Agua De Coco Es Buena Para La Vejiga

Construction this week was a bit slower due to the nature of the work. Filling the columns of the building to the level of the ‘plato’ (the concrete/rebar roof) was a slow process due to drying and availability of wood for framing. So, two things were completed this week: All of the columns were filled to the level of the plato, and that big pile of garbage and excess dirt was moved out by a big truck. Next week we work on the ‘viga’ (the concrete part at the top of the walls that ties all the four walls together), but first, we are going to raise the level of the floor by one more row of cinder blocks to ensure that the building sits well above the level of the street for rain drainage purposes. Hopefully by next week we’ll have everything prepared to start working on the plato when there are sufficient funds.

Also, we had our first adventure with the medical system here and it turned out to be quite a positive experience. Katie came down with a bacterial infection, and after a sonogram, blood test, urinalysis, and two doctor visits, everything still came out under $30 USD. She’s got the proper meds and is on the road to getting better.

We took part in yet another quinceañera (this time a surprise quinceañera!) and it was a great success. We were asked to arrive early to clean and set up balloons and decorations around the party area and cake table (and also a throne chair set up for the birthday girl). It was nice to be involved in Yohana’s special day. We got to meet and make connections with a lot of people from the community and the new fifteen year old had a really good time.

In the Music School, things are progressing. There are four pianos being used, each of them occupied by a number of students. There are three sections of guitar classes, each with three to five students. And, the drum and percussion classes are consistently growing in size.

This Sunday in our Sunday School class we found bean plants growing where we had previously illustrated the parable of the sower (Matt 13). The seeds on the path disappeared, the seeds on the rocky soil didn’t take root, and the seeds in the weeds are nowhere to be found, but the seeds in the good soil are growing very well. Definitely helped in the illustration!!

Hope all is well back in the good ol’ USA. Miss ya’ll.

Al Nivel de Plato

The title of this blog is “at the level of concrete-roof-plate” and it is an appropriate title because that is where we are at in the construction process. What is left before putting up the plato is to fill in the rest of the columns with concrete up to the level of plato and build the viga (a layer of concrete around the top perimeter) which will frame in the persianas (the metal window things they use here instead of glass) and the doorways. Excuse the lack of English in the construction terms; we’ve never helped construct a cinderblock building in an English speaking country. Apparently the plato is the most expensive part of the construction process. Since it is both the roof of the first floor and the floor of the second floor, it will need a significant amount of rebar reinforcing it. Though we have not yet received an official estimate, the contractor’s rough guesstimate was somewhere around RD$200,000 which is approximately $6,000 USD. God has provided in amazing ways through many of the readers of this blog and through members of the community here in Santiago & we’re excited to see how he provides next.

In other news, Centro Cristiano officially kicked off their children’s ministry & started providing a simple bread and hot chocolate breakfast for those who come on Sunday mornings. There have been over 20 kids who have come to the last two Sunday services. And though getting people to show up for a Sunday service is not the end goal, it can be a very useful way to plug these young ones into a healthy community to help them develop into people who will change the world for the better in the name of Jesus Christ.

Katie preached last Saturday night for the youth church service. She spoke on being the salt of the earth and the richness of the illustration that Jesus was providing us. Surely the youth walked away with a deeper understanding of their role in the world as a preserving/protecting force and as a people who add flavor and season to a bland world.

Also, Sunday we had our first Church service at the new site. We had a work/worship service in which everyone in the church pitched in and helped accomplish all that needed to be done before continuing the work process today. It was a short, informal, good time together of worshipping God in work, song, and poetry.

"Inch Wide & Mile Deep"

Mile Deep International: Yep... that's the name of the non-profit that's being founded in order to aid the multi-faceted ministry here in the Dominican Republic and hopefully in other locations as well in the future. And, yep... WE'VE BEEN INCORPORATED!!! YAY! So Mile Deep International officially exists! Onto the next step... lots and lots of paperwork. But it's all pretty much done. So that's good.

Temple 411: This week, a lot of block was laid for the new temple…but Thursday and Friday there was little work because there wasn’t any money left neither to buy the rest of the proper materials nor to pay the workers. Friday, we went to the other pastor’s house to use the internet and we checked our bank accounts online…$300 had shown up which ended up being enough to pay the workers for last week and the next! Thank you to those who donated!!! It looks like this week the workers will be measuring for the windows, reinforcing with rebar, and finishing the laying of block to leave us with the first story of the new temple! YAY!

Bar guys: Also this last week, we stopped by the bar on the corner again (where the men drink and play dominoes outside all night) after a Bible study, and we were invited to sit down and watch them play. Dominican dad came to join us and we ended up having some really good conversations with a few of the men. One of them was very moved by our conversation (well, he was also drunk), and he began crying, saying how he loved the LORD but felt stuck in what he was doing and the life he was living. We were able to encourage him and his friend, so we hope to visit them again in the near future.

Our hike w/youth: Saturday morning, we set out with Fernando (a guy our age from Centro Cristiano), Isaac (a young guy who grew up in Casa de Dios Puerta del Cielo), and Yanelis (the girl from the youth group who had the Quinceañera) and we caught a jeep up the mountain to the part where the hike begins and goes to the peak. It was a hard workout! Then, after the hour and a half of hiking the steepest and muddiest mountain I had ever hiked, we ate our lunches at the top, and took an hour to climb down, expecting that a jeep would pass by to carry us back down the mountain (the part that is not the hike, just the rocky road)…it never came! We had to go all the way down the mountain! We didn’t get home until around 5pm. Enduring such a trip with this group brought us closer and hopefully began a developing of closer relationships.

Saturday Preaching: We did the preaching as a team on Saturday night for the youth (Saturdays are the youth services…we were very tired from our hike). We took an idea from our former pastor of Mosaic, John Edgar, to show that if the church is going to succeed in changing the community around it, everyone needs to play their part in it. We brought in a pile of big rocks and asked volunteers to pick up the entire pile of giant rocks and move them to the back of the temple in one trip. No one could do so, of course, because the pile was too big and the rocks were very heavy. We then asked EACH person to pick up one or two rocks and move them to the back of the temple, and we would see how much easier the task was and how much quicker it was done when they all worked as a team. We read 1 Corinthians 12 and explained the importance of each person and their efforts in the work of God. It went pretty well. Kids always like illustrations and activities.

Youth class Sunday: Then, Sunday, we taught the parable of the sower (Matthew 13) using 4 different surfaces of soil outside. As I read and asked questions to get the kids thinking, Chris acted out each explanation of the seed and soil with a shovel and beans picked from the surrounding vines. It, also, went well.

Work Progressing… Construction & Relationships

Above are the pictures of this last week’s progress. There aren’t any pictures from Monday or Tuesday because that was mostly cleanup and shoveling. Wednesday, we tied the rebar for the support of the foundation and also the rebar for the structures columns. Thursday, we dropped the rebar into the trenches and fastened the columns into their proper positions. Friday, we poured the foundation and laid the first row of brick. Saturday, additional rows of brick were installed. It was very important to not get any heavy rain while the trenches were open. We had a few light drizzles and mists, but never any heavy rain until the day after the foundation was poured… and then… IT POURED rain (Chris wants to say “It rained like nobody’s business!”). God’s pretty awesome like that. Yay! Oh yeah... P.S. Ochoa (the hardware store) in addition to donating 1000 cinderblocks, also gave us a discount that saved us about $360 USD. Wow.

Chris spent all week working with the construction workers. Katie spent some of the week helping with construction, but spent most of the week with one of the girls in the youth group named Yoanna and her mother Aracelis, intentionally building relationships with them. On our lunch breaks together, we spent time with some of the younger boys in the youth group, wandering through their banana, guava, and sugar cane field getting snacks. On Saturday afternoon, we went to the Quinceañera (15th birthday party… very big deal here) of a girl in the youth group named Yanelis and took pictures for the family so they could remember the special day. Also, there’s something we’ve neglected to mention all of these past e-mails. Random people show up to different services and dedicate their lives to follow Christ and begin their journey as a Christian. That’s always pretty exciting. Street evangelism is uncannily effective here which is kind of disorienting to us as it is much different back home in the U.S. So... another hooray. Below, we’ve attached some pictures of the non-construction activities of the week.