La Iglesia de Andre

I don't think I've blogged about this, yet, but those who get my newsletters would know that Andre left SI in September to pastor the church that he is planting in Los Higos full time. He had felt for quite a while that the Lord was leading him to focus more and more on the church, and SI tried to put him in contact with some people and churches that might support him so that he coud make that transition.

Andre continues to work with the kids' club, but it is now considered to be a ministry of the church. The above picture shows Andre meeting with the club. The club now only meets twice a week, Thursdays and Sundays, which gives Andre more time to focus on other parts of his ministry as pastor. When SI has teams in the summer, they will continue to partner with Andre by sending students to work with the club. The students will be able to hold club every day and give classes, such as English or music classes, as they have done in the past through SI.

The church continues to grow in numbers and maturity. Last Saturday three more people were baptized, including Hector Luis (who is in the picture below in the red shirt) and Negro/ Peña/ Jose Antonio Delgado (he has a lot of names). Robin wasn't able to go on Saturday, but was planning to be baptized on Monday. The church continues to meet on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Thursday nights is a 'meeting', not a church service, and is ran totally by church members (i.e. Andre doesn't lead anything that night), and it's always fun to hear different church members take turns preaching (which is what Hector Luis and Guelo are doing in the picture below). Saturday and Sunday services are considered to be official church services, and often features different members preaching.

megafono

A couple months ago I got a megaphone! It was donated by a guy who came down on a two week mission trip this summer.

Here in the DR, it's really common for truck buying or selling something to drive around with a small megaphone attached to the roof, announcing whatever their business happens to be. For example, "plantains, bananas, yucaaaaaaaa... all types of root crops, all for three pesos, only threeeeiiii pesooooos." It's pretty funny to hear some of the things they'll announce, but I've found that it's quite effective. When the truck that buys scrap metal drives through town, people run to collect their scraps and out to the road to catch the truck and make a few pesos.

So, as silly as it feels to walk around town talking into a megaphone, it seems to work. I've mostly been using it to announce when the trash truck is going to come (SI brings up the dump truck about once a month to help with trash collection and removal). The picture above show a couple of our semester students announcing that the truck is coming. We always announce it a day ahead of time and pass out trash bags, and people literally come running out of their houses to meet us on the road and receive bags.

The youth group in Andre's church have also used the megaphone to announce meetings and events and I imagine that as word gets around that I have a megaphone we'll find many other uses for it.