We don't usually do much for Christmas, but this year we wanted to get the children each something to replace what they had to leave behind in the U.S. These were also very appropriate for the new house since they can play outside freely now.

Thanks to Agape flights for their help for these gifts. If we were to buy them here, we would pay out the nose. Agape offers a service to missionaries to do their shopping for them and then put it directly on the plane so you don't have to pay shipping costs. We shopped online for 2 of these gifts, told the Agape office where to buy them, had them pick them up, bill us, and send them over on the plane. Otherwise it would have been costly to ship these items over.

Calhoun wins out

My favorite Christmas CD this year was none other than Tim Calhoun & Company. He did a Christmas recording a few years ago. This year, for whatever reason, it was my favorite Christmas CD. Perhaps because it has the traditional Christmas carols, perhaps because we don't get to hear him sing at church anymore, perhaps because it reminded me of the specials sung in our home churches, and perhaps because he sings with feeling. So, Calhoun, thanks for warming our house this year with your "suave" voice. Until next year.....

Phone line!

Wow! I am still astounded that the phone company came LAST Thursday to hook us up! I didn't know anything happened that fast here. :-) So we are back in the world of blogging and link to the rest of the outside world.

What's even more astounding is that they granted us a phone line in our name! Thank the Lord! They wanted a letter stating our work and our income. Doug just gave them the paper we have from the mission stating him as Power of Attourney here. They accepted it, asked us what our income was, acted like they weren't overly thrilled with the set up, but still gave us a phone in our name! We are thrilled with how the Lord worked this out. This will make future paperwork a bit easier.

We are enjoying our new house. I hope to post some pictures soon of the house and our first Christmas here! We almost have to pinch ourselves to realize it's not a dream. It feels like a home and it has already been a wonderful change not to live where we work. You can actually walk away and feel like you're going "home". We realize more now how much stress it put on us to be at the church 24 - 7. It's been refreshing to have the holidays away from "work". Thank God for His wonderful provision for us!

Happy New Year from all of us

Since I wasn't able to post this for Christmas, I'll do it now. This was our family Christmas picture taken outside of the church. Doug changed the background to red for greeting cards.

Link for news & video on Agape's plane

http://www.channel10.com:80/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=70281

Agape plane

We're moving today and I only have a few minutes, but I wanted to share this so you can rejoice with us and also pray for our mail service.

Agape (a Christian mail carrier to the Carribbean) has been a blessing to all of us. This past week, they brought 3 plane loads of stuff to ensure that the missionaries would get their Christmas packages in time for Christmas! What a blessing and sacrifice.

We received this email this morning. This happend on their return flight back to Florida. It gripped my heart as I just spoke with the pilots on Wed. at the airport. I said, "Thank you for bringing our stuff." They smiled brightly as they said, "It's our pleasure." We are all grateful for the sacrifice they make to get our things over from the States. Thank God they didn't have to sacrifice everything!

Email:

"There is no easy way to share this with you. Today on its return flight Agape's Caravan experienced an engine failure and ditched into the Caribbean off of Chub Cay near Abacco and not for from the US. We ask you to share in praise to the Lord for the safety of Agape's crew Rocky and Paolo... I have just spoken to them and all is well...Pray with us as we regroup... Please be assured we will persevere...Please share this with other members of the Agape family, thank you..."

Moving tomorrow!

The moving day is scheduled for tomorrow - as much as you can schedule in this country. We have a truck lined up, boxes are being filled......we'll see how far we get.

We're still waiting on the gas line to be put in the house for the stove. I guess if it's not in, we'll be microwaving it for a while or ordering pizza or something. Doug goes to pick up the keys and padlocks today and to install the curtain rods.

Since we will be moving over the weekend, I doubt I will post again till after Christmas - or until we get a phone line in the house. Pray that that happens fast! We have had one headache after another trying to get stuff in our name. They want Doug to submit a paper telling of his work and his income in order to give us a phone line. It could be quite a process.

So....until I can post again, have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. In January, I'll try to catch up the activities of the last few months - or, like I said before, as soon as we get a phone line in. Nothing happens fast here.

We'll enjoy the holidays in our new home......I think. :-)

Signed, Sealed, but yet to be delivered

We did sign for the rental contract on the house last Thursday and paid the 3 month rent deposit. Gulp! We thought it was only 2 month rent deposit. What a surprise. At least our first month rent isn't due till the end of the month. It's good we already have our Christmas shopping done or we might not be getting much for Christmas. :-)

We still don't know what day we're moving. Isn't life here great? The house has never been lived in, so they have to get the electric hooked up before we can move in. They came and approved it to be hooked up. Doug can drop the contract off tomorrow, and we're told from there we can hook up - even if the meter is not installed yet. We'll find out for certain tomorrow if that's so.

If we can hook up electric tomorrow, we are going to try to move Thursday or Friday. In the meantime, we're getting things ready.

I will post pictures later. They were still working on the house the times we've been there, so I didn't get any yet.

I know this is a busy time of year and I don't know how many are checking our blog. But for those of you who are checking, the lastest news is that we plan/hope to go sign the rental contract for the house tomorrow. It has been a process of patience, as is most of life here.

We thought we were going to sign a few days ago and found out that we needed to have a guarantor (is that the word in English?) - someone to be able to "cover" for us, meaning finish our year contract, if we should up and walk out. Evidently that is what a lot of Americans here in the country have done and left the owner "sitting" empty.

So, we racked our brains to try to find a Dominican that would know us well enough and that would have the income to be able to "cover" for us if that should happen. We finally found a friend that will do it. Thank the Lord! So.... hopefully tomorrow we will all meet with the lawyer and finalize the paperwork.

At this point we still hope to move in next week. It will be a big job trying to get in before Christmas, but we're willing to try.

We'll do our best to keep you posted.

House update

Yes, we finally have an update concerning the house situation! I have not posted about it, because we did not really know much more until this past week.

Doug and a friend went house searching for 7 hours one day a few weeks ago. They didn't find anything and concluded that the house we had been looking at is the one that is most suitable.

The house we have been interested in for about a month is VERY nice. Our biggest holdback was that it did not have much yard space for the children to play. It has a space of 8 feet that goes around the back and sides of the house, and there is a small front lawn with a garage area. Since we have 3 boys who love to play soccer and baseball, we were concerned with where they would play.

The day that Doug and his friend searched, they stopped at the house we are looking at and found an area beside the wall of the community which would be suitable for the children to play. It has a sidewalk, benches, basketball court, and grassy area where they could play their soccer and baseball. Having something like that in walking distance solved the problem of having room to play.

We felt that God did not say "no" to that house, so we proceeded to call the landlord. He told us it would be ready in 3 days (today) and then we could sign a contract. We are waiting on his call, and then we plan to go sign, and be working to move in - perhaps even yet before Christmas! Wow! It will be a lot of work, but we all agreed we'd rather spend Christmas there than here - even if everything isn't completley in.

The thought of moving brings mixed emotions to my heart. Even though we've suffered through the covering of dust, the noise from the street, the violence, and limited space, it has still been "home" for the past 9 years. I believe I've calculated it is the longest I've ever lived in a house before (excluding our furloughs). Maybe that is the reason for the sentiment. :-)

But when I look at the positive side, I will be very happy to have LOTS more room inside, a kitchen with a lot of counterspace, HOT WATER in the bathrooms (anybody who's visited us will rejoice with us on that one), peace and quiet from the noise of the cars (perhaps our neighbors will be noisy, but it was pretty quiet when we've been there), security for the children to play outside safely, electricity 21 hours a day, less dust, and a front porch.

We'll keep you posted as we learn more and hope to get some photos to post, too.

Thanks for praying!

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, it's been a busy past few weeks. There is much I could post this evening. But since the next few days are full and it is late tonight, I will simply wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanks to Agape flights, our mail service, we can enjoy a delicious Thanksgiving meal. For the missionaries who spend Thanksgiving away from home, they give a bag of Thanksgiving goodies. Mmmmm! We will certainly not let this go to waste! These items can be purchased here, but are very expensive. The turkey would cost over $40; the other items cost about double what we pay in the States. So we're very grateful to enjoy these foods that we would otherwise not be able to afford.

We will be spending Thanksgiving day with some other Americans here in the capital. We will all pitch in to have a traditional Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings.

Drying out

Well, we are trying to dry out from the storm. We were greatly delighted to see the sun shine on Thursday! Our lawn is a muddy mess, but we are so thankful we are not suffering as some are. We are told the capital is a mess and not to enter it unless necessary. Lots of houses were underwater, lots of lost possessions, and some lost lives.

We'll be really glad to see the puddles dry up. Until they do, the mosquito population will take advantage of them. There were already reports of many cases of dengue fever before the storm. It will no doubt be worse with all of this water around.

More pictures

Waiting out the storm.

Water, water everywhere.

Here's a deep one. It's nice to have a large vehicle for these kinds of situations. Note the white truck went around this one by going through a parking lot - as did many others.

Pictures from Tropical Storm Noel

Many buildings were covered with water. Notice the man swimming in the water beside the pole.

This house is completed surrounded by water (you can't see it on the other side). It was a family with 3 children and they would not leave. I sure hope they are okay after the waters crested.

It rained till the cows came home. :-)


People out to see the river out of its banks. Just hours after we crossed this bridge, they were only letting a few cars cross at a time because they said the bridge was moving. I couldn't get a good picture of all the water under the bridge, but the river was WAY out of its banks. Evidently the force of all that water was causing some instability in the bridge. A few days later, the bridge is still standing. We hope it stays that way.

It sure is a good thing they fixed the streets in our area. Otherwise it would have been worse. HA-HA!

It's STILL raining!

This was taken today. It shows some of the flooding from the storm. Note the man in the center. He is sitting on the roof of his house.

We are still experiencing rain from the back part of Tropical Storm Noel or perhaps another storm system following it. It has rained almost nonstop since Saturday afternoon. We usually like rainy days here - and we've been thankful because it has been comfortable temperature wise - but we are getting a bit anxious to see the sun. They say it won't come out till maybe Friday. That means worse flooding.

There is water everywhere and I want to post some more pictures, but our invertor is soon to shut down. There is probably going to be another blackout. A cable is damaged on our street and who knows how many hours it will be till they fix it. So.....we'll light the oil lights tonight and wait to see how long it will be till electricity is restored.

We're thankful that we are safe and out of a flood zone. They say the city is horrible. A bridge is out to the west and a road is shut down to the north making it hard to get in and out of the city.

Many have had to seek shelters because their homes are flooded. Yes, we are counting our blessings.

Tropical Storm Noel

We are catching the rain from this storm right now. It has rained nonstop since Saturday afternoon and at times it is very heavy. There are many trees down in the capital and evidently certain areas of the city are in red alert. But we are okay! The only thing we are experiencing is a blackout - which evidently is in the whole city. We had 5 hours of electricity in the last 30 hours. Our invertor has shut down so we are without anything. The children are off school today since there is no electricity to run the computers - which is how they do their school.

Our refrigerator is not keeping cold and we are afraid of losing everything in it. We went to a friend's house to pick up a generator to at least run the refrigerator for a while. Evidently, though, the blackout will continue until the storm has passed. Right now they are saying we will be in it all day tomorrow, too.

It is actually cool enough that we could enjoy a cup of hot chocolate! Thank you, Lord. And for the rest of the day.......it looks like maybe some games with the children. They'll be sure to love that.

Newslink for Tropical Storm Noel in the D.R.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/hurricanes/2007-10-29-ts-noel_N.htm

Could this be true? We hope so!

News

Wal-Mart named as one of the US retail giants coming to the Dominican Republic
Wal-Mart is one of at least two US retail chains expanding in to the Caribbean, with operations in the Dominican Republic to start at the end of 2007/first quarter of 2008.
Home Depot, JC Penney, Sears and Target are also among the potential investors set to arrive in the Dominican Republic. The arrival of such giants will be beneficial for local consumers and, while competition will increase for those who are in the retail sector, there will also be new opportunities for producers.The new retail stores in the country are expected to generate greater wealth because, aside from increasing demand for products, they will also generate more jobs, new companies and there will be greater product diversity in the market. They will also generate a new demand for the transport of products from production centres, which will also increase the demand for other services.
Published: Wednesday, 16 May, 2007 by Lyndsey Dhanani

Electricity improves over weekend

Did you read our blog and pray for us over the weekend? If so, we say "Thank you." The electricity never did come on Friday night/Saturday morning. Our invertor shut down about 9:00 a.m. on Saturday after we had drained it from use of fans throughout the night. We did manage to sleep some in the early hours of the morning.

The electricity came back on around noon on Saturday and was on almost nonstop all weekend until 9:00 a.m. Monday morning. Wow! It was great! We got 2 full night's of sleep and feel much more refreshed! Having electricity throughout the weekend reduced our stress level.

Perhaps we are now back into our normal routine of electricity just a few hours a day, but we'll be happy for whatever we get.

Now I've shared the "down" side - the realistic battles that we face everyday. But it would not be fair to stop there.

I must share how God is so wonderfully moving here. We had a wonderful service on Sunday night. How can you capture God's presence in a picture? I would have loved to try but I was playing the piano and Doug was playing the guitar. God's presence was all over! It was very refreshing after a very trying week.

God really is moving! Which leads me to my next post............

Moving of God part 1

Remember I said I would try to unveil how God is moving so wonderfully here? When I post articles related to this I will name them "Moving of God".

Pastor Euddy and his wife, Dionelly, are very worthy of your support. They are both on fire for the Lord and completely dedicated to His service. We marvel at how the Lord has worked in their lives and led them to complete surrender to Him.

God has given Euddy and Dionelly a vision for ministry and a desire to reach out to the community. It is the goal of both them and the church to start a Christian dayschool here in 5 years. They are making definite steps to see that happen. Euddy is going to finish his Institute studies so he can be better equipped for ministry. Dionelly is going to the local university to be able to be accredited as a teacher in the country.

Now the coolest thing of all - God had this all planned from the very beginning unbeknowns to most of us who had part in it.

Nearly 20 years ago, David Gardner Sr. came and purchased land and built a small building that served as a place for worship. His goal was to build a SCHOOL!

Some years later, God sent Don Mobley. Don Mobley had a gift in construction as he his former occupation had been building with concrete in the States. God led Don to build a building that we have always said is laid out like a school - even the apartments upstairs. Did God not have in mind that someday the whole building would be a school that would serve to train little ones in the way of the Lord? We believe so!

Don left and God led us to begin training leaders. The first one available was Euddy. Little did we know when we began training him that we would have to leave in several years to take a break.

While we were gone, God established Euddy as the pastor of the church. He is doing a wonderful job! He has a passion for his people. AND God put it on Euddy's heart to start a school - which was Gardner's dream nearly 20 years ago! Wow! Euddy attended S.S. when Gardner was here. Little did Bro. Gardner know that the little boy who attended his services would one day be the one who would carry on his dream for a school. Incredible! God had this all planned from day one and it has just recently been unveiled to us. We stand in awe at such an awesome God we serve.

We feel this is just the beginning. Right now we are laying the foundation to something that we believe, with God's help, will reap hundreds of souls for the Kingdom in the distant future.

You can rejoice if you've had a part in it - your prayers, your financial giving, or your moral support. God knows the part you've had in it and I believe that someday in heaven you will be blessed when you see all the souls in heaven because you gave, or because you prayed for this work, or somehow were an encouragement. Hallelujah!

Dominican "Grandma"

This dear lady from our church is our children's Dominican Grandma. Regina especially likes her and asked to go visit her as soon as we got here. She has not been able to make it out to church recently due to failing health, but thank the Lord, she made it this past Sunday!

Jonathan at 1 year

While I'm awake, I thought I'd post these pictures of Jonathan. These were taken near his birthday last month.
He started walking on his birthday and thought that was the greatest.


Ryan also enjoyed helping him walk.

Electricity cut, sleepless nights, and house hunt

Hello. It is 1:15 a.m. Since there is nothing else to do right now, I thought I would blog. :-) This is the third night this week the electricity has not come on until sometime early morning. Since we have arrived here, the electricity has come on almost every night without fail around 10:00 p.m and be on till 8:00 a.m. We can then turn the AC on, get our room nice and comfortable and go to sleep. This past week it seems like they cut the electricity back. We have gone all day without it and then it will come on about 6:00 p.m. and go off about 9:00 p.m. Then it comes on sometime in the wee hours of the night (or early morning) and goes off around 8:30 a.m.

One night Doug and I were both awake most of the time till 4:00 a.m when the electricity came on. Last night I was up till it came on at 1:30 a.m. And tonight.....we can only hope that it will repeat its pattern from last night and come on in the next little bit.

It is 78 degrees in our bedroom right now and very humid. Better than 85 or above, which is where it usually starts the night out. We spent the last few hours tossing and turning and sweating trying to somehow fall asleep.

Doug has a sore throat and can't stand the fan blowing directly on him and I can't sleep unless there is air moving across me. So we're in a dilemna. For now, I turned the fan so it blows across our feet, so he can at least sleep.

I know it may sound silly, especially to those who can survive on little sleep. But we have always been 2 creatures who seem to need a full night's sleep to function well. And it's not like we can just sleep in or take a nap tomorrow. It will no doubt be hot again tomorrow and more than likely with no electricity.

It also affects the children. They seem like they sleep through it, thankfully, but we can tell the heat has bothered their sleep at least some when the next day they have headaches or are grumpy and fussy.

Will you help us pray that God will help us? A good night's sleep would be great. Finding a house could also help solve some of the problem. The area where we are hoping to find something is a well-to-do area where they have electricity about 22 hours a day. Right now that sounds REALLY good.

Probably one reason we have little electricity is because we live in a poor sector and the people don't pay their bills. They have been giving electricity only to the sectors of the city who pay their bills. So that means if we pay our bill faithfully (and we do), but 75% of our neighbors do not, they see our sector as not paying and they will not give us much electricity. Must be that a lesser percentage of people paid their bill this month.

I just heard a gun shot outside on the street. Another reason we are anxious to move. Finding a house has taken much longer than we anticipated, but God knows all about it. I'm sure when we find what HE has in store, it will be exactly what we need/want. But we just haven't felt like we've found the right house yet. We're asking God to open our eyes and lead us.

In the meantime, we've been busy around here. Doug has been spending time with Euddy - getting him ready to study again (setting up the computer, hooking up internet so he can study online, and calling the Institute office) as well as encouraging him, listening to him, and just being there for him. Every pastor needs someone to share their trials and brainstorms with. For Euddy, Doug is filling that role.

It is 1:37 and still no electricity. Maybe I'll visit a few other blogs, pray or give another attempt to sleeping.

Teaching S.S.

Doug was asked to teach the youth S.S. class. Actually the one they had sort of fizzled out. The young people had stopped coming. They were in need of a teacher. Doug already had a passion to work with the young people. And....what better way to accomplish one of our main goals - leadership training. Better to start now before they make their decisions for their course of life. The class consists of young men between the ages of 14 and 20, and one girl. Doug faithfully goes out each Saturday inviting the young people to S.S.

He is using the curriculum Firm Foundations produced, I believe, by New Tribes Mission. It is good stuff! It gives a very clear foundation of God, Satan, the fall, sin, the holiness of God etc. The young people seem to be enjoying it and we are excited how they are soaking it in. We hope it will yield results for the Kingdom when the curriculum climaxes with a personal application to life - approximately one year from now.

Birthday boy

Last week we celebrated Ryan's 4th birthday. Since we couldn't celebrate with family and friends from the States, we wanted to make his birthday as special as we could. We let him choose what he wanted to do. He wanted to fly kites, so we had a boy make him one. They make them out of plastic grocery bags and bamboo reeds.

Ready to fly my kite! Even though it looked like rain, God graciously granted Ryan's desire by giving us a few hours in the morning before the rain hit.

Getting it up.

Yeah! We did it!

A very happy boy!

He wanted to go to McDonald's - his favorite restaurant. Yes, they do have McDonald's here.

He also wanted a Thomas the Train cake. I got a picture off of the web and, since our printer is down, I had to decorate the cake in front of the computer screen. I wasn't sure I could do it. I'm not a professional cake decorator and cake decorating isn't one of my joys - maybe partly due to living in a humid country where the icing runs very easily. This recipe was for "no run icing". It didn't run. But when I went to scout out my stuff for decorating I found that 2 of the decorating bags ripped up the seam. So I was left with one bag for several colors. So I would decorate with one color, wash the bag, dry it, and then put in my other color. It was quite a process.


We found some tubes of decorating icing that we got a while ago, but it was kind of gooey and very hard to get out. I pushed and squeezed and only a trickle would come out. After several hours of trying to get this cake decorated, Ryan saw my frustration. He sweetly said, "Mommy, you never have to make a Thomas the Train cake for me again." How sweet!

Through many dangers, toils and snares we came, but, thanks to Daddy's moral support and help in sketching it out, we did it! It wasn't perfect, but we had a little boy happy with his cake, and it tasted good.

Strike!

This morning as we were having family devotions, we heard a bunch of hollaring and yelling in the street. When we were finished, we ventured out to see what was going on. The pastor's wife told us that the taxi drivers were striking because of the unfinished roads. They attempted to fix the roads nearly a year ago, but did not finish them. The taxis pulled off to the side, got out of their cars and encouraged others to pull over and join them. There were hundreds of people in the street. It was quite the commotion.

In times like these, it is best to stay away from the commotion. You never know how rowdy they will get, what they will do, or if bullets will fly. The pastor's wife cautioned me to make sure I didn't let the children play outside today. (even with supervision)

Doug snuck up to the top of the roof to get these pictures.

The police aren't going to let things get out of control.

Conflict Resolution

6 hours later - So after letting the streets undone for 1 year, they proved they really CAN get it done when they want to.

The fence that you see surrounds the yard of the mission building (church/apartments) where we live.

Trivia question

Guess whose voice carries over on the sound waves from the next door neighbors? Hint - an American male singer.

Another hint - plays the guitar

One more - speaks Spanish

Okay.....here it is.......No, not Steve Green, but the ever-"famoso" TIM CALHOUN!

Calhoun, they love your music and we're all waiting for a production in Spanish. They listen to the English songs even though they don't understand them.

Its a taste of home for us when they play this C.D.

Not so Cool Fall

If any of you are suffering from being "chilly", maybe this will warm you up.

Weather info. for Santo Domingo, D.R. according to weather.com

3:42 p.m.

Temperature: 88
Feels like: 101
Humidity: 75%
Dewpoint: 80

Wow! It is HOT today. We've been thankful that it hasn't been too bad a lot of the days recently, due to rain and cloud cover. We WELCOME rainy days here, unless we have a lot of laundry to dry. But today is a scorcher.

So enjoy that hot chocolate for us this fall. Until December, we'll settle with ice cold drinks, ice pops, milkshakes and AC when available.

Back to preaching

One of the first things we wanted to accomplish here was to send our pastor and family on a vacation to give them a break from the work. They joyfully consented. While they were gone, Doug filled in for the services.

One of our goals over the next year is to give Euddy a break from some of the responsibilities so he can finish up his final year in the Bible College.

House searching

We are still searching for another place to live. We are currently in the mission building in a small apartment. The 3 oldest children are in one small bedroom (Ryan sleeps on the floor) and Jonathan is in ours. We are anxious to find a place, but our search continues. We just haven't found the right house for the right price.

We found a gated community that we really like. It is surrounded by a wall and guarded by men with guns. It would be really safe for us to live there and the children could play outside without fear. However, the houses we've seen so far available to rent didn't really suit our needs. The one had a tarantula in the bathroom (we should have snapped a picture, but didn't think of it), and the yard wouldn't have given the children very much place to play. We continue to wait, look, and pray. Maybe God has something else in mind. He knows.

Renting a place is very different here. You have to come up with 4 months rent up front: one being the first month's rent, 2 months as a deposit, and one month for commission to the lawyer and real estate agent. Pretty costly. We may have to save a few months anyway in order to rent somewhere.

High speed internet!

Well, something finally went right for us. Friday the phone company came and hooked us up to high speed internet in the office! We were delighted. That means direct calling to the States, email, websites, and connection to the outside world.

If you have our prayer card, you may now dial the phone number on the card to reach us here. It will only cost you the price of a long distance call to Chambersburg, PA, unless you can call Chambersburg locally. So if you have cell phones that you have free minutes, you can call that number free. Modern technology is great, as long as Vonage doesn't go under.

We've had quite a few reverses in the past few weeks. One major one was that our copier/printer burnt out on the invertor. We use it daily to print messages, letters, legal paperwork etc. So we miss it greatly!! Doug is going to try to repair it. Until then we're not as modern as we've been accustomed to.

But God is working here. It is amazing what all He is doing. I'll try to unveil that in upcoming posts.

The lingering laundry

We're still alive. We were thankful for the rain the past few days in the middle of the afternoon which cut the heat. It also cut the dust from the street. They tore up the street out front in an attempt to repair it, but never repaired it. Piles of dirt were left. It made for a great dust storm. Euddy described the air as "yellow".

Getting laundry done here is about 3 times as complicated as it is in the Sates. When there is electricity, it is raining which makes drying it impossible. When it isn't raining, there is no electricity. It has piled up day after day leaving a mountain to do.

Yesterday morning I got up early and got a load in before the electricity went off. It worked. So I determined to do it every morning until I got caught up. Would you believe just when I awoke early this morning for yet another attempt, the electricity went off. I was distraught to think that my mound of laundry would have to lay yet another day because it would surely be raining this afternoon by the time the electricity came on again.

The Lord must have saw my broken heart, and surprisingly the electricity came on before noon and was on all afternoon. And, even though it looked like rain, it didn't rain. I was able to get it all dried outside! Thank you, Lord, for even the simple things that you care about!

Happy Birthday Regina & Jonathan

Yesterday two of our children had birthdays. We celebrated by taking them for pizza and to the playground. I wanted to post pictures, but we are on a dial up connection and it is too slow to upload the pictures. So, pictures will have to wait. Doug is checking into high speed internet, but they say it will take 3 weeks - which probably means 3 months. We'll see.

We already had a party for Regina several weeks before we left the States because we knew we would be busy here.

Jonathan started walking on his birthday. He had been taking 5 or 6 steps, but yesterday he just took off all over. It was so cute. He would clap and squeal, and then all of sudden he was off. It was like he was proud of himself.

We made it!

We arrived safe and sound to our mission home. Everything was nicely cleaned by the pastor and his team of helpers. They treated us so royally.

However, everything in the closets was full of dust. We had mice in the closets, previously, and the pastor set poison to kill them. It was successful. The first night I went to pull out a towel for my shower and on the top was the skeleton of a mouse. I just about fainted. But I lived to tell about it.

The church is doing great. We attended prayer service tonight and God was there in a very evident way. The people prayed with fervency and God met with us. It's good to be back and worship with these people who do it with everything they have.

The first few days were a bit difficult to adjust. It is HOT. We sweat every minute of the day. Also there was no running water at the kitchen sink, which made getting the dishes from the cupboards clean a challenge. Also the generator is broken so we have to fully rely on the electricity from the street - except for an invertor that does run the the lights only.

We layed in bed last night sweating and dozing in and out until finally the electricity came on sometime after midnight. We were then able to turn the AC on and get a solid night's sleep. Thank the Lord.

After we got insurance back on the truck, the washer hooked up (in our bedroom), the water filter cleaned, and a few other basic things, the next big job on the list is to look for a house. Pray that we will find one suitable. We hope to go looking next week. We're kind of anxious and it is becoming more and more evident that it is definitely the right thing to do.

Euddy has told us we can stay here. He doesn't want us to move, but we feel that it is necessary because they are talking of plans for a school in the next 5 years. We need to get out so we can get the maintenance done on the building, plus our family is in need of a place to ourselves.

We'll do our best to keep you posted.

First steps and update from Regin'a check up

Jonathan took his first 6 steps today!!!! Wow!!! He is our earliest walker. The other children were 13 and 14 months. I think maybe the tile floor in the D.R. had something to do with it. Carpet provides a little softer landing. :-)

Regina went for her checkup from her surgery yesterday and got an excellent report. The doctor said for as bad as her eyes were, she is doing excellent. The fission between her eyes was great. He could not get her to break a stare while waving a paper up in front of one eye and then the other.

He wants us to patch her good eye for 1/2 hour every day for the next 6 months and have her checked in a year.

We're thanking the Lord for a good report and trust that her eye will continue to heal. Thank you to all who prayed and gave monetary gifts for her surgery. God has been good.

Countdown.....Just one week left

Yes, it's almost here. We fly out next Wednesday. We're trying to wrap up the packing so we can get the house cleaned well before we leave. It's been quite an adventure.

Two weeks ago, our computer crashed and had to be sent away to be repaired. Thankfully, it arrived in 4 days instead of the expected 10 days.

Last week a major sewer drainage problem occurred. We contacted the landlords to get permission to call a plumber. Both we and the landlords left messages on the plumber's answering machine and they did not return our calls.

We went the whole weekend plunging toilets, cleaning up messes, watching sewer back up into our bathtub, and limiting ourselves to how much water we used. It was exciting.

Finally Monday Doug got a hold of someone who could come and do the job, but they couldn't get to us till Tuesday. They did come yesterday, fixed the problem, and now we are operating as normal. Shew! Either the Lord is reminding us what it's like to live on the mission field or else the enemy is fighting our return.

Hurricane Dean passes to the south of D.R.

To see a video clip of the damage Hurricane Dean did to the D.R., click on this ink. http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid823425597/bclid877032950/bctid1148213930

The video coverage is not great, but you get to see some of what took place. The street being shown in Santo Domingo, is one we travel on frequently when we go into the city. You can see it is right by the ocean. Newspaper reports say that a boy was killed on this street by flying debris while watching the waves. We're thankful that Dean did not directly hit the island, but it did leave some marks.

Packing, packing, packing

My comment after several days of packing, "I never want to have to move again soon." Ha. Ha. That' s a joke because when we get to the D.R., guess what's in the plans? You got it. We're planning to move out of the mission house into another house. I can't wait.

We're back in the blogging world. Doug's birthday was last Thursday and it wasn't the greatest day in his life. On that day, the computer crashed (which meant shipping it away to be repaired, leaving us with no connection to the world or the ability to do mission paperwork), and we took a trip to the dentist which resulted in 2 more trips for 3 of us to have some fillings. It was an exciting day.

However, God is doing some wonderful things................More details on that at another time.

We are still scheduled to leave here Sept. 5. It's getting really close. Lots and lots yet to do. Hopefully we'll get it all done without losing too much hair. :-)

I don't know if we're ready for this!

Weather update for Santo Domingo, D.R. 8:00 p.m.

temperature: 87
humidity: 86%
dewpoint: 82 (I'm told this is a more accurate measure of humidity. I think the dewpoint was only this high one time while we were there.
Feels like: 107

Weather update for our hometown, USA 8:00 p.m.

temperature: 77
humidity: 59%
dewpoint: 60
Feels like: 77

Happy anniversary to us - 11 years today

Since this weekend is busy with our conference campmeeting going on, we decided to take time to get away for our anniversary last weekend.

We went to an excellent bed and breakfast. They treated us royally! We really enjoyed our stay. If you're ever in the area, you might want to check it out. You won't be disappointed. They had very clean, attractively decorated rooms as well as a delicious breakfast and beautiful house.

We had a delightful time. It was a nice break just to get away from the children (although we love them to death) and focus on each other. With not having to get 4 children ready in the morning and take care of them all day, I wasn't nearly as tired at the end of the day. I figured out why I am exhausted at the close of each day. I guess I'm just normal. Shew! That's a relief to know. :-)

I'm privileged to be married to the greatest man! In case you're wondering, he's not perfect, but then neither am I. But he rates #1 on my list.

Being on the mission field, we have gone through so much together. It has been wonderful having someone to share your joys and sorrows with. Through it all, our love has grown stronger and deeper.

We've had a happy 11 years together, not because it just happened that way, but because we worked at it. Marriage is a daily decision. I'm glad that most days I don't have to decide to love him; I "feel" like it. But somedays I do have to decide to love him.

I've been working on listening to the last 2 broadcasts of Dr. Dobson. Wow! It's about a couple that's been married for 52 years. They didn't always feel like staying married either, but they made a commitment and followed through with it. That is the key.

We are determined to stay together and make many more happy memories together. I'm looking forward to the next 30 years with my man. Each day is better than the one before.

The dining room. We were given a choice of eating breakfast here or up on the loft. We chose the loft.

The living room - cathedral ceiling and skylights. Loft overlooks living room.

The loft where we ate breakfast. (Sorry some of these are dark. But you get the idea.)

Such a beautiful room.....

.....relaxing.....

...complete with jacuzzi.

The jacuzzi at night. It was cool because it had a light right above it and it gave a neat effect.

Not a house - but something we can call "our own"!

After many times of moving in and out of the country, we decided this time we're not going to get rid of things that we always seem to have to find and buy each time we come back. With our growing family and everything we wanted/needed to store, we found that the attic we had been keeping our things in was no longer going to be sufficient.

We found it wisest to purchase a shed to store our things. It is much handier than an attic and we will have it for the future if we ever return permanently.

I guess because it is something we actually own that caused great excitement the day of its arrival. We all wanted to be there. We were thrilled with this new investment.

It is very spacious and should hold most of our sentimental belongings and items needed for setting up a house.

We have been busy packing boxes and taking them over to the shed. It's not filled yet and we're not completely packed, but we're working at it step by step.

The truck automatically unloads it. No need for huffing and puffing.

Jonathan watches the action.

First look inside.

Regina's progress

Regina is up and around and pretty much back to normal. We are so thankful! She has not complained of any pain since Sunday night.

Her only restrictions is that she is not allowed roughing, running, jumping, or playing on playground equipment until next week. It's good she's a girl. For boys, this might be really hard. She has been contenting herself drawing with the new art stuff we bought her for her surgery.

The doctor is pleased with how she is coming along. He recommended we patch her good eye just for a half hour every day until we see him in August.

We hope the next visit will be a good report.

Thank you for praying!

Surgery report

Regina did have surgery yesterday. God did not choose to heal her before, but we trust He did so through the surgery. His ways are higher than ours.

She came through surgery fine. The doctor said it went "as smooth as silk." She didn't even seem nervous. She bravely went with them fully trusting what they were about to do. We were proud of her.

After surgery, she was in quite a bit of pain, which is normal. It was heart wrenching to hear my little girl crying and saying "My eyes hurt." Last night and today she has preferred to keep her eyes shut as much as possible since opening them causes much discomfort. She said it feels like she has rice in her eyes. The doctor said they would feel like something was in them for a few days.

She did brave our annual family picnic today with sunglasses and a visor. She opened her eyes quite a bit but preferred to spend a lot of the time sitting in a chair and drawing. By the end of the picnic she was ready to lay down and sleep which gives her eyes a rest.

The outcome of the surgery will not be known for 4 - 6 weeks. It will take the muscles of the eye that long to adjust. We pray that it will be successful and another one will not be needed.

We have a follow up appointment on Monday so hopefully we'll know more then.

Update on Regina

Be sure to see the update on Regina under 7/6/07. Sorry. I couldn't figure out how to move it to today's date. :-(

Favorite line of the week: "I'm glad I'm Ryan 'cause I'm special."

4th of July

We had a wonderful 4th of July. There is a "mile-long" yard sale down in Hagerstown, MD - not too far from my family. It has turned in to way more than 1 mile. There are all kinds of housing developments involved in it.

In the evening, we saw fireworks in Chambersburg. What a tremendous display!

The down side is that we ate a hot dog at one of the yard sales. It must have been contaminated. Doug and I both had stomach cramps yesterday. His went away, but I have been left with more severe stomach cramps and other symptoms that come from salmonella.

The hot dogs were the cheapest around, but the most expensive for the after effects!

Update on Regina

Most of you know that Regina has had a "lazy" eye since she was 2-1/2. We have been seeing a specialist both here and in the D.R. since that time.

In the winter, we saw a specialist in Lancaster and he said she would need surgery. We were back in April, and her eye was doing so good that he cancelled the surgery. But he wanted to see if her eye would stay straight without blurring the vision in her good eye. We gradually cut back the eye drops, which were blurring her vision, to where she was going without them. After our last doctor visit (2 weeks ago), he felt now is a good time to have surgery. She is actually seeing double which means both eyes are working. Before either one eye or the other would work. Surgery will bring both eyes to see one image.

She is scheduled for surgery on Friday, July 13. We found out that our insurance will not cover it because of a misunderstanding earlier of her not being on the insurance plan. As far as they are concerned, it is a pre-existing problem.

We were knocked off our feet to learn of this expense just before we head back to the field. We have been out on deputation trying to raise money to get back to the field and for the Bible College. Now we're hammered with this.

I was reading in my devotions one day how many people came to Jesus to be healed and he healed them. It made me realize that God can do the same for Regina. Sometimes he just wants us to reach out in faith.

Last Sunday night the preacher at church preached a message along this line. He said "We can pray about things and wait on God, but sometimes He wants us to touch Him." It confirmed to my heart what I had already been feeling.

Last week we chose to have Regina annointed at church. It was a humbling thing for us because normally people don't ask to be annointed for surgeries. But I am convinced that God is able to heal her before the surgery. That way we wouldn't have to come up with money we had not planned for. Also it would be a wonderful testimony to Regina that God can do anything - as well as for our friends and family.

We are praying that God will bring healing to her eyes so that she would not even need the surgery. If He does not choose to heal her before the surgery, we've committed it to Him, and we trust Him to heal her through the surgery. However He chooses, we desire that He get all the glory.

We would appreciate your prayers for Regina at this time.

Summer heat

The other day I was joyful to be able to stay inside in our nice air-conditioned living room and go about my cleaning while it was blistering hot outside. My mind traveled to the Dominican Republic remembering the many, many days that I didn't have such luxury. I still had to go about the cleaning and household duties, but with sweat running down all sides of my body. Soon enough I'll get to experience that again.

In the D.R., we do have an air conditioner in our bedroom, but we try to run it only at night since electricity cost 3 times more per kilowatt hour there than it does here. And it only runs when the electricity is on. On the nights when the electricity is on, we get a good night's sleep. On nights when it is off, we toss and turn and sweat, which leaves us feeling groggy the next day.

At times it is worth the expense just to turn the AC on in the bedroom for a few hours during the day and get a break from the heat. Other times we just endure trying to cool down with ice pops, cold drinks, and fans.

It has been hot here, but this is pretty much the norm in D.R with just a bit more humidity. If you want to get a taste of what we live in year round, just turn your AC off and sweat. At night, again turn your AC off and enjoy tossing and turning and sweating.

I realize not everyone may have AC, but honestly everyone I can think of here in PA has AC in their living rooms and bedrooms, if not their whole house.

Thank God for the blessings we enjoy here.

Thought for the day

Would we want to be judged in the same way we judge others?

Deputation delights

On our 5-week trip we were privileged to attend the graduation for Doug's brother, Paul. He just completed his P.A. training (Physician Assistant) through the Army. He is now an official P.A. and also became 1st lieutenant at his graduation. Congratulations Paul!!!

Ryan was thrilled to dress in his "army" outfit and match Uncle Paul. He just told his daddy yesterday, "I like Uncle Paul better than you."

Parts of deputation were a blast.

The news of moving

When Doug announced to the children that we have our tickets to return to the D.R., Ryan said, "I don't want to move." I asked, "Why don't you want to move?" He answered, "I don't want to leave my blankies or my gun."

While his blankies and his gun can be taken with him, it will be an adjustment more for Ryan than for anyone else. He has spent more of his life here in the U.S. than in the D.R. The older children actually spent more of their life there than here. That is why they are anxious to return.

Date to return

It is official. We just bought tickets for our return to the D.R. We will be flying on September 5th, 2007, Lord willing. As usual, a flood of emotions hit us: excitement to return to the Dominican people and start the ministries on our heart as well as a hesitation in leaving family, friends, and the luxuries of the U.S. behind. Through it all we feel God's providential hand leading us.

Over the next few months, there is so much to be done. Everything from bandaids to coloring books to furniture must be sorted with the question: "Do we take it? Do we store it? Or do we get rid of it?" It is a complex process. We are beginning now in order to be done by September.

Pictures coming

Okay. I think we figured out how to do this now. Here are a couple shots of deputation. There's more to come. I must run right now.

One of the places we stayed on deputation. They treated us royally!

Just kidding. It's actually a room inside a dollhouse at the Indianapolis Children's Museum. I was intrigued with the details.

Ryan having a goofy moment on deputation.

Help anyone?

When I went to post pictures, I realized bloggerbot through Hello is no longer functioning. Does anyone have any suggestions for another method to posting pictures on the blog?

I'd appreciate any help you have to offer.

Sorry, no pictures until I find some other way to post them.

We're home!

Hey, we're back. Actually we've been back for 3 weeks. I wanted to blog before now, but they changed the setup for the blog, and we had to set up a Google account. Getting an overloaded husband to take the time to do that is almost like asking for snow in the middle of summer. At last, he got it set up and we're back to blogging!

Have lots of news and lots of pictures.......coming. Thanks for your patience.

West Virginia Bed and Breakfast

One of the highlights of our travels has been Gobblers Ridge Lodge Bed and Breakfast in West Virgina. The owners are our Uncle Duane and Aunt Rachel Brown. It was VERY relaxing, the food was superb, and their hospitality was magnificent.

It is located in Linn, West Virigina.

Here is a recent interview with the Browns concerning their relaxing bed and breakfast.
http://www.wchstv.com/traveling/2007/twv070405.shtml

Traveling, traveling.....

Hey everyone! We're still somewhere on the earth! Life has been CRAZY as you could imagine.

We had a wonderful trip down south in February and didn't run into any bad weather in spite of all the storms.

After returning home, we've been bombarded with sickness after sickness. Thankfully, right now we seem to be doing okay.

We have been traveling every weekend and trying to do school and life in between. It has been hectic, but we've had many wonderful experiences at the churches we've visited.

We are headed for another big trip - 5 weeks this time - this weekend. We will be roaming through Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Kentucky. We would appreciate your prayers for safety and sanity! It seems like a huge mountain traveling in the van for that long with 3 children and a baby who is cutting teeth. But God knows all about it and we're trusting Him for His help.

I'm hoping to be able to do some blogging "from the road" this time. It will depend somewhat on our access to internet.

Thanks for the comments. Thanks for visiting and keeping in touch!

Deputation begins!

Deputation is in full swing. We will be heading south tomorrow, Lord willing. Trying to pack for a family of 6 is half of the battle. The other half will be living out of suitcases for the next 3 weeks.

We hope to visit with some friends and family along the way, so that part should be enjoyable.

Do pray for us as we tackle the many miles ahead.