Monday
We awoke this morning to a beautiful day. When we went down to the river for breakfast,
we discovered that they had provided a breakfast buffet for all the
guests. We normally order from the menu,
but since the weekend is much busier, they had an enormous selection of food
available on several tables. Scrambled
eggs sprinkled with cheese and bacon, fried ham, mashed potatoes, fried cheese
covered in tomato sauce, several kinds of cereal and yogurt and fresh squeezed
pineapple and orange juice. And coffee. Wow.
And it is all you can eat. I
remembered some of the missions trips I have taken in the past where I came
home starved to death, and was so grateful for a nice place to sleep and good
food. Brother Lane joined us for our
breakfast, and then we headed out to give him a hand at the camp. He needed to knock down some forms for the
concrete porch on the mission house, so we all jumped in and helped with that. Then
we helped stack up some lumber in the shed to keep the locals from stealing
it. He has to spray paint his name on
everything he buys to keep people from stealing it.
After we finished that, he took us on an exploration of the
local hardware stores and lumber yards so we could see where he buys his
material. That was very interesting to
say the least. The tool selection, and
materials that are available was pretty neat to see. Brother Lane always has several church
building projects going on simultaneously so construction is a big part of his
time and effort.
After we left there, we met Sister Lane and some of the kids
they’ve “adopted” at a local pizza place.
The restaurants here are clean and the service is great. The Dominican people are very friendly and we
enjoyed meeting so many of the towns people that the Lanes have established
relationships with down through the years.
We spent a few hours in the afternoon packing and getting
everything ready for our trip back home on Tuesday. For supper, the Lanes took us up the mountain
to a really nice restaurant overlooking the city.
We enjoyed a nice meal and they expressed to
us how grateful they were that we got to come see where they have been serving
since 1989. They thanked us for taking
the time to come see them and asked us to please have the church pray for them
and the churches they have established. They told us that they desperately
needed help to reach these people, and challenged our group to pray for
laborers. We are going to miss this
place. The trip was amazing.
