Our Partners and Friends

A man is sitting in a chair, smiling and looking to the left.
God has provided extraordinary leadership for the Solar Oven Partners ministry in the Dominican Republic. We give thanks for Rev. Erasme Fígaro’s dedication, wisdom, kindness, firmness (there are times that is necessary) and ethics. We could not have found a better partner!
A family stands on a polished concrete floor with chairs and a cross in the background. There is a preschool girl with cornrows in her hair in the front, and an older preschool boy with a big smile behind her and to the left. The parents stand behind the children and the two grandparents stand behind the parents.
The director of Solar Oven Partners in the Dominican Republic, Rev. Erasme Fígaro, is separated from his family several times a year to direct our teams. Here, he has just returned to his home in Santo Domingo and is pictured in his church with his family, from front to back: daughter, Briana, son Esdras, wife Laura, Erasme father-in-law César and mother-in-law—and our cooking instructor who also travels with our teams—Gertrudis.
Two women sit in a space between two brick buildings just wide enough to fit them and the basins full of raw chicken that are placed on chairs in front of them. Each woman has a knife in hand.
Gertrudis Garcia (front), our cooking instructor in the Dominican Republic, knows the Dominican foods and culture, plus she imparts a wonderful spirit of joy and peace as she teaches.
A man in a buttoned shirt stands pointing to newsprint that is hanging on the wall.
José Rafael Peguero shares his incredible wealth of knowledge about the Dominican Republic with each of our teams. We return not only having seen that life is different in the DR, but with some sense of what the forces are that have created the differences we see.
A woman and a man stand at the end of a long table, addressing people mostly not seen in the photo but presumably sitting around the table. Maps hand on the wall behind them.
Teams are often greeted by the bishop of the Dominican Evangelical Church, Rev. Miguel Angel Cancú with former SOP director Marj Evans-de-Carpio interpreting. This helps teams understand the wider ministry of the denomination to which our ministry contributes.
A man stands and hammers a part to an oven box under assembly. Next to him is a temporary table consisting of plywood on sawhorses. The ground he stands on is cement, and a cinderblock building is in the background.
Our driver in the Dominican Republic, Mario D’Oleo chooses to participate alongside all of the volunteers, assembling ovens. He also make loaves and fish out of the space available to pack the ovens, groceries and equipment. Plus, he is an excellent, safe driver. That’s why we call him “Super Mario!”
A man and a woman converse in sign language at the end of a grocery store check out line.
Volunteers in Mission connect with people in many ways, based on the uniqueness of who they are. Here, VIM Jane Keller, a sign language interpreter, converses with a deaf grocery store employee.
A young woman in a Solar Oven Partners shirt and hat laughs with five Dominican youth.
Volunteer in Mission Zona Hairgrove, a Spanish minor at Black Hills State University, laughs with the young volunteers from our host church in Monte Cristi, the Dominican Republic.
A woman wearing a Solar Oven Partners shirt sits on a dusty ground. Two preschool children are sitting in front of her as she reads a story book to them. The little girl is licking her finger and the boy is reaching into a bag of chips. There is a water bottle beside them.
Not everything is cooking and oven assembly during a solar oven seminar. Volunteer in Mission Chris Davis, who went to high school in the Dominican Republic, reads a Spanish children’s story to little friends.
Elementary aged children and a college aged volunteer in mission stand in a circle with teenager who is covering her eyes standing in the middle.
Youth volunteers from the Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic host church and college-aged volunteers in mission give the children at the seminar the attention that says to them, “you are valued.”
A woman wearing a Solar Oven Partners shirt sits next to two pre-teen girls, each wearing shirts with hearts on them. The woman and one of the girls are cutting out paper hearts. On the table in front of them are more paper hearts and glue sticks. More young people are in the background.
Volunteer in mission Deb Holland joins children in crafts in the evening hours after the day’s seminar.
Three early-elementary aged girls are smoothing the hair of a woman who sits in front of them.
Volunteer in mission Marlys Larsen gets her hair done by children at the seminar.
A man in a suit and a clergy collar shakes hands with a man in a polo shirt and a baseball cap while others look on.
Solar Oven Partners founder Rick Jost with Sierra Leone’s Bishop John Yambasu, who invited us to partner with his annual conference. It is a tragic loss to the entire denomination and the nation of Sierra Leone as well as to Solar Oven Partners that Bishop Yambasu died in a car accident in August of 2020.
Two men sit at a restaurant table with plates of food in front of them. The man in the left is wearing a shirt of African kente cloth, the man on the right is wearing a white button down shirt. In the background is a Coca-Cola branded refridgerator.
Our partners Smart Senesie (left) and Andrew Mohmoh (right) joined the team for our first lunch after arrival in Sierra Leone.
A man, a woman in a Solar Oven Partners tee-shirt and another man stand under an open-air roof with tables and diners in the background.
We spend a lot of time with and learn a lot from our drivers, Abdul (left) and Jonathan (right).
Four women standing around a table and peeling bananas while another woman stands behind them looking on.
The district superintendent, Miriami Bockami, (center in tan shirt) hosted our distribution in Makeni, Sierra Leone.
A close-up of a man's face with a cement wall painted beige on the top half and green on the bottom half forms the background.
Our team got to talk with the owner of the Freetown guesthouse where we stayed for many nights.
Two men are standing on a dirt floor next to a table. One of them is holding a measuring tape against a piece of wood on the table. Men in the background look on.
Volunteer in mission Paul Hilgedick, a carpenter by trade, spent a day at a carpenter’s shop in Bo, Sierra Leone, to make a storage box for solar oven assembly equipment.
A tall man in a cap and a button down shirt stands next to a woman in a tee-shirt.
Then-director of Solar Oven Partners, Marj Evans-de-Carpio, with then-director Glen Allen of FaithWorks in Arizona.
A woman shows off a pan with two beautiful loaves of freshly baked bread to a woman seated in front of her while another woman places her hand on the shoulder of the woman holding the bread and a man looks on from a seat next to the seated woman.
Lola Bahe is an important elder in her Navajo community in Leupp, AZ and in FaithWorks. When the bread came out of the solar oven, seminar participants brought it for her to see.
A young woman wearing an apron decorated with a painting of a Navajo woman stands flanked by two older women on either side. She has her arms around the first woman on each side.
Cleo Whiteface, a member of the Rosebud Lakota Reservation in South Dakota and a Volunteer in Mission, formed a fast attachment with her new Navajo “grandmas” who gifted her with a Navajo coming of age apron.

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