A 4:15 am wakeup call shocked all of us, but seeing our leader John and fearless bus driver Javier brightened everything for today. We made it safely through Customs in Miami and then landed in Chicago. The bus is just through rush hour traffic and we have a couple of hours left until we make …
Author Archives: schoonveld
Last Day in the DR!
Final Goodbyes and Chocolate Hola everyone! We started this morning with a bright and early sunrise on the beach. We used this time to soak in beautiful views and God’s greater calling for us in our own life back home. John (our missionary host) prompted us to think deeper about our experiences and how we …
Church Day at the Hole
Hi Families, Happy Dominican Father’s Day! Today we went to a local church where our bus driver (Javier) is the pastor. Although we couldn’t understand the pastor’s message, the music created a great loving environment. After church we visited some of the members of the community. We then took a two-hour bus ride to our …
Grateful for a great day!
Day 5 Hi everyone! Greetings from the Caribbean! We started our morning with a run for Shae and the XC folk and omelets for breakfast for everyone else! We also tried dragon fruit for the first time (it kinda tastes like a kiwi) before heading off to the Go! Sports complex across town in Tamboril. …
Day 4
Water Filtration Demonstration We started the morning with Dominican eggs and fruit that helped cure our lost sleep from the fiesta in Batey Nueve the previous night. They played loud music until 3 am, and we did not attend because the church does not support it. After breakfast, we did our daily devotional and talked …
Day 3 (one day late)
To Batey Nueve We Go… This morning we started off by traveling to the local medical clinic which was just down the road. We learned that the site functioned as an urgent care for medical and dental purposes throughout the community we were staying at for the week. One unique aspect of this clinic is …
Building in the community
Day 2: Today we traveled to a small community called La Mina. Upon arriving, we were warmly welcomed by the children of the community waving to us as we drove in. Walking in the church, we got the opportunity to meet the community leaders, and learned about how we would be doing various tasks for …
We made it!! Day 1
Yesterday was our training day, it was full of conversations, learning about what our trip consists of, and many laughs. At the start of the day we did a lot of ice breakers, learning more about each other and how Schoonie has a good whale sound. We also took time to learn about the organization …