rabbit cages

Andre started helping some of the kids from his club to buy rabbits a few months ago. Some of them are now having babies, and many of the cages the kids made are not big enough for the whole family. So, last week we started helping the kids to build bigger cages (see photo above). We honestly don't know what we're doing, but thankfully lots of community members have stopped by to give suggestions and we had a team here last week that had great ideas (Taylor is shown below helping Wilian with the measuring tape).

Juelga

Wednesday morning Rachel and I were heading up to Los Higos around 8 a.m. to go teach English in the public school. We saw several questionable things on the road, and honestly thought nothing of it-- a lot of rocks, black ashes, filled-in holes in the road, and finally a tree across the road. I though, 'wow, last night's rain must have been stronger than I thought to have knocked down so many trees'.

When we left the school, Yin (an old man whose face is the logo for the local coffee factory) flagged us down to tell us we couldn't go home, at least not in the truck, because there was a riot ('juelga', also translated as strike or protest) in Hatillo, the community down below Los Higos. We went to Los Higos, and spent the day listening to the latest gossip about the riot. We heard that they were putting nails on the road to pop tires, cutting down trees and digging a ditch across the road to stop traffic, and pulling down power lines.

Around 5, Brian and the construction guys, who were working on Meri's house, decided that they were going to go home. So they went out the back way from Los Higos with an ax and a machete. When we got almost to Hatillo, they had to cut a tree apart and remove it from the road so we could cross (the second photo). Thankfully the ditch that had been dug there wasn't too deep to be crossed by the truck.

As we were clearing that tree, we were overlooking other people removing a tree from the main road in Hatillo (top photo).

It turns out that some people from Hatillo were protesting that the government had not kept its promise to fix the road there. It seems ironic that they actually damaged the road more in their protest. Protests do occur periodically here, however, because it seems that the people feel like they have no voice in their government, and riots are the only way to get its attention.

Please be praying for the Dominican Republic, that God would put leaders in place that fear Him and who truly want to serve all Dominicans, rather than just looking out for themselves and their political party.

Knitting class

I, Arlene, started a knitting class a week ago with a few women. They meet each Friday at 2:00 at Meri's house. Those who have attended include Maribel (who has caught on really fast), Wendy, Carmen Luz (in the photo above), and Endrina. Several kids from the kids club have also stopped in after club is over to learn. This is kind of a test to see how the women of the community will respond to classes, to test the waters for other things we could do with women. I don't have any expectations, but just want to leave the doors open to see if the Lord would want to take this further. Plus, I really like to knit.

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.