Big big change

Many of you know of the big big change the island has in-store for Caitlin and I. Our last year was spent on the North coast of the Dominican Republic. An area made up a many Haitians and Dominicans, as well as a fair amount of ex-patriots. The north Coast has been a popular vacation spot for the last 15 years or so. During our time living in Monte llano, and working in the sugar cane batey, (village) of Caraballo, we have seen and been apart of many great advances and changes in the lives of kids, visitors, and the school. With the work teams coming to an end for 2008 in Caraballo, our directors purposed a few openings at a different Kids Alive site in Jarabacoa, about 2 hours away. Since our main job had been hosting work teams it made since for us to consider and take the offer to move. In Jarabacoa we will be surrounded by the majority of the Kids Alive DR staff. Caitlin will assume the English teaching role at the school, Anija, as well as cover some much needed sponsorship responsibilities there. I will working with teams that come to Jarabacoa, as well as provide some much needed help with teams in Constanza, another Kids Alive site. When there are no teams my role will be one of maintaining the buildings and doing small construction and maintenance. This is a very bittersweet move for us, as we will be leaving behind over a year’s worth of friendships, success, trials, progress and change. Even though we will only be 2 hours away it feels as if we were saying goodbye forever. We will greatly miss our Kids Alive staff of Jessi, Candace, and Alberto. We will also be leaving behind other friends that we hope to always stay in touch. Nationals, and fellow North Americans alike, it’s never easy saying goodbye to people you love.

Teams

With only three teams left on the year and numerous projects to finish, we had our work cut out for us. The first two teams came during the last few weeks of our summer program that Caitlin was heading up. Trinity Fellowship from Texas, and Lisbon Falls from Maine, proved to be some of our best groups ever! Both had work ethics that rivaled even some of our adult groups. We moved about 3 metric tons of rock to make a parking lot, poured about 300ft of side walks, and poured the floor and started laying block for our new cistern. They were two very successful weeks for construction, but even more than that, we were able to see the lives of these teens change right before our eyes. For the first time ever we had a group where every single person made a decision to sponsor a child! There were teens as well as adult leaders who acknowledged the call in their lives to missions. I saw an unwilling selfish attitude on Monday, change to a willing servant heart by Friday. Even more exciting, we witnessed a life changing decision for Christ immediately followed by an ocean baptism!
Our third and final group of the year in Caraballo, was a returning group from Connecticut. Valley Baptist is the most mission minded church I’ve ever known, with trips all over the world, all year long. That’s why it was a great honor to have them back. They could have chosen many places, but we are honored they chose us. There were many that returned from the previous year. Nineteen people in all, we split the group into 3 parts. Ten of the guys did construction, six did medical with Jessi, our nurse, and three did VBS with Caitlin. The medical and education team really ministered to Caitlin and Jessi, they had only good things to say about their week. On the construction end, our national workers told me all week long that this group was the hardest working group we’ve had yet! They played a key role the preparation for the wood shop being built. We also built a wall, and laid quite a few blocks. The guys were a great encouragement to our national workers. In the end, children were sponsored, relationships were built, and even a few people with expressed interest in career missions!