Dominican Republic- Our Team

It is hard to believe that a trip that we planned and prepared for over the course of many months is already a memory.
My apologies for the delay in updating the blog... I have struggled to put into words all that we experienced and learned while in the Dominican. (It was also quite a challenge to sort and edit the over 500 pictures :)
So here goes nothing...

Our adventure began at 3:00am Saturday May 31, 2014 upon receiving a wake-up call from our cell phone tree. At 3:25am we loaded our van and headed to the church to meet the rest of the team. 3:30am we arrived at the church, verified all 18 of us were present and then we headed to the airport (3 vehicles, 18 team members, 3 drivers, 18 pieces of checked luggage, 18 carry ons and 3 personal items). We arrived at the airport at 4am checked in at the Delta counter and headed to our gate.
3 flights +12 hours + lots of snacks later... we arrived in Santiago, Dominican Republic.

Flying over the Dominican

The Santiago airport was small and easy to navigate through customs, immigration, and baggage claim. As we exited the airport, we were greeted by our host missionaries, Rick and Tammy Romano, and then transported by bus to our hotel. The first of our many bus trips.

We were taken to our hotel to drop off our things and to freshen up after a long day of travel.
Our team was split into 4 rooms- 1 for our family , 1 for the other family that traveled with our group, and a guy and girl room. Each room had 5 beds- 2 water beds and 3 regular beds, a bathroom which included a shower, toilet, and sink, and a dresser and nightstand.
Our two main memories of the hotel (and really any where in the Dominican)-
Don't put toilet paper in the toilet
AND
Don't drink the water

This is the outside of our hotel and the lobby area where we met as a team to load the bus each day.

This is our faithful bus, nicknamed by our team The Gecko. While not always a reliable vehicle of transportation (it broke down the following day, stranding us on the side of the road for close to an hour) it was our means for transportation while in the Dominican.

This is the monument of Santiago, located at the center of town and a well known landmark of the area. We drove by it many times as we traveled from our hotel to the Compound and each day as we left for the worksite and VBS churches.

Saturday night dinner, we were taken to a local restaurant to meet the other members of the mission team that we would be serving with that week.  Along with Rick and Tammy there are 2 other missionary families that live and serve full time in the Dominican (Brandon and Bethany and their 3 children and Matt and Teri and their 5 children). There are also 7 summer interns that also assist the visiting teams.

Dinner was traditional Dominican food and was super yummy.

This is the Compound- This 3 story building is the home of Rick and Tammy (first floor), the summer intern apartments and kitchen (2nd floor), and the 3rd floor is where we met daily for breakfast, dinner and devotions.

Daily chores were assigned our first night and our family (along with fellow team mate Emma) were in charge of washing, sanitizing, drying and putting away the breakfast dishes.
Our serving began with serving one another.

Here is our team after our first day of serving together

and here we are on the last day of VBS

And so our journey begins...