November activities

Okay, I said I would catch up November's activities in January. I have just a few days to do so!

Pastor Euddy trapped a rat which was on the loose in their apartment. Our bedroom is on the other side of their living room. When he set the trap, he said, "Let me know if you hear something in the middle of the night." Sure enough about midnight we heard something squealing and banging around. Doug called him on the phone and said, "Breakfast is waiting in your living room." Euddy wittily replied, "Ok. I'll come out and season it." We heard 3 whacks against the floor with his machete and this was the end result.


Brandon spent his free time flying kites - his favorite past time during the breezy months.



Daddy hanging out with his buddies.


One evening while we were in Euddy's living room, just below the window outside someone broke into his car and stole his propane tank and his toolbox containing all his tools that he uses to work on invertors - a side job which helps him make ends meet. As an early Christmas present, we bought him a new toolbox with the tools in he would need to be able to continue his job. He was pleasantly surprised and delighted as the picture shows.

What is healthy?

Conversation between Brandon and his daddy:

Brandon: Dad, is it good to be skinny?
Daddy: There's a healthy weight for each person - you don't want to be way over it or way under it.
Brandon: Are you healthy?
Daddy: I'm extra healthy.

Beautiful day for Jose's landing in heaven

It's a beautiful day today! Big, puffy, white clouds floating in a clear, bright, blue sky......low humidity (down to 40%), palm trees swaying in the light breeze, pleasant temperature of 82 degrees. A beautiful day indeed for a flight to heaven.

We just received word that Euddy's grandfather, Jose, has made the final crossing just a few hours ago. Euddy said he was there today and his grandfather was trying to say something. They couldn't understand what he was saying. Euddy had a service with those who were there. Euddy left, another lady from the church went and read the Bible to Jose. While she was reading, she said he gently closed his eyes and was gone. In spite of his previous intense pain, it seemed the Lord gave him a peaceful departure.

What a glorious hope to know another soul has landed in heaven. If it wasn't for that very fact, we would not be here. Yet that is the very reason we are here - to rescue souls from hell, one at a time.

Doug has already gone to be with the family and hold a funeral service at 5:00 p.m. They do not embalm here, unless you're wealthy, so everything happens immediately. However, burial will be tomorrow.

Anna, Euddy's mother is here in the D.R. for a few months. She has taken all of this extremely hard as it is her father. If you think of it, please remember Anna, Euddy and the family in your prayers.

Wintry weather

It's a chilly 67 degrees at 9:50 a.m with rain. We're "freezing". The Dominicans will be dressed with sweaters and hats, unless the sun comes out and warms us up. We're even putting on our heavier shirts and will delight ourselves with coffe and hot chocolate.

link for weather details: http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/local/DRXX0009?lswe=Santo%20Domingo,%20Dominican%20Republic&lswa=WeatherLocalUndeclared

New name written down in heaven

The Sunday before Christmas was a different one. Euddy's grandfather has been dying of cancer for a few months now. We decided to take the church people and go visit him after church was over. We all piled into the truck. We arrived to sing songs of praise while the poor man lay on a bed just outside the house. He was in so much pain. It was agonizing to watch him try to get comfortable.

After we sang, Doug shared the Gospel message with him. Euddy said that up till this time he has been very rebellious in the things of the Lord. Euddy has tried to preach to him and he has told him to take his evangelism and get out. They've said in the past few weeks he has been more accepting of the things of God.

Doug asked him if he knew his sins were forgiven. He was in so much pain, he didn't really respond. We waited for a while and they brought him some painkiller. We annointed him to be healed in the name of Jesus. In just a few minutes, he was perking up and was able to confirm that he had asked Jesus to forgive his sins. We were thrilled! As we left, I told him we would be praying that God would touch his body, but if not, I would meet him in heaven someday where there is no pain and we would all worship the Lord together. He weakly said, "No, there's no pain." We had a celebration service that night at church. Surely the angels of heaven were also rejoicing.

We got word that in just the past few days Jose, Euddy's grandfather, has pretty much given up the struggle to live. Euddy's family called today and said that they thought that he had died, but evidently is still alive. It seems he is in the last few hours of life, unless God heals him.

The family talked about having a Catholic funeral since they are Catholic in background. They were even going to call in the priest. Jose said he did not want a priest, because he is evangelical now. Praise the Lord! That showed us the he really was sincere in his salvation!

[I wanted to get pictures of this "service" at Jose's house, but we had just moved and I had no idea where the camera was. :-( ]

Unless God undertakes, we are expecting to have a funeral for Jose in the next few days. At least we have the assurance that he is ready for heaven. That's what it's all about.

Finally - House pictures!

This is the front of the house. The grass you see is pretty much the front yard. Not much space. But that's okay. The children haven't seemed to mind since they can play freely in the streets. We're at the back of the community so the only cars that come by are the ones who live near us. So there's hardly any traffic and the cars go pretty slow. The children have been riding bikes on the street almost every free minute. They have loved the freedom of being outside without fear. Mommy has, too, enjoyed getting things done while they're out and about.

This house was actually $200 cheaper than what we were expecting to pay. So we thank the Lord for that. We have been quite happy to find such a nice house for such a decent price. The pink building you see to the side is the neighbor's house. It's pretty close, but it is separated by a wall.

The dining area and part of the living room.

The spacious kitchen with lots of counterspace and cupboards. This picture doesn't show it all.

Another shot of the kitchen.

The stairway with a bathroom off to the left. To take this picture I am standing in the corner of the living room (no picture shown). The door to the right goes into the kitchen.


An upstairs living room with doors out to the patio. It is quite common for the middle class people to have 2 living rooms. We're using this one for a school room/office area.

Another shot of the office/school room.

The "backyard". See why we hesitated about room for the children to play?

The "side yard". At least it's a concrete pad where they can ride bikes and scooters.

Christmas in our new home

Jonathan opening his first gift


This is the mission's couch we are borrowing until we find a living room suite. We had to pitch our other furniture because the termites had pretty well destroyed it. We rarely buy anything new. We are looking through the classifieds hoping to find something nice or maybe we'll catch a missionary family leaving the country.

Lots of room to play with their new Thomas the Train track

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.