As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace. 

Peter ch4,v10 

One Year Anniversary

  One year ago we were celebrating Ground-Breaking, a year later the site has had a serious face-lift - removing 1/2 a meter of topsoil and adding over 2 meters of a compacted fill material. This stable base is what will support the Clinic, the closest thing we can do to provide a Solid Rock!

Ground Breaking Ceremony: November 18, 2014

Site as of November 18, 2015

  We have tied over 120 miles of rebar in the foundation and it is almost ready to have over 1,200 cubic meters of concrete placed - that is over 200 concrete trucks! We have scheduled this work for the second week of December.
  Once this is done, two courses of concrete block will be laid for all of the walls, so "walking the clinic" will then be possible.
  Next week is Thanksgiving - What wonderful timing that we can celebrate that this project is rising from the ground!

  Thank you for your prayers and support!

"we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

  

Platea / Foundation Work is moving along - pictures and videos

Its November 7th, the rebar work for the platea started about 3 weeks ago, and it is ahead of schedule. 

Most of the structural rebar is in place, and over 90 of the 12' columns. Much work remains, specifically setting the"bastones" - these are the pieces of rebar that will project up into all of the walls to anchor them to the platea slab. They need to be located very accurately.

First - a quick video showing 

what the site looks like today:

Second - a video showing details

 of the rebar construction:

Finally -The picture below was taken

in between the two layers of rebar. 

   The rebar work should be completed by the end of November, and we hope to schedule the concrete work for early December!
   Once the concrete is in place, a "normal" building process will begin with concrete block being laid to define all of the walls and then plumbing and other under-floor pipes being installed.

Thanks for your prayers and support!

-

Clinic Update - video summary First week of October

Here is a 3 minute video that shows you what is going on at the project...

The rebar grid is now getting installed  - hope to show you that soon!

Foundation Work underway - The Electrical Grounding System

A panorama photo of the site - photo taken soon after a heavy thunderstorm came through.
View looks from southeast to northwes with the highway on the right side (NW direction).

Work is getting in full gear on the foundation. If you look closely in the picture you will see a continuous line of 10" boards, these are the formwork that outline the footprint of the building and will hold the 10" thick concrete which will fill the entire area inside this formwork, resulting in the platea - an enormous large footer upon which the building will rest. Of course, before the concrete there is much work to be done that will require a couple of months to complete. 

89 columns are being fabricated using rebar. These require 10 20' pieces of 1/2" rebar and are tied together with 3/8" rebar. These will be positioned in place when rebar is being placed and tied together in the platea/foundation.

And because we want to be well grounded ...

Thermite Welding: Serious Soldering of the grounding wire 
- check out the video below:
 FIRE IN THE HOLE!

Currently a grounding system is being put in place that will ground all electrical devices, minimize the chances of static electricity  and offer the best grounding protection possible for the workers and patients as well as the electronic equipment that will be in the building. This includes a thick copper wire that runs the perimeter of the platea and is using a process called Exothermic or Thermite Welding which makes an excellent connection between the copper wire and the 10' (deep) copper grounding rods spaced around the building.  

A closeup of the form work and electrical ditch. This ditch runs the perimeter of the platea and is for a thick copper cable that has 10' grounding rods evenly spaced around the platea.

A 2 minute video of simply pounding a 10' ground rod 

into a compacted fill.

Making the connection using a
 thermite welding technique 
(very intense HEAT/FIRE!):

Hooray, work actually resumed today!

No more mañanas to report! 

(well, for a good while anyway :)

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,

 to them who are called according to his purpose.  Romans 8:28  

(I like an interpretation of this I came across: "A pillow for the weired soul")

 The surveyors started today locating the corners of the building and platea (foundation slab) first, and then will locate the 89 columns inside the building.
 This will be a super-fun time when we finally see the footprint of the Clinic and can wander the floorplan.
  There are many points to be located, so this will take several days.




Wood has been delivered and is being prepped to be used to form the perimeter of the platea. 

Wood to be used to form the perimeter of the Platea.

  Security cameras have been set up on the site so we can keep a close eye on activity and materials. 
  Lighting is in place for the night guard, including an inverter we purchased from a 2nd Pres Roanoke family who owns an inverter company here in the DR.

Clinic mascot Maximus checking out the pins defining the
southeast walls that step their way from front to back.

Maximus has endured many issues in his short life so far and so we thought it fitting that he be named after an enduring, persistent character. (kinda fits the clinic building process now that I think about it!)

  

Several truckloads of 40' rebar are scheduled to arrive late Tuesday or Wednesday. This will be used to make up the 89 columns, each requiring 10 pieces of 1/2" rebar and a great deal of "cages" that hold the 1/2" in place. Of course, the entire platea will have two grids of rebar, each tied 15cm apart.  

At last.

Locating corner pins at the front Northeast corner.

Ezequiel (our day guard and more man)  running the skid steer - moving block out of the way
 in order to create a place to tie the column rebar..

            .... don't even THINK of stopping your prayers ...

The drought is over!

Since arriving last November and throughout winter and spring I was told about the upcoming "rainy season" in the late spring and summer ... well, we never had rain a rainy season this year. Santo Domingo at one point only had 35 days of water remaining in their reservoirs. After tropical storm Danny only brought false hope, Tropical Storm Erika actually delivered some desperately needed rain.  Oh wait, you aren't interested in the drought, you'd like to hear about the Revolution project ...  so, here you go:

The title is a metaphor of course, I am very excited to inform everyone that our construction drought during the last four months is over, Erika brought the rain and Eduard has delivered the information we have been waiting on, and so our drought is over.

Four Months ago we completed a large site preparation phase that resulted in 3,025 truckloads of fill material delivered and compacted on the jobsite. This will serve as a stout base for the foundation because the soil below is great for agriculture, not so good for construction. After completion of this phase we made a very deliberate decision at that time to hold off starting the next phase until we felt many issues were worked out and more information investigated. 
There is a different mindset here in the DR when it comes to many things socially and in the business world, and although we respect those differences Solid Rock needed the tools and information going forward that would provide to us the best methods and information to very intently control how funds were estimated to be spent and actually spent.  This took some time. 
We also spent time thoroughly investigating design options of our foundation to be assured it will provide a stout foundation in the most cost-efficient manner. The Haiti earthquake has dramatically changed the building standards here in the Dominican and we needed to be sure all options were looked into. 
We now have full confidence in the foundation design and have the tools and reporting in place to allow us to carefully estimate and monitor our costs.

So we are ready to start our "platea", known in the States as a mat foundation. In summary, the building will be built on top of this platea which will in essence work like a large tray that will evenly support the building and also hold the building during an earthquake. It is a single gigantic footer. After two layers of rebar are tied and installed, the rebar for 90 columns is assembled and stood in place and 1,300 cubic meters of concrete is placed we will have one great foundation. It will take about 60 days to complete this work.    

Good things take time - the last four months have allowed us to time to get all of our ducks in a row. Sometimes progress needs to be looked at from a different perspective.

I am happy to let you know there will be constant reports from me on our progress .
Stay Tuned!

If you are bored, below is a time lapse I did the afternoon Erika arrived:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMXi6TfKc7c

We have power on the property, a very long security wall and still waiting

We continue to work on getting restarted. 

At this point we are at the mercy of the government who should let us know in another week if all documentation is correct for us to not pay taxes on materials. This potentially is a huge savings, so the time spent attempting to get this established (over 5 months and counting) is well worth the wait. We cannot start until we know we can submit this tax exemption with a purchase order.

Volunteer Teams have made great progress on the wall, it is almost done on the west side.

While we have not started with the foundation work yet, we do now at least have electricity to the jobsite. This is in absolutely positively certainly emphatically and especially NOT how you would expect things to go in the US. The process of getting just this simple step completed has been a journey unto itself. Thanks only to Frank's contact at the power company has this been completed. A month ago we were being told this would take months to get proper documentation developed and submitted to the power company.

Appreciate the efficiency of our companies and organizations in the States  - really ... appreciate them! 

If you are ever in a line having to wait for 5 minutes, think of the hours Dan has spent (an hour and a half per visit is not unusual) getting a check cashed every two to three weeks.  If the cable company doesn't show up until an hour after they committed, remember that after weeks of waiting I gave up and never even got cable for internet installed.

The new poles are  here!

Post Hole digging equipment ( a guy with a digging bar)

up up and away

getting it done, even though it is after sunset

My headlights offered sone needed worklights

Our very own transformer

We now have a working streetlight!