Semenario Part 2

posted by sharla...at the beach

this week we had part two of our pastoral training program. andy melvin, halim suh, and tyson joe from the austin stone community church are here and they taught various aspects of doctrine to a group of 12 haitian men. it went really well, and it was a huge blessing to have them down here. we also spent some time in the villages so that they could have a chance to see our ministry in the bateyes. we were able to pray with at the house of a witch doctor (she wasn't interested in joining) and with a christian lady who is married to a witch doctor. that's a rough life, as you can imagine. a friend of ours who used to live in Haiti confronted him last week about working for Satan and he actually said he wanted to get out of it. please pray for him.

we were also blessed to have anna melvin come down and work with the women in our villages. she spent two sessions with them studying the Bible. we hadn't done anything like this before, so we had no idea what to expect. we learned that they love to pray as a group, to listen to Bible stories, and to draw pictures of what they were learning. most of these women are illiterate and therefore cannot read the Bible. we're hoping to start an adult literacy program when we have the staff to do it. i'm actually hoping to hire a haitian to do it.

today is the group's last day here and we're at the beach. the plan is to rent motorcycles in the morning and then hit the beach in the afternoon. good times.

Water

Posted by Brian:

Things are going really well here in the Dominican Republic, except that we have no running water. The water company is undertaking some massive project and our neighborhood has been without water for three weeks. We have been surviving by buying water from small trucks that come around, it has forced us to think about every drop of water we use. It is uncomfortable sometimes but it is a good lesson. Some people have to walk miles for just a bucket of water. Everytime I begin to get upset I think about the blessing it has been to live my life with such things as water and electricity, this said it doesn't mean I don't get mad or haven't called and visited the water company numerous times.
Other than that we are planning on a busy few months. We are concluding our school year with the children in a few weeks. We will still be with them and plan to continue some of our programs but our focus will be turning to groups as we have 4 in May and June.
Also a group from Santiago's English Young Life Club visited us for their annual growth camp. This year they decided to do a service project with us. They did a great job and even pledged to raise $1000us for a water system in a village called Chi Chi Gua. I am still not sure of the plans for the water system but this money should cover a large portion of it.

a preview of things to come

posted by sharla

i'll be going to the DR next saturday, with lots of baby gear in tow. some ladies in my church got me all kinds of things to take down for Isaac. i'll be taking care of him while i'm there. perhaps i should post another picture...

in other news, we have a new volunteer in the DR for two months - chris patterson. we're really excited to have him join the team! hopefully you'll hear from him soon on this very blog.

we will also be joined for the month of june by constance dykhuizen. in all, we'll have 6 people helping us out this summer. still figuring out the dates for some of them, but keep you posted.

i'm so excited to have some leaders from the austin stone coming down next week! they're going to continue the pastor's conference that my dad started in march, along with visiting our villages and getting to know our staff.

a week after that group comes, we'll have the a team from westlake bible church coming down to do a vbs in los algodones. this is a village where we are not currently working, but we would like to start developing relationships with them. the vbs should be a great start to this process.

thank you for your prayers! and send us staff! we're still looking for a host couple and at least one more teacher!