transicion

Before leaving for the states, I moved out of the casita and the garden, leaving it to the church (which has a building on the same property). We decided that I should look for a new location from which to minister in Los Higos, because the garden was too big for me to care for and seemed to take up a lot of time that could have been used to invest in people in the community.

In addition, we all agreed that it would be healthy for the church to have its own location. They will be stretched as they take on the responsability of paying rent, water, and electricity and work together to care for the property, but we believe it will strengthen the church. Having seperate locations will also help the community to know what is Students International and what is the church.

Andre and Jesus (the assistant pastor of Andre's church) are going to continue gardening with the kids club, which I'm really happy to hear. They are also going to try to cultivate the rest of the land to try to make some money to go into the church treasury.

Moving out was a little hard, because I have invested so much time into the property. It was hard for me to let it go, and I find myself fearing that they are going to pull out the erosion barriers and other unique plants I have in the garden. I've been trying to be okay with that. I pray that the transition goes well for the club as they adjust to gardening with new people.

I hope to find a new location once I get back from Christmas where I can focus more on ministry to women. I'd still like to have a small garden- something closer to what a woman could care for near her home. I'd also like to have space to hold the knitting and sewing classes and offer Bible studies for women.

Please pray that the Lord would provide a new location and that the church would utilize well the garden.

carrera de burro y otras cosas

I am in Iowa right now for Christmas and am planning to stay until the end of January. So, I don't have a lot of updates on what is going on in Los Higos, but will share some old news.

We had three students from Bethel College living up in Los Higos for seven weeks as a part of our semester program. On their last day in the community, the thing they most wanted to do was have a donkey race. We held it right after the kids came to garden, so we had an audience. It seemed that the donkeys were going to fight with one another, so we couldn't have a side-by-side race, so we decided to have each participant run individually and we would time them to determine the winner. The picture below shows the second-place winner on his donkey, 'Fuego'.

On a more serious note, the church began adding on to the church building before I left and were hoping to have the addition done for Christmas. From what I understand they were not going to enclose the new addition, but rather just have a roof and partial walls (or no walls?). I'm sorry I didn't have my camera on me to get a picture before I left.

kermes

The church had a kermes, a fund-raiser, last Saturday. They enclosed the basketball court with palm branches and tarps, and charged $RD30 entrance. They had a flee market, local entertainment, and a concert with singers from the capital and Jarabacoa. They made about $RD15,000 (about $US425).

Some girls from the club did a worship dance

They raffled off a 25-pound bag of rice.

Duary lipsank to Marcos Witt song (check out the kids that are pretending to play the instruments in the back).

They sold a lot of used clothing.

A politician loaned his truck with huge speakers for the concert. You could hear the music everywhere in Los Higos. These are the trucks they use during campaign season to blast political jingles.

charla con los adolescentes

Guelo has been leading a couple English classes/ Bible studies with young teenagers and recently asked Dr. Fernando (a gynecologist on staff with Students International) to give a talk the young people. Last Friday the kids met in the Los Higos community center to hear Fernando talk about relationships and the health issues of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. It's just so clear that what medicine says and what the Bible says about relationships and sexuality are totally in agreement and Fernando made that clear in his talk.

In other news, tomorrow the church is hosting a concert at the Los Higos basketball court to raise money for the mercy ministry. (The mercy committee focuses on helping widows, orphans, and other people who have need). It will cost $RD30 to enter (a little less than a dollar) and they will be selling food and having a yard sale.

mas de la Lorena

So, the Lorena stove that Dulce built on her own and was so proud of apparently didn't function. So, she took it apart.

I have realized that anyone can make a Lorena stove, but you need to know a bit about how to make it. Her stove was pretty, but apparently the holes were dug out too big, so the stove heated slowly. In addition, the method we have been using uses really wet clay, so it takes several weeks for the stove to dry out, which also makes it cook slowly in the begining. So, the big holes combined with wet clay made her stove cook so slowly that she got angry, tore it apart and went back to cooking on a 'fogon' (tradition open fire place).

I'd met a lady who knows a different method for making the stove with clay that is practically dry and that isn't so sandy (meaning we can use almost any clay and don't have to go all the way to the river to get it). And her process only takes a day! So, I asked her to come and teach us her method and we rebuilt Dulce's stove.

We made the stove using a mixture of the red clay we'd previously gotten from the river and some clay found nearby.

We dug the holes the same day using garden trowels, a kitchen knife, and a machete.

We smoothed the outside all out using a wetter mix of clay.

And we were cooking on the stove that same afternoon. Can you see the smoke coming out of the chimney?

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.

bultos

Our sewing class continues to happen, although it's not as organized as I would like and we only have two faithful attenders (Sara and Vianelli, pictured above). We got some wild, blue cheetah-print cordoroy fabric in the mail last week. I expected to just stick it in the drawer, but when the girls saw it, they wanted to make book bags.

What has been neat about this project is seeing how motivated the girls have been. I think that their drive comes from the fact that the bags are for them and they really do need them. We've done other sewing projects, but those were with the intent of selling things. It seems, though, that the girls aren't as interesting in making money as they are in just making things for themselves.

I have really come to appreciate Sara and Vianelli as I've seen their presistence in coming to the classes. They really push to keep the class going. I'm praying that Jesus might use this simple class to open doors to bigger opportunities for these girls and that the girls would be ministered to in deep ways as we interact with one another around fabric, needles, and threads.

brazo roto

Chipo ("Cheap-O) broke his arm on Monday. He fell out of a cereza tree and broke it right above the elbow. I know that most people who have visited Los Higos will remember Chipo, and probably share my opinion that I'm surprised this didn't happen earlier.

Rain

A lot of people have asked if we've received any damage from all the recent hurricanes- Fay, Gustavo, Hanna, Ike...

Basically we've had about a month of off-and-on rain. Most days it is sunny and hot in the morning, but we usually get a thunder storm in the afternoon and then some more rain in the evening. Usually this time of year is dry, but it's feeling a lot like how typical rainy season would feel, except that it's hotter.

The picture above shows some girls playing in a ditch in Los Higos. They were trying to form little dams out of clay, but I saw that they were washed out by the next day.

And my garden is out of control with weeds, but it's too muddy to do much about it.

Casa de Elvis

Elvis' family's house is basically finished and has been for a while. It just took me a few weeks to finally walk up to take the picture. The floor is red concrete. They still don't have the interior divided into seperate rooms, so the house feels really big inside. And, I guess, they still need some other type of window covering.

maiz

Since coming to the DR, I've tried to grow corn three times. The first time I was so disappointed. Having grown up with hybrids and chemical fertilizer, I'm used to stunning corn. The open polllinated stuff here just doesn't measure up. But this third harvest looked somewhat like what I'm used to (thanks to some granular fertilizer and timely rains). So, we shelled the corn out today, and I harvested a total of 35 pounds, grown on about 1/20 of an acre (I'm guessing). that adds up to 12.5 bushels/ acre. So, although I felt more proud of this corn (and everyone told me it was beautiful), my yield was still quite embarassing. I guess I could account for the fact that I know some of the corn was stolen out of the field before it dented (people here eat field corn), and I didn't shell the 10 biggest ears, because I am going to save that back as seed. However, even with that in account my yield wasn't too impressive.

I sold the 35 pounds for 200 pesos (about $US 5.80). So that comes out to $US 9.28/ bushel. I know that any farmer back home would be thrilled to get that price. (Actually, imported American corn is actually selling for more than that here). However, even with that price, I don't know if a farmer could make much money, because yields are so low. I'm learning how tough it would be for a Dominican farmer to make enough money to live.

lorena

Dulce, the lady I lived with for most of the summer, has wanted a Lorena stove, but wasn't sure if she could afford the cement and block which we ask the women to provide before we'll build it. So, she built her own! She made the base with wood and got her own clay from where they opened a new road near Los Higos. Jose Quezada helped her to dig out the holes. The chimney is not real tight, so smoke still gets into the kitchen, but it still works a lot better than an open fire. She hopes to rig up something different for the chimney soon. This is the kind of thing I really love to see-- people taking initiative based on an idea that we introduced.

Boda

Andre and Yohana got married on Saturday, August 16. The wedding was held near La Romana (where Yohana is from) at a beautiful Christian retreat center. The ceremony started at 9 p.m. and was very short. It was followed by a dinner and picture taking near the pool.

Andre and Yohana will be living in La Medina, a neighborhood close to the downtown of Jarabacoa. Andre is expecting to be back to work in September.

party

I had an agreement with the club that if they picked up and put away all their tools for six consecutive weeks they'd win a party at my house (Nate and Maggie's house, really) in town. it took about four months, but they eventually did pick up their tools for six week straight.

They came over on Thursday. We had games planned, which most of the kids thought were dumb and refused to play. But they did go nuts when I brought out my huge blue exercise ball and when I let Cloe (the dog) out. And we had lots of good food- hot water cake, grilled hotdogs, potato salad, yellow rice, popcorn.

And at the end we had a door prize, a fig tree, which Elvis won.

It turns out that I only got pictures of food related things- the top picture is Daury eating a whole potato that accidently didn't get cut up in the potato salad (and which we decorated like a pig using toothpicks and sprinkles). The bottom picture is Cristian grilling the hotdogs. He eagerly wore that apron.

turnips

Some kids planted turnips in the garden, believing that they were radish seeds. So, they dug them out the other day and were asking me what to do with them. (I have no idea what to do with turnips). They asked me what they are called, but I don't know the Spanish name, so I told them in English. Randy ran and told the other kids, "They are tour-neep."

La casa de Elvis

The constuction for Elvis' house has taken off since they received a donation to help complete it. Here is a picture taken on Thursday. They are ready to pour the floor, and I believe the SI's construction ministry will come next week to help with that. Then all they will have left is to put up doors and windows (which they lack a bit of wood for) and hopefully paint (again, if they have enough money in the end).

The picture below shows Elvis pounding the dirt floor to prepare to pour the concrete floor.

I asked where they are sleeping while they finish the house. Elvis' mom replied that they are sleeping in the house as it is, they just haul the beds outside when they are working on the house and bring them back in at night.

atardecer

I don't know if I've ever really mentioned on the blog that Los Higos is beautiful. I know that anyone who has ever visited knows that. I'm putting up a picture of an incredible sunset, as seen from the yard of the family that I'm staying with. The picture really doesn't do things justice.

jugar 'americano'

I wish I had a picture, but I'll just have to tell the story...

After lunch, a bunch of the grandkids of the family I live with in Los Higos were at the house. And one of the girls started to get impatient, saying to the rest of the kids, "Come on, let's go play 'americano'."

I asked, "You play 'americano'?"

"Yes."

"How do you play?"

"Well, one of us is Arlene, and one of us is Andre and another is Sandra... [and she kept listing different Americans that have come to Los Higos]."

"And what do you do?"

"We all have water bottles," she said as she and another girl hold up used pop bottles filled with water.

After laughing that off, I asked, "What else do you do?"

"Sometimes we speak English without knowing what we're saying."

ha, ha.

An eye doctor from Ohio came on this outreach and has been going from community to community to do eye exams. He came to Los Higos yesterday, along with Dr. Fernando, and they did a joint medical/ optical outreach. A lot of people in Los Higos were able to take advantage of the low cost eye exams and practially free glasses and here are some pictures of people sporting their lenses.

Ramon with bifocals which he says are only for reading:

Josefina with reading glasses:

La Negra with glasses to be used all the time (in one eye she couldn't see anything, now she says she sees something, and the other eye sees better, too):

Yan Carlos' birthday

I went to a birthday party yesterday for Yan Carlos. It was pretty cute.

They held it in the pink house and had lots of balloons and streamers up. Yan Carlos was all dressed up (as shown in the picture of him holding a goat). The kids all danced, which was so cute, because even the little ones know more or less how to dance merengue. And they had a pinata.

The picture below is of Pancho and Yisenia's baby girl all dressed up for the party.

another knitting fashion show

Last sunday we had another knitting fashion show. We had even more girls involved and in an even smaller space. The picture below shows the people that crowded into the chicken coop church to wath the event. (Origianally we'd planned to hold the event on the basketball court, but because of rain we had to change locations).



The girls themselves came up with a dance to perform. The only rules I gave them was that they had to dance to Christian music and couldn't do anything scandelous. In practice the dance was pretty tame, but, unfortunately, it was a bit scandelous at some points (typical dominican dancing), but I may have been the only one who thought that.

Each girl received a gift. I'd received personal hygiene kits from the Clear Lake Church of Christ when they visited last February, so I put those in the gifts, along with a ball of fancy yarn.

Cristian, Andre, and Franddi pose for photos afterwards.

Elvis' house

Last Monday, a bunch of people from the church in Los Higos went to work to help build a house for Elvis' family. Elvis is almost 14 years old and has been pretty involved in the church and club. Jose Quezada was able to get some building supplies donated to build a house for them, because their old one (seen in the photo above) is in bad condition.

The picture above shows Cristian shoveling concrete into the hole dug for the new foundation (doesn't their house have a great view?).

The new house is being built around and over the old one. They will build up the walls, they fill in with dirt between the old house and the new walls to the level of the old floor. Once they have the roof on the new walls (and over the top of the old house), they'll take down the old house and pour a floor around the old floor reaching out to the new walls. This way they have a place to live while the new house is being constructed and they can make use of the old floor. Plus, their land is really sloped, and this way they don't have to level a new place to build a new house.

The supplies came from a politician. Elections are coming up soon, so politicians are in a rush to help the people- giving away building supplies, working on road repairs, etc.

There are five girls from Trinity Western University living up in Los Higos right now, and they helped off and on throughout the day with the construction. You can't see it well, but here they are filling a large can with rocks to be thrown into the concrete for the foundation.

Chipo

Chipo showed up at the garden yesterday wearing this dinosaur costume. He said that Maribel bought it for him because he was crying. (I don't know if I understood that right, though). He was walking around acting as if wearing that outfit was quite normal. It was so small on him, too. Look at how his paws only come a big past his knees.

Kermes

On Sunday, Andre's church did a kermes, which is basically a fundraiser for the church. They held it on the basketball court in Los Higos, and had games for kids, dramas, and a performed dance. They sold food and raffled off two cell phones to help raise funds to pay the loan that they took out to buy a drum set for the church.

There was a pretty good turnout of people- I'm guessing around 150. I don't know, yet, how much money they made. I do know that they made almost $RD2,000 (almost $US60) just on the moro (rice and beans) that they sold. They were pretty proud of what they'd made and are hoping to do it again in the future.


Here Daury and Guelito rapped while Negrito and Randy break danced.

chicken coop church looks more churchy

The chicken coop church is now being used. I haven't gotten a picture of an actual service being held, but I do have a few pictures of what the interior looks like, now that it has been painted and moved in to. Note that the church recently bought a drumset, which they are very excited to use!

Also check out the curtains-- Maribel sewed them using the sewing machines that we use for our class. Finding that frilly tassely stuff to sew on the bottom was a long process, because no store in Jarabacoa even had twenty yards of any color, but it was worth it to make the church look Dominican.

Final Lorena stove pics

The Lorena stove is finally totally finished! It was finished a couple weeks ago, but I'm just getting around to putting up the pictures now. Once the blog of clay/sand mix on top of the base was dry, a machete (shown above) was used to dig out hole where firewood is entered and where pots sit.

Then some students that were visiting helped make the chimney using a piece of flat tin (shown here).

And now the chimney has been installed and the stove is being used (as can be seen by the soot in the picture above)! It seems to be working pretty well. Some smoke does enter into the house through the mouth of the stove when the fire is first started, but once the fire is going, the smoke mostly goes out the chimney. In the future, we're hoping to find a cheap way to make a more permanent chimney, since the tin will eventually rust.