A peek into our community

Living in this community has been like a dream come true. We fell in love with the community and the house in an instant, but our biggest holdback was the question of "Where would the children play?" It hasn't been a problem. They have spent most of their time in the street. The park just beside the community also provides a lovely place to relax as well.

Since living here we have realized how much stress it placed on us to live in the mission house. Once we enter our "home", we can leave all the stress and care of the mission behind. We have left the noise, the dust, the violence, and the feeling of "being on duty" behind. We can take off our shoes, relax, and be a family. Even entering the community gives a sense of security and relaxation.

Here is the guard to our community. There is normally a gate across here and he has to see who you are, push a button that electronically opens the gate, and you drive in. We just found out the reason this community is guarded with military men is because the colonel lives here. They are guarding him. If he were to move away, we would be left with regular street men to guard it. We feel a little safer with the military men that carry big guns and keep a close eye on the place.


This is our classy trash truck. :-) A man rides or pushes this cart like contraption each morning and picks up the trash bags waiting outside.

This is the walkway to the park that is located beside the community. The park provides a place for the children to get out their energy. Here Doug and the children are playing with some other American boys that live here, too.

The community is just on the other side of the park. Some houses even have gates that open up directly into the park. This house even made its own sidewalk and hedge entering the park.

Burn out!

I call this country "the country of burn out". We have more things burn out here than you can imagine. And if you're not careful, you'll burn out, too. :-) Since we've been here we've had our printer/copier/scanner machine burn out as well as the new computer Doug bought for Euddy's studies. Just a few weeks after we purchased this invertor for our house, we thought it burnt out, too. Ugh! Thankfully, Doug was able to take it in and they put on heavier cables and it has worked great ever since!

Now the children's computer that they use to do school will not turn on. We have to investigate to see if that's burnt out, too, or if there's another problem.

Lunar eclipse

We had a science lesson last night on the patio watching the lunar eclipse. Doug set up his tripod to experiment with taking pictures. Here is what he designed from the pictures he took.

The children "camped out" to watch the big event. They were covered to keep from being bit from mosquitoes, not because they were cold. Although Brandon did keep saying he was cold. There was a nice, lovely breeze blowing and it was pleasant (maybe just a tad on the cool side for us).

The freedom of biking

We are immensely enjoying the freedom of living in this gated community. It is like a whole new world. We are all free to be on the streets without fear of being mugged. Here is Brandon with a group of boys racing on their bikes.

Ryan enjoying a "lift" from Daddy.

Even Jonathan enjoys bike rides this way.

Regina loves to pull Jonathan in his wagon and he does, too. If you ask him if he wants to go in the wagon, he immediately goes to the wagon and gets in. He's glad for anyone who will give him a ride.

This is a neighbor's house just across the street. I think it is so pretty. The lady owns 4 car lots in the country. As we get to know more of our neighbors, we're finding we're the poorest ones here. There are Embassy people, people working in high security in the country, car dealers, etc. We can at least act rich - after all we are Ambassadors for the King of Kings.

Finally - a Valentine's date!

Thanks to my mother and brother who were here visiting last Thursday, Doug and I actually got to take a Valentine's date! I believe it was the first we've taken on Valentine's day since we've come to the D.R. 9 years ago. Someone offered to keep the children for us last year and we ALMOST got to take one, but then that fell through.

We decided to try a restaurant in the city we've never been to - Tony Roma's. It is a restaurant from the States that must be mostly in the Southern U.S. We ordered hamburgers and they were DEE-LICIOUS! Here I went around all deputation saying how bad the hamburger is here and now I found out a place where we can get a good all-American burger! We're not as deprived as I thought. :-)

It was wonderful to be able to get out and spend Valentine's day with my favorite person. Thanks to our babysitters for making it possible!

God is moving!

I have not posted for a while due to preparing for and taking care of my company, my mother and brother. It was so nice to have them here. We all had a wonderful time together. They are returning home today. I have a lot of pictures I've been taking and things to blog about, but will take it one thing at a time.

I wanted to get this post done this evening since it is so important.

We had another beautiful service last Sunday morning with much of the Lord's presence. Ramon Vargas (pictured above), Pastor Euddy's father, came to church! This was wonderful and astounding as he has been so self-confident and not at all open to the things of the Lord in the past and certainly not coming to church! This was the only service we know of that the whole Vargas family was together for, except for a wedding or special occasion. Everyone was thrilled to have him show up!

He recently told Anna, Euddy's mother, that he thinks he's going to get saved. This is a huge milestone for him for having shown little interest before. The Lord is definitely dealing with his heart!

He said he's going to get saved, but, he said, not as we do. He said he will not get saved in church, just sometime he'll show up to church and preach. :-) He is a very intelligent man and will no doubt be of great blessing to the Kingdom of God once He gets in. We are praying that God will continue to deal with him and Ramon will humble himself before God.

He told Anna later that he wanted to leave the service. She asked him "Why?" and he said, "Because I felt like crying." She said, "Ramon, why didn't you leave?" He said, "Because I didn't want anyone to see me cry." It is very evident God is doing a mighty work in Ramon's life. We wait in anticipation for the day he surrenders his life to God.

Anna is here in the country for a few more weeks until she plans to return to the States. Her plans at this point are to return again to the D.R. in about 6 months to stay permanently.

Another young man, Moreno, is seriously considering being a Christian. His only holdback is that he can't imagine passing his enemies on the street and having to "love" them. God is moving! We got to visit Moreno tomorrow. If you think of it, pray that God would fill our mouths with his wisdom and that Moreno would give himself fully to Christ.

Kitchen tip

Did you know you do not have to cook the noodles for lasagna before you assemble it? You don't even have to buy the specialty noodles that you don't have to cook. I buy the regular kind - that's all there is here anyway. I just add a little water to the sauce to make it "saucy". Apply the sauce directly on the layer of noodles, making sure it covers every part of the noodle. If there are parts not covered, they will be hard. Assemble the rest as usual. Cover and bake for one hour. (If you do not cover it, noodles will not cook). If desired, uncover after 1 hour and bake a little longer. It is a real time saver and easy dish to prepare with avoiding this extra step. Try it and let me know how it works.

Another funeral

A brother of a lady from our church passed away yesterday. He had been suffering from cancer for a little while. We are a bit torn, because we don't have the assurance that his heart was ready to meet God. The only hope we have is that he told his sister, "I have faith". Perhaps this meant he had faith in God. He did not live for God in his lifetime, but we can only hope that in the final moments, he made his peace with God.

Doug will be tied up all day today in the funeral and burial. No doubt this lady will be torn, not having the assurance that her brother is with Jesus. If you think about it, pray for Mercedes that the Lord will comfort her in this difficult time.

New Convert and testimony of God's miraculous provision

The Lord has been meeting with us faithfully in our services. This past Thursday night a lady came to Bible study and gave her heart to Christ!

Sunday morning the Lord met with us in a special way. Lissette, pictured with her family on a recent post (sister-in-law to pastor Euddy) gave a tremendous testimony of how the Lord helped her this past week.

She had to schedule a check up for her little girl. She scheduled it so that it would be after her husband got paid. Something happened and he did not get paid on time. When she arrived at the doctor's office, she only had 90 pesos. The checkup cost 200 pesos and she needed 40 to get home. Evidently they let her pay 50 pesos and she can pay the rest later.

After leaving the clinic and on her way to a public transportation stop, she was telling her son, Davy, to help mommy pray because they only had 40 pesos to get home and that was it. They had run out of gas for the stove and she didn't have anyway to cook and they were also out of food. She didn't know how she was going to feed her family.

A lady pulled over in a truck and asked Lissette where she was going. Lissette told her and she said, "I can take you part way. Get in." Lissette got in and was thanking the lady telling her she didn't have enough money to get home, but that this ride would be big help.

As Lissette got out of the vehicle, the lady handed her 120 pesos. Tears came to Lissette's eyes and the lady said, "Don't cry. It's nothing."

Lissette happily walked to the next public transportation stop. She was waiting for the next car or bus. A little bit later, the lady in the truck came running after Lissette, saying, "I was on my way to the bank and something told me that the 120 pesos wasn't enough and that I should give you more. Here take this." The lady handed Lissette 1000 pesos! She told Lissette to go buy her and the kids a "pica pollo" (a Dominican "fast food" from a stand usually consisting of fried chicken and rice or plantains). This gave her enough money to feed her and the children for lunch, plus buy gas for the stove and enough food till her husband got paid. Isn't God awesome?!!

Lovely tropical temperatures

We are immensely enjoying the beautiful weather we've been having this week - absolutely gorgeous. Clear blue skies, sunny, temperatures in the 70's or low 80's, low humidity, breezy, cool nights.......mmmmm........we're loving it.

I don't write this to make you northerners jealous, it's just when it gets this nice here, it's worth sharing the news! :-) We're even keeping some of our living room windows closed all day long.

We actually had an overnight low of 63 degrees the other night. The kids said they got cold in their beds and I even had to put on some fuzzy socks in the morning as my toes were cold. The water was COLD that morning. Thank the Lord for a hot water heater!!

I was talking to a Dominican girl about the weather and she said, "It's so cold. It's not easy to bear." I laughed and told her I wish it would be like this all year round. She said, "Oh no, not me." To the Dominicans this is freezy. They can't begin to comprehend temperatures like that of your freezer.

We don't eat a lot of soups here because it's generally too hot, but this past week I dug out the soup recipes.

We haven't run our AC one time since we've been in this house - partly because it didn't work after they moved it :-( and it's still not fixed - and partly because the weather has been lovely this winter. It has saved tons on our electric bill.

They said in one of the towns up in the mountains it got down to freezing 5 times this winter. Even the water froze. I doubt the people knew what to do! It does get down to freezing there ocassionally in the winter - but not 5 times!

Wanna come visit us? There's always room for one more.

My mom and brother are coming to visit next week. I think they're going to like this weather....if it continues.

Baby makes it to heaven

Edy is a faithful member of our church. Her grandson was born 1 month premature. After 3 weeks of being on an incubator they sent him home. On his third day at home, a Sunday morning, the father arrived at the church asking if we could come pray for the baby. His breathing was irregular. The church people arrived and prayed for him to be healed before Doug would take them to the clinic. However, some did not think he was breathing. They loaded in the truck and went to the clinic. They were only there a few minutes when the doctor told them they had lost their baby. Obviously grief struck and since there is no preserving the body, arrangements for burial had to be made right away. Doug drove them all over getting a legal death certificate, getting a casket etc. That evening for the church service, we had a small "funeral" for baby Kender and many family members showed up.

The parents of the baby, Moreno and Kedania, have visited the church several times since their son's death. Just this past Thursday we had a ladies' meeting in the house of Kedania. We pray that it will cause her and Moreno to come to Jesus.



Carrying the coffin to the grave.

The graveyard


Baby Kender's grave with his name and dates engraved in wet cement.

How to turn white

Davy is a Euddy's nephew. He is a precious little boy full of fun and energy. He doesn't normally like to take a bath but one night he told his daddy, "I want to take a bath." Thinking this was rare, his daddy asked him "Why?" He replied, "Because I want to take a lot of baths so my skin will be the color of Douglas." :-)

Here is Davy with his parents -Blenski and Lissette, and little sister Anna Elizabeth. Blenski and Lissette are serving the Lord. We thank the Lord for this family unit that we have.

Family shots

Jonathan helps himself to some yogurt sitting "out of reach" on the table. Not anymore!

Ryan - the "orange" monster

Doug asked the children if they believed he could hold the whole world on his head. They all answered "no." He proved that he really could! [Hint: look closely] :-)

More activities from November

Sarah, daughter of Pastor Euddy, turned 2 in November. Her parents wanted to throw a birthday party for her but they did not have money. I at least wanted to make her a cake. This time I cheated and bought a cake top. Her mom saved the cake for S.S. class and they had a little party for her with the other children. It was a cute little party.

The icing in the cake didn't run, but the coloring did! How do you figure that one?

Sara and the S.S. children

It seems something is always broken down! Doug bought this computer new so Euddy could finish his last year of university studies online. Just a few weeks later it burnt out and Doug took it apart to see if he could fix it. Thankfully, he could and Euddy has been able to get back to his studies! We're cheering him on so he can get finished. It's been a long course with many interruptions in between.

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.