Teaching at VBS

      

They used flanelboards. . .

  Fior, Robert and Luz taught the main lessons to the children during the week.


 Fior taught the first day.

and pictures. 

Robert was very animated and the kids loved it!                   

                                                                                                       

Luz definitely had their attention.

They all did a GREAT job! 

Vacation Bible School Amanecer

    Wednesday through Friday we held VBS in Amanecer.We were blessed to be able to use the school facilities for the three days. Santa, one of the ladies from the church who lives in Amanecer, has developed a relationship with the principle and students at the school and they were wonderful to allow us to use the facility. The government runs and maintains the school and it was great! During the school year, they have 1000 students in this facility. It is not a huge school when you consider how many students are there on a regular basis, but for us it was huge! At the recommendation of the principle, the VBS was limited to students 8-10 years old and there was a minimal fee required. This was the first VBS held there so we were not exactly sure how many to expect. The area of Amanacer is a squatters village and the people there are very poor. The fee was VERY small, but the leaders felt it important to require it so that the kids had some investment in what they were doing, that it wasn't viewed as a handout.
     We had a great few days there, the kids who came had fun and learned a lot. They heard Bible stories, sang songs, did crafts, ate snacks, played games, memorized Bible verses and were told how much God loved them. As a result, twelve accepted Christ as their Savior. Praise God !

 This was made by a few of the ladies at the church, based on the camp shirts Gregg designed. They did a great job!

These kids were here early the first day to make sure they got in.

Some of the leaders trying to get name tags for all the kids. First day details. . .

Beautiful children waiting patiently as they are getting books, name tags etc. They were all incredibly well behaved!

Yani, the VBS Director, singing with the kids.

Amanecer VBS 2011

Your Word is Truth

     On Saturday afternoon, we met with the ladies of the church for a training session on how to do an inductive Bible study. We were expecting twelve ladies, but were prepared for fifteen. Well, we had about eighteen show up.( I think that was the final count.) We had a great time. There are a few differences in how things translate into Spanish that slowed us down a little bit at first, but we soon figured out how to handle it and then we were good to go.
     I am so blessed to have Anna interpreting  for me. She is very easy to work with and things flow well between us. The time seemed to fly by. There was an event at another local church that was going on that night and several of the ladies were taking teenagers to that event. So we knew we were working in a limited time frame. I brought study books for them and knew that they would be finishing them on their own using the tools we had discussed.

     The book How Do You  Know God is Your Father is a study of 1 John. Well, we started the book and they were really getting the concepts when some had to leave. I told them I would be here til next week if they wanted to continue at another time. They are so excited about learning God's Word! We are actually trying to schedule another night to get together and continue working through the study together.
      Our God is so faithful! When we seek to know Him, He is always ready to reveal Himself to us. It is exciting to see the children of God really studying His Word, and understanding new things through that study! What a blessing that the Holy Spirit lives in us and is our teacher and guide.
     In John 17:15-17 Jesus is praying for us: "I do not ask  You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world,  even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth."
Father, help me to always seek Your truth.

Thank You for Praying!

     I want to thank you all for your prayers for this trip. Things are going incredibly well. Of course there are always the things you have to be flexible about, but it has been wonderful! I am trying to keep up on blogging about the events, although I still have some to catch up on.
     Please pray for the things still to come, and there are many. Wednesday thru Friday (10AM - noon) this week we will be in Amanacer for a VBS. This will be targeted for 8-10 year olds. We are meeting at the school and are having to limit attendance to the first 50 to register. 
     We had such a great response at the training session on How to Study your Bible Inductively, that we are looking to possibly continue with another session this Friday night (6ish).
     On Saturday (4-6PM), we will be traveling to Santiago for a ladies event there. Pray for safe travel as well as the ladies there.
    Then on Sunday we will have services at Iglesia Bautista Gracia y Verdad (10AM and 7PM).
Thank you so much for your prayers!
    

Just the Simple Things

     I am so glad to be here in Santo Domingo with Mike and Anna. It is a blessing to be able to spend time with such dedicated servants. On this trip, I am staying at their home and that is a new experience. All the other mission trips I have been on, I have stayed in a hotel. And even though you spend time with the missionary, it is not ALL the time. This trip has been different and I have had my eyes opened to a little more of what they deal with daily.

     In the United Stated we take so much for granted that you can't  count on here. Like your electricity working. When I arrived on Tuesday, Anna picked me up at the airport because Mike was home trying to get the electricity fixed. You see, using a blow-dryer and and iron at the same time blew it out.

     When I get ready to leave my house and go out, I press the electric garage door opener and am on my way. Mike and Anna have to unlock the gate with a key and move the iron gate across the front of their garage. Back the car out and then get out and replace and re-lock the gate. Every access to their home has to be secured. I believe Anna said there are 17 padlocks at their house to secure things ! Gee, I have one key to the door.

     When I want a glass of water at home,I turn on the tap. They have to buy jugs of water for drinking and to make ice. Washing the dishes means washing them, then rinsing them in a clorox water solution, then setting them out to dry, then wiping them down before putting them away. No automatic dishwasher here! And with three children, there are lots of dishes!

     There are police doing traffic stops daily, and we seem to get pulled often. Usually once they realize Mike is a pastor, they send us on our way. :) But that still means you are delayed getting to where you were headed.

     Then there are the challenges of simply living in a country where they don't think or reason like we do. For example, Anna took things to the copy shop to have printed for VBS. She took the brand new, unopened packs of colored paper and gave it to them to use for the covers. Later, Mike picked up the copies, and when we were putting the booklets together, found that we were 7 red covers short. They put a note saying they had messed the copies up, but instead of just replacing it from their matching stock, they left it. Now we need to make another trip to shop to get it fixed.

The t-shirts for the children at VBS were dropped off to the people to be printed. Because they were all grey shirts, but being printed with different colors, Anna and Mike had them sorted by size and how many they needed of each color. They bagged them and labeled each bag. Well, someone at the shop decided to dump them out of the bags into one big pile. Then, Friday afternoon, Mike and Anna had to go over to the shop and separate them again so they could be printed. They were supposed to be ready for pick-up Tuesday.

Yes, in the US we have things to deal with and frustrations, but it seems to be a regular occurrence here. The joke among the missionaries here is that if you accomplish only 3 things on your to-do list, it has been a GREAT day!

Oh, for things to be simple.

Need I say more?

The Ladies of Amanacer

     One of the ladies from Mike and Anna's church lives in a little area called Amanacer. Her name is Santa. Santa is a very enthusiastic, energetic christian lady who is VERY bold in her faith. She has an incredible passion to reach people for Christ. She has started doing an after school program at her home to teach children about God. There is a Bible study group that meets at her home on Tuesdays each week. There are many other things that she does, but throughout them all, you see her love for Christ. 

    
      Well, Santa has a burden for the ladies of Amanacer. So she hosted a ladies night last night at her home. Anna and I were able to go there and spend a little time pampering these ladies and telling them about God. We used the "satin hands" idea from Mary Kay and adapted it slightly. First we washed our hands thoroughly, then used the polishing scrub, moisturized them and talked about using anti-bacterial lotion to protect us from those things we cannot see, but that can harm us.

       After we finished that part of the evening, we talked about the need to follow those same steps in our spiritual lives. How we need God to cleanse our hearts from sin, to wash us clean so we can become His children. Once we accept Jesus, and become a child of God, the Father begins to shape us into a new creation. That means we are going to be changed. We will no longer live like the world. He begins to polish the rough edges, just like the scrub did to our hands. We talked about maintaining that relationship through having a friend to be accountable with, and to encourage each other. Finally, we talked about the Holy Spirit that is living within us, and how He helps us to stay healthy spiritually. 

 

   We shared refreshments and gave out gifts. We had a wonderful night. The Spirit of God was definitely moving in that place. The beginning of the evening Satan was fighting hard to distract from the things of God. We had a horrific downpour that flooded into the house we were meeting at. There was conflict with a neighbor. But God has blessed Santa's dedication. She was saying that she has dedicated her home to the Lord in whatever way he would choose to use. As a result, a little boy accepted Christ there that morning, and the ladies heard the gospel again that evening. 

     Please pray for the work that God is doing in Amanacer. That He would be honored and glorified by all that happens there.

Great Times with Incredible Women

     What a GREAT day Wednesday was! There were a few things to do at the house in the morning and then Anna had made plans for us to have lunch with some friends of hers. We went to a delightful little place called Para Te. It is a small oriental restaurant that serves DELICIOUS teas. For those of you who know me, oriental is NOT on my list of favorite foods, but the tea was great. And the company, even better!

   

  I had the honor to dine with seven missionary ladies, who Anna meets with for Bible study. They are from a variety of denominations, but with the most important thing in common. They love God, and it shows! Their laughter was contagious and we shared a wonderful lunch. Well, we couldn't didn't eat much of the food, but it gave us great moments of laughter as we tried!  Some, (Melinda and Anna) are heading home on furlough and one (Michelle) will be leaving the DR to follow God's leading to Alabama.  (Some may say that is still a foreign mission field, .) I think all of them had been in the DR over 5+ years and one dear lady, Betty,had been in Haiti for almost 15 years before coming here to start a Haitian church. 

      It was such a blessing to listen to them encourage one another, to lift each other up, to help out with various challenges that they are facing.I was challenged in my spirit to lift these families up, they face challenges DAILY that we can't imagine. I am again reminded that I take SO much for granted. May God continue to bless these incredible ladies and the work that they and their husbands are doing.

Later that evening, Anna led the ladies Bible study at their church. They had a great group there and they were so excited about studying God's Word. They had obviously done much studying at home and had a great discussion time. Again, what a blessing to hear God's people digging into the Word to hear what the Lord has for them in their personal walk.

What a picture lesson I got today! Spending time with those who have dedicated their lives to serving and teaching, and the fruit of the labor.