our neighbors in the DR

posted by Sharla, live and in person from the Dominican Republic

I arrived here yesterday and the group from the Austin Stone Community Church comes in tomorrow night. I spent the day staining some furniture that Will built for us and trying to convince the ants that there are better places for them to spend their time than on my bananas. they're not convinced.

there's a bit of background about the "makarios house" down here in the DR. when we first looked at it, it seemed perfect, but when we went to sign, the owners backed out. over the next month or so, we continued to look for places, but nothing much was available. I asked the realtor to talk to the family who owned this house and find out why they weren't going to rent it out. it was sitting here empty and they now live in the states. we found out that less than a year ago, a neighbor girl was opening their iron gate to the driveway and it came off of it's track and fell on her, breaking her skull and killing her. the family didn't want to rent it out until they had made things right with their neighbors. I asked the realtor to pass on the message of how we would use the house and the kind of work that we do. we also spent a lot of time in prayer. the husband flew down for a day, met with the family, and decided to go ahead and rent it out to us. It is a huge blessing and a clear provision from the Lord.

those same neighbors have a 10 year old son who is deaf. he goes to a special school, but apparently they don't teach sign language. after spending some time with him today, it's apparent that he is eager to communicate. I don't know much sign language, but I have been working on it the past few months, and tomorrow I'm going to go and talk to the parents and see if they're interested in learning it as a family. I'll keep you posted on how it goes. even if they're not interested as a family, I'd still like to try to teach him and his friends some signs so that he can communicate at a basic level. anyone out there who signs who'd like to come down and work with a sweet little boy named Roberto?

thanks as always for your prayers and support. don't forget to write!