Here's a better picture of the work being done at Meri's house. Here Ramon, Meri's husband, is in the blue shirt and is helping to pour a 'viga' (I don't know what it's called in English). They currently have block laid all the way up to floor level and need to fill in with gravel up to that level.

Community Bible Study

The ag site has been leading community Bible studies in Los Higos for about a year and a half. On Mondays Arlene leads a Bible study (which is currently going over the basics of the Bible) and Andre hosts church services on Thursday and Saturday nights. There are about 25 people who regularly attend, ranging from children to elderly people.

The picture above was taken last Monday during the Bible study led by Arlene. Each group was given a scenario and had to write a letter pertaining to that scenario. They then read their letters and the rest tried to guess the scenario. The funniest letter pertained to a scenario where a 12-year-old girl had a crush on a classmate and was going to declare her love through a letter. We then applied this to trying to think of the context of the letters we find in the New Testament.

Spring intern

Rachel is our spring intern at the ag site. She will spend about 3 months with us, staying until the beginning of April. She's shown here trying a fruit that she'd never seen before, mamon. At first glance it looks like a bowl of chicken skin (yuck!), but was actually quite tasty. Rachel and Arlene have a lot in common- being that they're both from mid-western farm families with all sisters! They've enjoyed reading Oswald Chambers in the mornings together as they drive up to Los Higos.

Meri's new house

If anyone has visited us in Los Higos, they certainly have met Meri (shown above with Arlene). She is like our mother in that she feeds us lunch as well as fusses over us as if we were her children. Meri has been praying for a new house for several years, and has been collecting materials over time to build one. Last week, SI's construction ministry, Casas Para el Futuro, began building a new house for Meri. When the house is finished, Meri and her husband, Ramon, wil make monthly payments to pay off the house. The house, shown below, will have a typical Dominican layout- a living room on one side, with two bedrooms on the other. Meri hopes to keep her old house, and someday fix it up a little better so it can be used as a guest house for when missionaries are visiting.

One small success

One of the most satisfying things I've seen so far in our work in Los Higos is a few boys taking what they've learned gardening with us and applying it at home. In the photo above, Jessie, is sitting in a little garden that he and his friend, Emilio (a.k.a. Arjenis) planted to cilantro. It's planted on land owned by Emilio's parents. The boys themselves tilled the area, built the fence, and collected as much goat manure as they could to fertilize the soil. The cilantro has sprouted, but it's hard to see in the photo.