Oh so close, stepping into the culture, visitors, flags, walls and dogs

Not yet.
Still have just two issues to verify are completed and we will begin construction.
Urgency and thouroughness are very difficult concepts to fold into this culture. We can't really make urgency happen, but we can be sure we are thorough.

The death of our architect's mom certainly had an impact getting information this past week. She passed away early last week and the memorial service was held Saturday afternoon. Frank and I attended this event, which was very well attended and very meaningful.  The large Assembly of God church was full, so there were easily over 500 people. 

It is always interesting to step into the Dominican culture and appreciate it. The ceremony was much like one we might hold, but I liked that they had all of the family come up front to be introduced and a large part of the ceremony had one of the sons doing the speaking. A nice slideshow which even included a video showing her 81st birthday and a 5 minute speech she gave that certainly seemed to confirm her love of Jesus and her family. Very meaningful - a strong member of the family and church family is missed. 

Stacy and I had a super fun visit with our daughter Amy and our niece Emma for 10 days. We took a quick trip to the north coast to explore the country a little more, then our 2nd Pres - Roanoke Team arrived here in San Juan and the girls participated in the Vacation Bible School and Construction work.  Very Very fun to see so many church family and spend some good time with them. We had a bunch of them here at the house for a quick visit one night.

The volunteer teams have made great progress on the wall along the west side of the property. It looks like we will be shifting to the south line in the Fall.

As a way to recognize the many (440) individual and organization donors to the clinic Revolution project, several team members helped me set up an array of flags - each flag represents a donor. Thank you to all who "have a flag".

And finally, if you've been to the land you may have met one of two dogs that were left here by the momma. The larger female is now with some friends of Ezequiel (the day guard here) but the amazing male is still fighting an amazing battle - the latest being recovery from a broken leg. I won't go into details of the past, but he is doing very well. He has been renamed "Maximus" due to his strength. We gave him a good bath the other day with flea soap followed by some parasite medicine. Here are a couple of pics:

I continue to feel optimistic that we will get started again soon on the project.

Please pray for everyone involved.

Nearing the end of a long pause

It has been too long, an update is needed on the status of the project. 

As I mentioned in my last post, there are many things that we feel must be thoroughly addressed before we begin the actual building construction. I am glad to report that we are almost there. Many meetings and discussions have taken place during this pause with the goal of ensuring that as we move ahead money and time will be carefully spent. 

It is true that "time is money", but in the case of the Revolution Project we have a flexible amount of time but only a specific amount of money, so we must focus on funds more than days. 

Thank you for your patience and understanding during this pause. 

As Americans, our perception of how things are expected to go with a construction project are very different than how Dominicans percieve the construction. We have grown accustomed to tight time-frames for projects completed under even tighter budgets. Priorities are not necessarily the same here in the DR, although I know our engineer/builder and Dr. Canario would like to get the building completed soon and in a very short time frame. 

Our challenge is ensuring that the limited funds we have are very carefully used so that we end up with a fully completed facility. Pushing ahead might feel good for now, but without careful monitoring we could push time and end up with an incomplete project. 

All of our issues are just about completed, we should begin the constrution soon. 

Thank you for the many prayers for the project and everyone involved. 

I hope to report again soon.