St. Jude Catholic Church

We are here in beautiful Puerto Rico! We just enjoyed some pinchos, plantains and salad! We are now embarking on a journey into the mountains to meet our host church! So excited to see God at work this week! 

We enjoyed an amazing dinner prepared by the local church members! It was delicious! 

We are feeling so welcomed this morning! We had the opportunity to introduce ourselves and greet many of the members! 

We are at the church creating decorations and practicing the dances for VBS this week. We are so excited to meet the kids!

We have had an incredible first full day in Puerto Rico! We are ending the night with a team meeting and debriefing the day! We are looking forward to this week! 

On day 2 of VBS the theme was when I'm scared God is good. The kids were singing and dancing and everyone was engaging!

The team started painting the church evennthou we only had the white at the time while some if us went to National to shop for the missing blue paint!

Its always special when a missionary decides to do a mission trip on his/her birthday, but for Genevieve Dutka, this was her 4th year in a row.

We have cleared out and leveled this room for future use of the church. We have also put together storage units for tools and reorganized the basement!We worked hard on this space and we are proud of the results! 

Here’s a shot of David and Joe setting up the drainage pipe. 

We had a great time visiting. Shared love and kindness to those in need. We had the pleasure of listening to some great music from an awesome member of the church.

Today we worked very hard painting the outside of the church! There was a lot of prep work to get us to this day, power washing & scraping! We are so excited to see how it all turns out at the end of the week! 

Tonight we attended mass at the location we have been painting and cleaning up! It was a beautiful time to share with the community! A blessing was prayed over the missionaries as they continue to do good work! 

We gathered together last night to sing and dance! We were accompanied by locals from the surrounding churches who helped lead this amazing night! We are so thankful for this experience! 

Playing Ninja before VBS with the kids. We are having a great time and the kids are very happy 

We are so excited that the kids are getting the tools to deal with situations in life.

We had a great time at the home of a member of the church, we were happy to pray for them and listen to their experiences

We are so close to being done painting the outside of the parish! The colors are looking so good! 

It’s hard to believe it’s already Friday! We have had such an amazing week working with these kids! God is at work in this community! 

We have finished our week of VBS! What an amazing time! God is good! 

We had so much fun at the beach yesterday! The team even went on a banana boat and jet ski rides! It was so refreshing. 

The team is on their way home! We are so thankful for this experience in Puerto Rico! The partnership between these parishes has grown even stronger! Dios es bueno!