The Friends and Family plan

Day at the beach with Greg, Abby, Jeff, Rachel, Fred, Lauren and the littles

Once again we have been so blessed with family visiting us here, and this time it was our four older children and a couple of their spouses, all at the same time. We had a great time with them and as I write this, Rachel is still with us for another week. We rode some motos, went to some of the waterfalls, went to the beach one day, worshiped together, shared many meals together, played some games, watched some movies, and just had a lot of fun. This is the third time for most of them to come down and visit. Elliot, Rachel's husband was not able to come this year as he had started a new job and did not have any vacation time coming yet. 

Family photo at our home in Jarabacoa

Family Photo taken at the SI Base

          Rachel will be going back on June 27th and Janae will be going back with her. Janae will spend a week in Shipshewana and then meet Karen in Atlanta for a week at WellSpring Camp, a camp for special needs kids. Janae will be a counselor there for the week and Karen will spend a couple of days planning for when WellSpring comes to Jarabacoa and does day-camp for Genesis. Janae will then fly back home when WellSpring comes down on July 15th. WellSpring will then be here for a week of day-camps. It will be good for Janae to have the opportunity to go back for a week but also a but scary to have her flying alone. But I am sure she will be fine.

     We also have a praise that we have spoken to a lady that her husband is coming on staff with SI in August, and she will be tutoring Marcy this coming school year. We have met them before as they have been here on outreaches other times and have actually lived in the Dominican Republic for a couple of years in Santiago in the past. They will be arriving on August 3rd and we are all looking forward to having Dave Adams join our men's sports site and then to have Megan tutor Marcy. It will be a bit of a different schedule but should work out great. 

A laptop charger that was  fried through the wiring.

The corner with all the supplies that got he worst of it.

 Another point of news here at SI is that on Sunday night at about 8:30, I received a call that our Physical Therapy site was on fire. When I got there, the one fire truck in town was on the scene and had the fire "mostly out" enough that we could start to go in and get things out and put them in our Dentistry site, right next door. It had started by a transformer blowing out on a pole outside the clinic. The electrical fire followed the wires inside and sparked the inverter we had inside and then followed all the wires inside the walls in the building. There is not a lot of protection again these kind of surges so it is something that we live with. We could put a disconnect switch and turn it off each night but, that is when the electric is on and it charges the batteries for the day, when the electric is off. It is so foreign as to anything we would experience in the states but, WE ARE NOT IN THE STATES. We spent most of Monday cleaning up the mess then on Tuesday started the "final cleanup" of scrubbing walls, pressure spraying, rebuilding one wooden wall, (everything else was concrete), and getting ready for painting. Hopefully by Monday we can start to paint and be ready for our next outreach there on June 30th.

The place where the fire started

      Pray that we can use this incident to praise God that it was not worse than it was and that no-one was hurt. 

The hardest part, is waiting.

        As the summer teams start to arrive again, it is nice to see all the staff again at meal times. We eat most of our meals together when teams are here and then when teams are not here, we eat at home. We were reminded with the teams starting up again that the main reason that we eat together is not to save us money on our grocery bill but rather to have the interaction with the groups that are here. So it is a hard act to balance. Spending all day in the sites with the teams and then wanting to spend time with the other staff and your family, but yet, why are we here? Is it to be comfortable? Be around people that have a common interest and we know? Or is it to witness to the groups that come down? Which ever we choose, it is a good thing to think about.
    Sunday in church, we had a guest speaker that spoke on Matthew 26:58. As Peter was following the men taking Christ to Caiaphas, "Peter followed at a distance" and then stopped at the courtyard. What makes us "follow at a distance"? Why do we sometimes stay just far enough away from Jesus that maybe he won't notice the sin we are committing. Or maybe we are embarrassed of the way we have been acting towards others or a situation. There could be a multitude of reasons. Our Pastor in Shipshewana has a plaque on his wall that reads "If it seems like you are far from God, guess who moved" How true that is. I have also heard it said that we are all just as close to God as we truly want to be. If we say that "I just want to be close to God," there are many ways to do that but they all have to be intentional. Reading the bible, engaging in a Bible study, praying, spending time around other believers, etc. But it is all up to us individually as to how close of a relationship we have.

      I was reminded today of our new staff who are in the process of fundraising, attending Missionary Training, or Language School. As we anticipate them arriving, I am reminded of our time "in the waiting". There was a song out by Greg Long many years ago and some of the lyrics are: I want a peace beyond my understanding......It seems the hardest part is waiting on You, when all I really want is just to see Your hand move........And I would add MOVE NOW!! It is hard to wait though. Waiting to sell a house, waiting for the right person to marry, waiting for the right job and needing to work at your present location for now, waiting for a car to get repaired in a garage, waiting for the results to come back from a medical test, waiting on a red light when everyone else around you is driving right on through, waiting on an adult child that is not walking in the Lords way, waiting on that little stupid circle thing on our computers, while it sits there and spins, or as in the case of many of us in the mission field, waiting for the donations to come in and hit our account so we can move to the mission field and begin the work that God has called us to do there. His timing is ALWAYS best. ALWAYS!! (Dave and Megan, April, we are all praying for you in this waiting period of your life).
        I close this post praying for all of those "in the waiting". May you receive the Peace of God in the waiting. Mike.

Rainy days, metal roofs, and livin the dream

My first  "Home Stay House" in El Cercado

       May is normally a month of a lot of rain. May 2014 has proven that to be true. As we sit in our dry house I was quickly reminded of my many trips to the south end of the country where I began my journey of living here. At that time I was with a different organization (Solid Rock International) and we did what they call "Home Stays". Now SI also does home stays in some of their country locations but not here in Jarabacoa. Anyway, during my work trips there, I would stay in the house of Nena. It was a typical lower income Dominican home, built into the side of a hill, and several homes shared one out-house (centered in photo). In the out-house was a large plastic dishpan with a 5 gal bucket beside it. We would stand in the washtub and dip water out of the bucket to take our shower. The roof of the house was made out of metal and was basically peppered with small rust holes that, when it rained at night, it would drip on our bed. I shared a room there several trips with my brother-in-law Gerald Lee. We would lay there at night and just laugh and laugh as the we would move from one side of the bed to the other to "dodge" the rain drops as they hit the plastic mattress covers. 

        As it rains here now, and I am in my dry house listening to it,  I think back to those nights in El Cercado where we would laugh and think to ourselves, "it's only for a week". Now I think of Nena and that house and have different thoughts. For her and her family, it is not only for a week. It is a way of life. Dodging the raindrops, walking the slippery goat path up about 3 rows of houses high in the side of the hill. Day after day. For some reason, I no longer laugh when I think about it. 

       This last week, some of us had the privilege of going to the North side of Santiago and looking at a possible future work location for SI. it was in a community that had housing very similar to my first "home for a week" in the DR. But again, for those living there is is a way of life. There is such a need there and yet the Pastor in that community is full of energy and love for the people there. In the eyes of the North Americans, they have so little. In their eyes, they have so much. Pray for the people in Segundo Progreso. And pray for SI as they discern working in that community.

A farmer leading his oxen down one of the main streets in front of Genesis. He does this about once a month of so.

Our new Prayer card photo. Our Daughter-in-Law Lauren (Smith) Unternahrer made the sign for our house.

      

Semana Santa (Holy Week)

     

This spring Karen and I were asked to go to Guatemala for an SI outreach during Semana Santa,the second week in April. It intrigued us both to go to the SI site in Guatemala to see how they did things the same, different and all around. The biggest difference is that they do home stays there rather than base stays. In other words, when groups come to visit them, they stay in homes in the communities rather than stay all together like the teams do here in the DR. Other than that it was really much like here in the DR. One thing that we did while there was to visit Antigue, it is the old Capitol City of Guatemala. During Semana Santa, there is a celebration that is like non other in all of south and central America during that week. They make "carpets" in the streets out of colored sawdust. They will spend an average of 8-12 hours on each carpet and then the parade will walk over it and completely ruin it. Behind the parade is a Skid Loader and dump truck that scoops up the sawdust and cleans the street for the next parade. As you can see by the photos, many of them are very intricate. It was great to go there but better to come back home.
       As for our life here in Jarabacoa, we have been busy as usual. Karen's last day at Genesis for the Spring semester was on Friday April 11th. She was then back in the office again last week and the teachers return this coming week with the kids returning on May 5. We have the privilege of having the Executive team from California join us for our spring training and staff retreat. Dave Hanson, Lowell Troyer and Nate Schlabach will be among those that will be working with us during that time. We always look forward to them coming. There is a lot of knowledge, wisdom and Godly training whenever they come visit. They will be with us for a week or two.
      We also were made aware of this week that most likely Marcy will be doing a different type of schooling next school year here in Jarabacoa. We are not sure what that will look like or what it will be at this point but we covet your prayers as we seek what God has in store for that. Janae will be returning to Doulos like this year and Nina will be going back to Genesis as far as we can see now.
       On a lighter side now, I have been attending a small group from our church and it is all in Spanish. I have mentioned it before. Normally, Eric Miller (from the Goshen/Clinton area) attends but not always. Every once in a while I need help figuring something out that was said in Spanish and he will help me with it. I usually get along pretty well anyway. Last week Eric was not there and after the meeting, they always have time for prayer requests. Well the one lady, Gisselle, mentioned that her mother, Gladys, was not well and just she started to say the details of what was wrong with her, as is the custom here, 4 other people all start talking about the same time, at an escalated level, and to me it didn't sound as much like Spanish as it did %*&^%*&77tg897987   698655655yug5%^&%%^67tt7^^^.   All at once it got quiet, the group leader looked at me and said "Mike will you please pray for Gladys?" I looked at him and said......... "sssssssure". I prayed in English and even then was a bit nervous as the one guy in the group has fairly good English. Anyway. It all happened without incident and I closed the prayer and quickly left. Wow! What a night.
      One last thing to share. While we were in Guatemala, we went to the market one day and I saw a guy selling pirated

If you can see the wire all looped up. I guess they may need it sometime??

copies of the Noah movie that everyone has been talking about (at least I thought that was what he was selling). What follows is my Facebook post of what transpired after that.

        "So while we were in Guatemala I bought a pirated copy of a movie "El Arca de Noah" thinking it was the recently released movie that was making so much news. We watched it last night only to realize that it was not that movie after all. Our first clue was when "Noah" was coming home from war and was told of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It pretty well went down hill from there. To Noah drinking heavily while building the ark, to his three sons entering the ark with their girlfriends and then Noah performing the wedding ceremony after the ark landed on dry ground again, God saying no sex on the ark at all for the humans or the animals, to two pirate ships trying to over take the ark about half way through the 150 day journey, to God flopping back and forth should he destroy Noah and his family also or let them live. After God changing his mind several times He decides to let them stay living on the ark after all. Then I was finally put out of my 3-1/2 hour misery when the ark didn't "come to rest on dry ground" but rather crash landed into the side of a rock mountain. 
I guess maybe that was my punishment for knowingly buying a pirated movie. IDK?????? I would have to give this movie two thumbs and two big toes down."

 Needless to say, It was not what I thought it was. Oh well :) 

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.
     

A visit from the Yoder's

Relaxing with Stan and Barb after a hard day of work

Stan working on one of the three boats that we made.

The kids at Mis Primeros Pasos in Los Higos with their new sandbox

         Well now that really narrows it down
doesn't it? We were glad to have my sister Barb and her husband Stan Yoder come visit us for a week the end of February. Barb is an educator in Northern Indiana and so she enjoyed spending time with Karen at Genesis and then going around and seeing the other three preschools that SI has here. Stan spent his time here helping me make three sandboxes, shaped like boats. I get a donation from a family member every couple of months and this seemed like a great place to use those funds. Probably our highlight of their time here once again was just showing them what we do here, where we shop, go to church. We had a great time with them.
         We are now entering our second round of teams for 2014. We have (3) one week teams in March and we look forward to getting back into that groove again of having teams here.
      For those of you that have been here at the SI DR location before, you may remember Carlos. He was the guy in the kitchen that washed dishes and did general clean up in the kitchen area. You may remember him as being blind also. About mid Feb he was found in his apartment one Sunday morning by another base staff. We took his body to Santiago for an autopsy but will not have those results back for another month or so. Carlos is greatly missed. He always had a smile on his face and loved having fun. He lived right here in an apartment on the base so many people got to know Carlos over the years. Please pray for us as we continue to grieve over this loss.
      We have a new couple here Clint and Amy Parsons from the East Coast area. They are here to start up a new site, Media. This site will be used to take the photos of the teams when they are here and then when there are no teams here, they will be working on various things from newsletters for the national staff, to promotional videos for SIDR to maybe working with other agencies in town if they have a specific need. We are excited to see where this site can take SI and then to involve students with them that have an interest in media is a great addition also. We hope to get a new Blog or Facebook page for that that will be updated daily when we have teams here. That way the sending churches back in the states can follow what their groups are doing on a daily basis. Once that is up and running, I will let you all know how to access that.
      Here is a transcript of one of our dinner conversations in the last week with Janae, A little background, she is needing a form signed to take a test at her school, Doulos.

Janae: Did you stop at the school and talk to the director about that paper you're supposed to sign for me?

Mike: Yep, but she said that she didn't have it ready yet and will send it home with you either tomorrow or Monday for me.

J: But they said I have to have it tomorrow!!!!

M: I can't help it. They didn't have it ready.

J: Ok, I will just have you sign a paper then and I will take that tomorrow.

M: What? What are you talking about? I just told you they did not have it ready for me to sign.

J: I know that, but you can just sign a piece of blank paper, I will cut out your signature and then tape it on the paper that they give me then tomorrow.

M.....................Did you really just say what I think you said? You are going to "tape" my signature on a piece of paper and you actually think they will be OK with all of this? And you are actually 14 years old? 

J: What? Whats wrong with that? What????????????????

      Now you know better how to pray for our family. HA!!! 

  

The Blessings Continue

      We just finished with three weeks of teams at Students International. The teams during those three weeks included a group from our home sending church in Shipshewana two weeks ago and a group of 6 from our home area last week. This made for a full four weeks but a it was very rewarding time to be able to share with others what life is like for us here in the DR and why we feel so blessed to be here. Whenever we get visitors from our home area, we are always thankful for the work that they do here and the way that they they help us out, but even more than that, it gives us an opportunity to show them how God has blessed us through others and how we are no different then they are. We are trying to follow where He leads us just like they are, wherever they are living. He can use us all in different ways if we are willing.

Eating lunch on the deck with the Joshua Students

     In January I had the opportunity to lead a construction team through the Joshua Wilderness Program in California. I had three young men in all, all 20 years old with no real construction skills but very eager to learn. It proved to be one more time, of many times in my life, I had been reminded of my up-bringing and all that I was taught growing up on a small farm. During the two weeks we worked on several projects like building about 12' of barbwire fence, pouring 15 yards of concrete with a small gas mixer, and setting some 6X6 posts for a future project in another community. Questions came up like, "Why do you staple the wire on the posts instead of just wrapping it around each post as you go?", "Why are we digging the holes so deep for the posts? Isn't 12" deep enough to hold it up?", "How do you know for sure that a 3'X4'X5' triangle is a perfect square?" "Why do you need to have sand in the concrete? There is a lot of dirt here, can't we just use it when we run out of sand?"
       I would be less than honest to say that it takes a lot of energy to answer questions like that, but thinking back, someone (primarily my dad) took the time to answer questions like that for me at some point. I would also say though, that I did enjoy the two weeks with them and was able to see the DR through their eyes for their first time here. Hopefully they saw how God is using us here in the DR as His witnesses for others to see Him in a different light. Our prayer is that when they see and work with us that they would see that it is only through Him that we are able to do what we do here.

Dave and Gerald working on the guard shack

      We also had Dave Wenger and my brother-in-law Gerald Lee here for a week. We worked on a shed for the gate guard at SI, and poured a 4'X45' sidewalk/ramp at Genesis and about 17 yards of concrete drive at the base. It is their second time here for both of them. They were here last April to help with the first phase of the sidewalk at Genesis when Shore Mennonite sent a team down to help there before the school had moved.

Dana and Caleb putting some finishing touches on the Los Higos House

    Then on Saturday the 1st, Fritz and Kris Bontrager, Steve and Marie Raber, and Dana and Caleb Bontrager came for 1 week to help out on two different projects. We started out by finishing the north lean-to on the Social Work site in Los Higos and then moved on to the base to work some more on the concrete driveway. We worked hard for the first three days then played on

Dana, Caleb, Don, Sheldon, Dave working on the drive

the motos for Thursday and Friday. We visited a couple of the waterfalls in the area and then went to the La Presa Tavera, a dam and reservoir north of Jarabacoa. It was fun to show them the sites in the area as well as what a normal day (if there is such a thing) looks like for us here. We look forward to having them back again sometime.

Don, Sheldon, Dave, Caleb, Dana, Steve and Fritz. (looks like I am the only not working here, Hmm????)

     We also had the help of three of Eric Miller;s family and friends from the Goshen, Indiana area helping us for two days: Dave Miller, Sheldon Swartz, and Don Miller. They were a big help with their expertise as well as physical help. Playing the Mennonite game of who knows who is always a great mealtime activity too. Thanks men for the help.
    


 
      

       We now have 10 days to get things in order for our next guests, my sister Barb and her husband Stan Yoder from Angola IN. We anxiously anticipate them being here from Feb 18-24. Of course I also have some work lined up for Stan as does Karen for Barb, at Genesis.
        Again, I want to thank all of you for your thoughts and financial support that you send us but even more than that, for your prayers and to God for His goodness that His grace in allowing us the opportunity to be here at this point in our lives.