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Gateway & Outreach

These are photos from Mercy Ships' Three month Training Program, Gateway, which I attended from August to November of 2005
Gateway includes two months of classroom & 1 month of Outreach. Our Outreach was in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, where
 we were from Oct 22 to Nov 20. In between the 2 months of classroom is a workshop week.  Workshops include Water Purification
 Health Care, Agriculture, and my workshop, Construction.  We used our "skills"  to build an addition to the shelter for Mercy Ships'
Goat population.  Below are some photos of my Gateway class and Workshop week,  with pictures of the DR outreach below that.

We took a sideline trip to the East Texas Symphony Orchestra one night.



Gateway Class Graduation. That's all of us together on the right.
 

This is 'Service Week', where you take a break from the class and spend a week learning (or at least working in) something
more practical such as Agriculture, Basic Health Care, Water Purification, or Construction, which I chose. We spent the week
learning concrete handling and constructed an addition to Mercy Ships's goat pen, which we dubbed 'The Goat Palace'.
 
 
At the end of the week, we all gave a presentation of what we had learned. the 'goat team' showed off our luxurious
Goat Palace, complete with chairs, lamps and other furniture the goats would never use,  and sang 'The Goat Song'.


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Outreach
Our Outreach to the Dominican Republic consisted of constructing houses, providing medical care, starting an ESL class & a sewing class,
a children's ministry, and evangelizing.  It took place in Puerto Plata and surrounding areas. The bulk of our work was in Villa Ascension,
Caraballo, located behind Montellano, near an airport. Villa Ascension's a new community founded by a successful Canadian businessman  
named Elio Madronia. This is the sixth such community that Elio has founded since the Lord called him to his mission in 1987, years after
his retirement.  Below you will find pictures from the month or so that we spent in & around the village, and some other pictures, as well.

My good friend (and roommate), Richard. Richard moved back to the village and married a local woman & adopted her kids.


Not always working so hard. Even missionaries need breaks.

 

These photos are of a group of people we helped who lived in El Basulero, the town dump. They were so poor, they made their living
scavenging what they could from the mountains or garbage, even scraping the meat off of carcasses the local 'carniceros' ( butchers)
 dropped off.  They made a sort of sausage with the scrapings,  which they would then sell to the Haitians, who were happy to get it. 
 

Finally, team member Mark Elliot put together a 
fantastic musical slideshow of our time in the D.R. If you'd
 like to see it, click on my good friend Richard below...