The Rowe ('S) in the DR

Set of Car Hood Skins used as front gates for a drive to a house.

        So our daughter Rachel joined us on June 4^th for about 4 weeks. Her husband Elliot Rowe will

Rachel, on one of our many excursions.

be getting here (hence the title of the blog) on this coming Wednesday night, the 19^th for a week and then they both fly home on the 27^th. While Rachel has been here, she has spent a lot of time at Genesis with Karen just observing the classrooms and teachers. Then tomorrow (Monday the 17^th) there will not be classes and Rachel well be helping with some teacher training. She has a degree in Special Education and also a major in Spanish. Karen is looking forward to being part of that training and the two of them doing that together will be great I am sure. Many of the students at Genesis are the same ones that were here when Rachel worked here at Genesis in the fall of 2010. Most of the teachers are also the same. 

     

           We have also been spending a lot of time “exploring” on the motos. That has been a great time for me to be with her. Both Saturdays we took extended trips to parts of the island that she had never been to before (of course, they are places almost not accessible by car) so that was neat to do that with her. She has

also really enjoyed being able to worship at the

Spanish church again after several years of not having that. It has been great to have her here with us

as we look forward to Elliot coming in a couple of days. We enjoyed having all of “the Bigs” visit us now in the last 12 months. We are able to show them how God has used us here and all that happens here in the DR. 

       

       Next week I have a team coming from the states to work construction so I have two jobs lined up for them. One will be putting a deck on the guest house at the base and then after that we will be moving to work on the house of Maribel, the assistant director at Genesis with Karen. They have been living in a two room house for many years now. They added a kitchen that you need to go outside to access and they would like a living room that will then also put the kitchen under the same roof as the rest of the house. Our sending church in Indiana had a fund raiser several weeks ago for us and we choose (with their blessing) to use some of the funds in this way. We will not complete that job I am sure, but it will be a big boost for Samuel and Maribel.

View of one of the streets in the capitol that we cross over.

     

        One other big news item at Genesis for Karen is that we were able to hire a new teacher/helper as the number of children has increased since the school moved to its new location. The coolest thing about hiring the new teacher is that it was funded by a monthly gift from a family in our home community. Part of the way that SI DR works is that at the 15 different sites, each site director is responsible for raising funds for that particular site. Such as, paying the teachers, food for the lunches, electricity, internet, gas, rent………. Some of the sites the monthly cost is much less but the Special Education site is by far the most expensive site to operate with the large staff on payroll. Almost all of that money is sent in monthly from people that have spent time at the site, or had children at the site, or had some sort of tie to the Special Education site. It was such a God thing that the first family that I had contacted agreed to cover the extra teachers payroll for the next couple of years.  WOW! They know who they are and THANKS SO MUCH for that. That is just one example of the blessing that we receive and see here that I keep referring too in this blog. God is so evident here and we are SO blessed to be a part of His work here in Jarabacoa.