A place to put dishes

The perfect house can't be complete without a place to store your pots and pans. Thats why I decided to make my 'first ever' cabinets to complete Rubens house. I have been blessed with some pretty nice tools that make things a lot easier. There are always frustrations of doing things for the first time. Especially when you want them to be perfect. Well I would say all those issues of " Fine Wood Working" paid off. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. The most important thing is Juvi has a complete kitchen now. Well almost, I still have a few more doors to make. But I am well equipped now to take on the next cabinet project (which is a little bigger) with our school kitchen. Wood working is kind of fun!

A Dedication

Our church, Templo Biblico, and the Park Care Center teamed up to do a dedication of Ruben and Juvi's house. All the school teachers were invited and the whole church was invited. We had a packed house. They even brought over the band! The night was a celebration of what God had done in Ruben and Juvi's life. Several people prepared solo's, they even made me get up and sing "Trading my Sorrows". After, a few men from the church spoke, and then Alberto, our school director (and Rubens boss) spoke very emotionally about the family. He retold, with tears in his eyes, the story of how it all came about. It was the first time for many people to hear the extent of the story. After he was done several men insisted I get up and say something. Alot of people didn't really know me very well or know that Caitlin and I were apart the story at all. They wanted to hear from me personally. I had never spoke publically to a large group of people in spanish before, and I was really really scared. But I made it through and just talked about how much of a blessing it was to be apart of the way God was working, and how I was blessed to be apart of such a specail family here. It was a good night

Vicinos

We live in a Dominican nieghborhood. If your door is open that means anyone is free to come inside your house. If someone comes to your house around dinner time that means they are hungry and you should share your dinner with them. They don't exactly treat us the same as the other Dominicans. I think they know Americans are a little more independent and we like our space sometimes. But we do like to take part in the very relational, unselfish parts of this culture. We do have people over for dinner from time to time, of course its a very planned-in-advance "American" thing. Our friends, Leandro, and Joel (pronounced, Ho-el), came over one night and made Donplinas, (which is how they pronounce dumplings), fried salami, and sweet plantane, or platano maduro. It was a wonderful meal, that we shared with about 10 other nieghbors. Afterwards, I brought my laptop outside under the carport next to our house, where everyone hangs out, and we all pulled up a chair and watched a Dominican comedy classic "Sanky Panky" No it's not a porno get you mind out of the gutter. A sanky panky is when a Dominican man meets a older maybe not so attractive wealthy American woman in hopes of marrying her and fulfilling his biggest dreams of being able to sit around all day and do nothing. Ok maybe they do that anyway, but the catch is that they would have money, and ultimately someday be able to go to the US, specifically NYC. It's actually really funny, even if you can't understand what they are saying.

A special dinner

Ruben and Juvi invited Caitlin and I over for dinner in their new house. It was a special night. We played the game "Apples to Apples" (in spanish) it was a lot of fun. They have such a beautiful home. We had a traditional Dominican meal, with fried plantane, potato and egg salad, and fried salami, (healthy I know), oh and home-made lemon juice. The only thing their house lacked was kitchen cabinets.

Dominican boredom

My neighbors do almost nothing all day long. Today I stayed home from the school to catch up on paper work and emails, and all day(just like everyday) they hung out on our bench outside and 3ft from where I'm sitting. We like our neighbors and make it point to hang out with them during the week. But literally from about 9am-10pm it’s crowded with life right outside our windows. They made a wonderful doll yesterday that kept them entertained for several hours. Pray for Caitlin and I as we continue to pursue relationships with these people and that God might open opportunities to share with them about our faith.

The Dad factor

Our Last work team was a very special group from Wheaton Chicago area. Many kids Alive missionaries are strongly connected with the Wheaton area as well as WBC whom we hosted for the last week. Our feild director Vic also came with his son Sam. We had a packed house with 24 fathers and sons on our first Father/Son team. What a great idea! These guys worked their butts off and had a blast. We poured over 40 yards of concrete in almost monsoon rain conditions. Their team work and discipline paid off in the end with the completion of a full court basketball court. Our Haitian workers didn't really know what to think of the father son crew, who did so much work we had to create more in the end. What a huge testimony for this village to be able to see father and son working hard side by side, laughing and playing, crying and praying. Their impact along with their hearts were huge. They also put on a hot dog and game party on Sat. for our kids. What a treat!

Family and Friends

We got a call one night and the voice on the other end said, " Hi I'm Caitlin's Uncle Frank, She's never actually met me, but I'm here in the DR doing medical missions and would like to come see you guys if possible" So we hung out a day with long lost Uncle Frank! It was fun, he is a DR. in California and has been doing Medical missions to spanish speaking countries for many years. We showed our village and hung out on the beach with him, where he kindly bought our lunch.

Caitlin's brother and his wife were able to visit the very next week. Chris and LaChanda were missionaries in India for awhile and are now in CO Springs where Chris works at his missions home office, (eMi). We enjoyed having them here. We were able to spend quite a bit of time with them and really had fun. They also got to expirience classic DR life when the bus they were on to explore the island broke down.

Our friend Jenny and her dominican husband Miguel have been a huge blessing for Caitlin and I. We occasionally go on double dates and have fun fellowshipping together. Jenny has been in the DR for about 7 years and recently married Miguel. They work for a mission group that does similar things as Kids Alive. Jenny is about 7 months pregnant and we all got together and had a baby blessing party for her up at the Crossroads retreat center with Bob and Jana. Instead of typical baby shower gifts we gave gifts of the spirit that included, music, poetry, scripture, art, and many other creative things.

One of the workers at our school also just recently had his 5th child. Penel is one of my favorite guys at work. Caitlin and I went to visit him and his family. I told him he had enough children now for a basketball team!