During July 13 to 19, 2026, Peace Lutheran Church of Arvada, Colorado, sent 29 of its members and friends to near Santiago, Dominican Republic, to work with the Casas por Cristo organization to build a home for a homeless family in that region. We arrived Sunday afternoon, July 14 and worked Monday through Wednesday to build the home. The photos in the linked PDF files illustrate our trip highlights.

The Dominican Republic and Haiti share a large island in the Caribbean. The Santiago location is marked but we just drove around it each day. Our Casas headquarters were on the west side and the home that we built was on the east side.

These are a series of mostly chronological PDF reports. Use your own back or return tool to get back to this page for the links to the other files.

The first report is for our Monday activities building the concrete floor for the new home and some wall frames. NewHome-Monday.pdf

The second report is for our Tuesday activities building the frame of the home and starting its siding. NewHome-Tuesday.pdf

The third report is for our Wednesday activities finishing the roof, exterior, and interior parts of the home. Some gift furnature was put inside. A community celebration of the gift of the home to the family was the highlight of the day. NewHome-Wednesday.pdf

The After.pdf report has some details of happenings after the celebration and our leisure time on Thursday.

The Casas Facilities.pdf report shows our crowded living facilities and warehouse. On Friday morning we visited, and prayed over, the future site of the Casas por Cristo facilities to the north of the present location.

The flight back to Miami and then home was on Friday afternoon. There were interesting reef and land colors in the Bahamas. Then as we got to Miami I saw that much of the Everglades was on fire. Some of those photos, plus my bird photos from the Dominican Republic are in Water-Fire-and-Bird-Colors.pdf