D.R. team Tuesday update

Tuesday, October 12

Greetings from the Dominican Republic…this is our fourth full day in the service of our Lord here in this wonderful place. We have been blessed with great weather that has been fairly cool with rain in the evening cooling things down even more! We start every morning with an awesome breakfast prepared with love by Fransesca, Chava and Maribell.

We have had many successful events that have blessed us all with the way they have been received by the people here.

This afternoon after lunch took gift bags we prepared this morning to present to the patients in the local hospital…it is a very sad place with none of the conveniences we are accustom to in America. There is a NP on our team and she says the medicine and procedures used here are equivalent to the way things were done in the early 1900’s in the US. There are no sheets or even toothpaste and toiletries available unless the family members bring them in. The items we had to distribute came from our kids at Mt. Kidmore and Camp Kidmore and they were very much appreciated, the bags include soap, tissue, toothpaste & brush, lotion, shampoo and deodorant.

After we returned home and had another amazing lunch we took some time to walk around the area that is close to the church and mission where we stay…it is very disturbing to see how the people here have to live, open sewage dilapidated houses and very meager belongings, but yet they are proud and very welcoming when you stop at their house and always produce chairs for us to sit in. They are very generous people full of love and are not really sure it seems sometimes, about us Americano’s. The children have a special place in my heart and I spend most of my time playing with and trying, with some surprising success, to communicate with them. The way they sing worship songs with such enthusiasm has touched the heart of every team member.

Also tonight was the first ever CHE lesson done here in Monte Cristi, we were invited to Pastor Ignacio’s house for bible study and he allowed us to do a CHE lesson! Tom Moen, Bill Beyer, Jill Shuck and myself (Dorinda Veydt) did the river crossing lesson and watched with great joy as the people there, about 17 of them really began to “get it” especially the Pastor, his face lit up and continually nodded with agreement as the lesson progressed to include comments from everyone there on what they had seen! At the end of the lesson we sang more worship songs accompanied by Pastor Ignacio on guitar and after that Pastor asked if anyone present would like to accept Christ as their savior and two people raised their hands and accepted Christ!! It was an amazing night…

One of the most important things we wanted to accomplish here on this trip was to open communication with Pastor Ignacio and build up relationship, and to tear down walls of miscommunication. The men have really rallied around him and have gotten thru to him that as the teams from Mountain come we want to work with him in reaching his people. I cannot explain in words the difference in his countenance he is very open and relaxed with us, spending much time with us in fellowship along with his wife Paula and son Samuel.

A second group from our team went to another Bible study at a church members house in Los Maestros, that was mostly from youth group and they came back with glowing faces and remarks about an awesome message given by a young man named Fernando whom we all need to lift up in prayer as he could be the next generation to serve the people here in Monti Cristi .

We are all doing well physically and emotionally stretched but all feeling very blessed to be on this trip together in Christ.