This is me catching my breath after a morning of hard work. The kids laughed at my hat but it did the job

of keeping the sun off my neck.

The table behind me is where we set up the dishwashing station after each meal. They are trying to raise

enough money to build a “real” dining hall but for now, food is prepared in a small kitchen in the building

you see behind me and served in an open shelter nearby.

This is the view of the gym from the main lodge (a.k.a. sleeping quarters). At the top-left end of the field,

you can see the fence I helped build one day to protect kids and a stray soccer ball from going down into

the ravine created by a mud slide last year.

Here is a better look at the ravine where the road used to be. This was taken before we built the fence.

Notice the kids from a day camp that happened to be there one day while we were there. See how close

they are to the edge of that drop-off where the concrete pipes are laying on top of the ground?

All that gray dirt you see in the bottom left corner of the photo is the steep and rocky area where someone

could fall and get hurt before we built the fence. Pico will need to raise about $200K to replace this washed

out road and provide better access for vehicles to move around the camp.

This is the open-air dining area where all meals are served at this time. One day, they hope to have a dining hall.

Here is another view of the washed out road. You can see the poles are up for the fence but we have

not put up the chain link fence yet at the time this was taken.

Bug spray was a must every day. It didn’t help a lot and all of us had swollen ankles and wrists from

all the bug bites by the end of the trip. That’s the dining area behind me.

This is the view from the gym looking back up at the dorm/lodge (left), dining area (center) and dish-washing

Station (with fireplace) on the right. You can barely see the kitchen to the right of the dish-washing area.

Here is the temporary road that goes around the athletic field until the washed out road can be replaced. It might be a long

time before they have the money to replace the lost road so this could be the only way to get from one side of the camp to

the other for a long, long time. That’s the corner of the gym building on the right in the foreground.

Here is the inside of the gym with the athletic field in the background. The bleachers were built by a team from our church,

Knollwood Baptist in Winston-Salem, on a prior trip to Pico about 3 years ago.

One of our projects was to clear some trees from this steep hill. The trees were reaching end of life and starting to get

diseased so we cut them down and chopped them up for firewood to be used by the young Dominican campers this summer.

For some youth, this will be their first camp experience of their life and so Smores are a must.

Here is the same worksite from the top looking down. See if you can spot me sucking on my water bottle on the path below.

This is back at the top of that worksite with me trying to cut through Acacia wood with a dull ax.

After we got the wood to the next site, we had to cut it up and split it.

This is my daughter, Olivia (right), and KT Underwood (left), at the wood-chopping station. You can see some of our work

piled up in the background, the finished product ready for summer camp fires.

Once we left Pico Escondido, we went down off the mountain to Santo Domingo and stayed with

some local families for a couple of nights. Our main project was to build and paint some benches for

the local Young Life (Vida Joven) club to use during weekly meetings held on this rooftop.

The house below is the home of our primary hostess during our stay in Santo Domingo, Charo,

the wife of the national leader of Vida Joven in the Dominican Republic.

During lunch breaks and at other times, I showed local kids some photos of my family on my cell phone.

I also had a small Spanish-English dictionary that was indispensable since they spoke no English and

I spoke no Spanish.

Brian and Alex were clowning around during sanding of the raw wood.

Here is our crew at work in early stages, preparing the wood. My daughter, Olivia, is shown here next to

our pastor, Dr. Bob Setzer.

Here we are “load testing” one of the benches with some of the local kids.

Emelio, in the red shirt, is a Vida Joven summer staff worker at Pico Escondido and accompanied us

to Santo Domingo during our homestay period of the trip. He spoke a little English which helped.

Here is the finished product. There were more than the ones shown but I’m not sure how many we ended

up making in the end.

Olivia was soaking one of her swollen ankles in a bucket of ice water.

Manuel was my host for two nights in his home. I think I slept in his bed and I don’t know where he slept.

Probably on a floor or couch somewhere. He also had a sister and Dr. Bob slept in the other bed in the

room where we stayed so that might have been his sister’s bed.

This is Manuel with his mom and dad. They spoke zero English between the three of them which adds up

to the same amount of Spanish that I speak. Thank goodness for my pocket translator.

Of course, there had to be time to teach a few local kids how to throw a Frisbee. I think Frisbee is one of the greatest

Sports ever invented. There is no language barrier when you are throwing a Frisbee back and forth. You don’t need

a huge field like for soccer or golf or baseball. The cost of the equipment is minimal and lasts for a long time. In fact,

I took 4 disks on this trip and left 3 behind (I had to save one for the beach on our last day before coming home).

Somewhere in the Dominican Republic, 3 people are getting better at throwing the Frisbee every day and making

new friends in the process.

Leechy was the other summer worker who accompanied us to our homestays. She spoke less English than

Emelio but we still got along great. I told her she could move into Olivia’s room when Olivia goes off to

college and become my adopted daughter.

Charo and her son are flanking Dean Clifford, the leader of our group and mother of Roy Clifford who

is the director of Pico Escondido. Roy went to the DR 14 years ago with a promise to stay for 9 months

to help get the camp started. He’s still there and is now the full time director of the camp. He grew up

In our church in Winston-Salem where his mother and father are still members.

That's all the pictures for now. Thanks again to all my donors for making this trip possible. I could not have done it without you.

Chuck