Count my many blessings

     As we come to a close of hosting (3) one week teams back to back, I think of how they blessed us here at SI DR and wonder why the teams are always saying that we bless them so much. They bring us donations for the sites and for our national staff, and they bring us also a new outlook for the sites that can be refreshing. They lead us in worship at least one morning. But why is it that we feel that they bless us so much? Can it be that it goes back to the verse in Genesis 12:3 "I will bless those that bless you.....". So if that is true (and we know it is, because God is the one who said it), then why is it that we are so surprised when we get blessed by those that come to bless us? Of course God is going to bless us also. Then I begin to think of our time here as it has been almost two years and I can't count the times that I have said "We are so blessed here". It is true. I am also sure that just as we have been blessed, then God has blessed all of you too. Good health, financial support, a great house to live in, schools for all three of our girls, jobs that we love, visits from many in our home area, a church family that is much like that of our sending church (even if it is in a different language), a family of SI staff that we can have fun with, struggle with, work out disagreements with. The list goes on and on. God has been so good to us here and so many of you have been used by Him in making that happen.
      Since my last post, we have had three teams here. Mainly made up of colleges and high schools. One was from Taylor University, just a little over an hour south of our home town.

One of the stores in town delivering some chairs

Our version of a city bus here (yes, it is a dump truck)

The cab is much easier to get in when the door is completely off.

I want to finish with sharing something that happened this last week with the water at our house. When we moved into this house, we were told my the previous renters that we needed to "back flush" the water line that came into our cistern, from the city water supply, every couple of months or so as it would build up with sediment and start to clog (keep in mind this is not our drinking water but that which we use to wash with and bathe with). About mid December I noticed that our cistern was not filling at all anymore and the back flushing was not working either. I was told that with all the new building going on in town, that the water pump for the street water was just not strong enough anymore to push it up hill to some of the houses. I then checked with my neighbor because I knew that his water came from a different main line. He had plenty of water so I used a garden hose for about a month to fill my cistern. I then talked to my landlord and told her of the problem and that I wanted to put a well in and she said that if I paid for it, she would take it off of my rent until it was paid for. Good deal for both of us actually. Well that was the plan and it worked out great until I went down to pay the water bill for the past few months and then to tell them to discontinue my contract since I now have a well. They proceeded to tell me that I lived in an area where the waterlines did not have shut off valves so I had to pay for it whether I used it or not. I explained to them that it was not a matter of not using but rather a matter of no water in the line. They said that it really didn't matter if there was water in the line or not, I still had to pay for the usage even if I didn't use it. Again I told them that there was no water there to "not use". It was dry, no water, empty. She then hands me a paper that talked about a new law that was passed where we had to pay for the water no matter what. I appears that this law was put in place about the same time that the pumps were no longer big enough to pump the water to all the houses. Last Friday they sent a guy out to look at what I had and he turns to me and says, "There is no water coming out of that pipe? Why not?" I was like "Really, you are asking me why your pipe has no water in it? It's because your pumps are not big enough." So he writes up a paper that confirms that the pipe was dry and now I am not sure what will happen. I figure I will tell the landlord about it since the bill is in her name and she is Dominican they may have a different story for her. Just another day in the DR.