplymouth.org
Dean, Trinity Deanery
In addition to scraping we also had four members of our team Becky Nickels, David Mertz, Justin Cospito and Jack Hibbard head out into the surrounding poor neighborhoods to see how the majority of Dominicans live and learn from locals and missionaries about culture and life here.
Starting at 1:00 p.m. we began taking all of our supplies for VBS over to San Esteban school to prepare for VBS which was supposed to begin at 2:00 p.m. By 2:00 p.m. only three Dominican teachers had arrived and NO children had arrived. By 2:30 p.m. all the teachers had arrived, by 2:45 p.m. we had our full complement of 50 students (low because of the rain). Things went incredibly smoothly for VBS. We did learn that "Duck Duck Goose" doesn´t translate all that well from our culture into Dominican culture.
After VBS some of us went swimming at the Howard Johnson pool with Elizabeth Dohn (daughter of the missionary doctors here) and Ruth Sanchez (daughter of Fr. Sandino and his wife Ysabel who visited St. John´s). We had a great time and returned to the Kellogg Center refreshed for dinner.
Tonight and for the next four days we will be sharing the Kellogg Center with four missionaries from McLean, Virginia who are working in a sugar mill town about 30 minutes North of San Pedro. It was fun to talk with them about our work and their work.
This evening we talked about logistics at VBS, learned crafts, and are planning on sharing our emotions and feelings about the day, followed by Compline. Needless to say, things have gotten busy here.
Thank you for your continued prayers.
May Christ bless you richly as he is blessing us,
Peter+
-- Peace in Christ,
The Very Rev. Peter Swarr
Associate Rector, St. John's, Plymouth
www.stjohnsplymouth.org
Dean, Trinity Deanery
