Pictures!

The kids are singing songs to close the day for VBS. They love to learn new songs and we even learned a few that they wanted to teach us!

Pictures!

Pics from our first day of VBS. It was hectic, but it went well. Here is Megan making a craft with one of the kids.

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This is the view we have looking out over the bay. It is beautiful throughout the day, but especially in the morning and evening when the sun rises and sets.

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....and the work begins. Here is Mr. Hatton along with Chris (to the far left). He is one of the construction supervisors, and by today has all of our names memorized!

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Ahhh...fun in the sun! Mr. Diepenbrock, being the high-tech person that he is brought along a waterproof case for his camera and was able to take pictures of the trampoline out in the bay.

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Here is a picture of the church: Rosemont Missionary Church (Building Committee, take note). Their service was excellent and here the choir is singing for the service.

Pictures!

Group picture!

Right before leaving for church we managed time for a group picture. Enjoy this one--it's the nicest we'll look all week.

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Here we are schlepping, yep you guessed it-- more food! Notice the cheerful smiles.

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The first thing we did after we got off the plane: we ate. Go figure. We shot our wad on our first meal. It's a good thing we bought our return plane tickets in advance.

The first day of work

Today was a very good first day of work. We are all exhausted, but pleased with the amount of work that we were able to accomplish.
Our day started around 8:30 by our division into groups. Some of us were assigned to cleaning walls and painting in the classrooms, others were assigned to working with concrete, and others to raking the yard (which is a huge job!). We have had very few problems with sunburn and dehydration which is a huge praise!
The afternoon consisted of soccer camp and VBS with local kids. Two soccer games were played in the afternoon while VBS was held at a nearby church. We had around 27 kids for VBS. Some of them were not able to stay the entire time, but kids came in and out throughout the afternoon. We are holding VBS in a one-room church so we are learning to be creative!
-Sarah

It has been an amazing trip so far. Unfortunately, I have been a bit sick this morning, and therefore unable to work, but I am feeling much better now. Church yesterday was a new and uplifting experience, and the afternoon swim was much needed. VBS was a wonderful blessing both for us and for the children. God bless, all my love to my family.
-Phillip

We're hot, but we're here and we're healthy

You've already heard that we've arrived here safely, you could probably guess that we're hot, so the only real news is that we're all healthy (healthy bodies, appetites, and expectations for the rest of the week!).
This morning, we got up and went to church where the principal of the CCCD school worships. With our three groups combined, we added significant numbers to the congregation. We arrived at church around 9:30. The service had just started so we slid in about as discreetly as an albino elephant in a tar pit. The service was very uplifting with a warm welcome from the congregation, passionate singing, and uplifting preaching. We left church around noon time and came back to the school to change into assorted aquatic apparel. After lunch we went to a private beach and spent the afternoon swimming, snorkeling, snoozing, and just generally relaxing. We came back around 5pm and were fed another scrumptious dinner after which we held large and small group meetings, and will soon be hitting the sack in preparation for construction/soccer/VBS tomorrow.
Thanks so much for all your prayers for safe travel. Please pray for our first work day tomorrow as we figure out all of the logistics of what to and where to put people. Pray that we'll be able to be efficient and safe in our construction, and that we can minister effectively to the kids we play soccer with and interact with at VBS. We'll see if we can post some of the pictures we took today on tomorrow's post.

~Rob

Arrived safely in Montego Bay!

The team arrived safely in MoBay at the Caribbean Christian Center for the Deaf (CCCD) Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately the DSL line to CCCD is down at the moment, so updates may be spotty.

Here's the Saturday PM update from Tom (via his Blackberry)...

All the teams have arrived. We have close to fifty volunteers here. Three fifths are guys so we will have plenty of testosterone excitement.

Dinner was fabulous! We had home cooked fried fish with sweet and sour sauce, fancy mashed potatoes, salad, terrific fresh pineapple, watermelon, and danish butter cookies and oreos. We had no trouble finding volunteers to clean up.

Attitudes are being sweetly upheld by our Lord Jesus!

Keep us in your prayers, Tom (for the team)