Saying Goodbye

Well, the time has come. Our latest adventure in the DR is coming to an end. To be honest, it doesn't feel so much like an adventure anymore but just life. It's interesting how you can become accustomed to things that are very different than you're use to. It's been 8 years since we made our first visit to Sosua and it's been nice to come back and see faithful brothers and sisters still serving Jehovah, it's been fun seeing how the young ones that have grown and made advancement in the Truth. As always, we've enjoyed the ministry here. We did our study with Vilma for the last yesterday, we've turned her over to the special pioneer couple here, so she is in good hands. She told us yesterday that she has known and talked to many different Jehovah's Witnesses over the years but this is the first time that she has taken time to study. When Doug got her in the door to door ministry he was using more of a direct approach using 1 Tim 2:4 and opening with the question, What do you think God's will if for you personally? and highlighting that it is to come to an "accurate" knowledge of truth and she needed to have a study of the Bible. This obviously touched Vilma and we returned a few days later to have her first study. So it's a good lesson in not giving up on people in our territory even those we're preaching to often because we never know when something will happen that will touch their heart and move them to want to come to know Jehovah. I have my last study with Laura this coming Tuesday, I'll be sad to say goodbye to her but we're hoping to stay in touch. So we'll miss the ministry here, the beautiful blue skies and warm breezes but there are some things we won't miss like the bugs! spiders, roaches, mosquitoes.....and the crazy drivers, the limited selection at the grocery stores. I'm looking forward to seeing my washing machine and dishwasher again. Our neighbors that were letting us use their washing machine moved out about 2 weeks ago so we are back to doing laundry by hand. And there have been a few times when we've been without electricity or water, ya know just things you take for granted back home. And we're looking forward to getting back to our Spanish group, hopefully you'll see a little improvement in our Spanish????? It really does help you get more comfortable with a new language, being able to use it regularly, chit, chatting at the meetings, being able to have conversations at just about every door in the ministry and conducting Bible studies, so we're thankful for the opportunity we've had here, I've always felt that our visits here are a gift from Jehovah. We're always asked at our last meeting, When are you coming back? and we always say quien sabes (who knows) We've said different times this is probably our last time....but quien sabes. We have our last visit with Cory and Jeni this week and then they'll be driving us to the airport. So see ya all soon, our flight is the 27th, our first meeting will be March 2.

My last picture for you, as the horses ride off into the sunset.

Some prettty things

These orchids are growing near our place

These are all orchid plants and the others have some blooms on them also

The view from my beach chair yesterday

My Bible Student, Laura

Sorry the weather continues to be yucky back home, but hang in there, Spring is Coming!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

February 15, 2013

Well, it's hard to believe that a year has past already, but it has, So HAPPY ANNIVERSARY Cory and Jeni, we wish you many more and we're happy to be here with you on your first anniversary!

Cory and Jeni are with us this weekend and we decided to do a fire on the beach and watch the full moon come up.

One Year Later, they seem pretty happy!

Roasted Hotdogs!

The Good and The Bad

Hi everyone, we've been sorry to hear that many of you have been dealing with the cold and flu. It's been the same for the congregation here. Every meeting there is someone new that is missing because of  "el gripe" (cold or flu). Doug and I both had it, Doug had it much worse than me which is unusual because usually I'm the one that gets the annual cold and Doug doesn't catch it. But this time Doug had a pretty miserable time with it but I didn't get too sick and it didn't last too long. But finally we're both feeling pretty good and we're hoping that there are no more sicknesses for the rest of our time here. So that was the bad, now the good.

We had the opportunity to visit with our friends, the Radimersky family. We had made arrangements early in January for a beach day together with the family. They live about 3 hours from here so we picked a beach about half way between us and were looking forward to a day at one of our favorite beaches (Playa Grande) and catching up with our friends. Of course when you pick a date weeks in advance you never know what the weather is going to be like. As the day approached, our weather took a turn for the worse, Friday it rained off and on, Saturday - total rain, Sunday not much better (monday is our beach day) We kept hoping that the weather would change. It's still raining when we get up Monday morning but we decide to keep our plans and hope for a few rays of sunshine. We met up at the apartment of a Brother and Sister from Austria, they are friends of the Radimerskys and where they had spent the night. It was still raining off and on so we visited awhile and I was served the BEST cup of coffee that I've ever had, Seriously! I haven't been drinking much coffee since we've been here because I just don't like how I make it and haven't found a good place to buy it. So when David offered me a cup, I said sure. As I'm sitting there chatting with Richard and Rebekka, I hear coffee beans being ground (I'm starting to get excited). It was so good and I'm thinking, even if the sun doesn't come out, this was so worth the trip. Anyway it's about lunch time by now and we're all hungry so decide that at least we'll go over to the beach for lunch, which is known to serve some of the best fresh fish you can buy. We sit out on a cliff over looking the water and yes there is blue sky and sunshine now and the fish arrives along with rice, platanos, french fries, avocado. And yes, it's the best fish I've ever had! Or maybe I was just really hungry, anyway, it was really good. Here are some pictures of the day.

Ordering lunch, that's David, the coffee maker on the right

The Radimerskys, The surf board belongs to David but even though they couldn't stay for the afternoon on the beach with us, he left the surfboard because Lucas (the 11 year old) desperately wanted to try surfing, but unfortunately none of the rest of us knew anything about how to surf.

This monkey is carved out of a coconut. a man came around with box of them at lunch and tried to sell us them for 800 pesos each, Rebekkah thought they were kinda cute so offered him 250 pesos for one, the man said no and put his monkeys back in the box and left but later another man comes walking down the beach with the same box and Rebekkah again tells him that her final offer is two for 500 pesos, without any arguing he says ok, which two do you want!

Happily for Lucas, this young Dominican Man was offering surf lessons, after Rebekkah did a little negotiating and a price was settled on, Lucas got his first surfing lesson, it began on the beach and then was taken into the water. He did really good and we had fun watching him.

That's Lucas getting up on the board for one of his first times!

Some more good things: Doug and I were doing some Return Visits the other day and were walking up a main street in one of the territories when a woman called out to me from inside a store, at first I thought she was just trying to get my business but no she recognized us as Jehovah's Witnesses and wanted to know if I had any of those magazines to read. She told me she Loved reading them. How nice is that to be stopped and asked for literature! In doing door to door the other Saturday I was invited in by a teenage boy. He was so polite and gave such intelligent answers to my questions. I decided to offer him the Good News bkl and explained our Bible Study arrangement and asked if he's like to have a bible study which he said yes to,  so I made arrangements to go back the next Saturday, which Doug and I did return and had the nicest study with Luis who is 14 years old, his 16 year old brother was hanging around and listening also. No parents were home either Saturday and the two older boys were watching their 2 year old brother. I've since found out that the mother studied in the past and even attended a few meetings but is not doing anything now, but obviously some seeds had been planted with these boys so we'll do a little more watering while we're here.


  Some of the Beautiful Friends in Our Congregation!

A Bible Student with a pioneer from Germany

Aren't they adorable

Joann from England and Katia from Finland

Ok, the best good news for last, Cory and Jeni have their tickets, they'll be arriving in the States May 3!

English Meetings

Hi everyone, this past week we had the opportunity to visit the Sosua English congregation since our Spanish congregation was attending the C.A. which we've already attended. Doug and I were in Sosua when the English was just beginning. We were at the very first Sunday meeting in which Doug gave the public talk. I think there were maybe 30 in attendance at that first meeting 3 or 4 years ago. Well there were only 4 other people there this past Sunday besides Doug and I that had been in attendance that very first Sunday. And what was the attendance this Sunday......111. Wow  Of course they did have a lot of visitors, vacationers etc in attendance but still! One Elder told us that he counted 10 Bible studies in attendance which is great and if you've been reading the yearbook, the experience from the DR, that's from the Sosua English congregation. So it truly is serving a need here. It was nice for us to relax and enjoy a meeting in English. Afterwards we grabbed some pizza and headed to the beach in Sosua and met up with some other brothers and sisters and enjoyed some visiting with friends from different parts of the world.

Notice the three year texts in three languages, Spanish, English, and Creole. When we first came to Sosua 7-8 years ago there was one Spanish congregation. Today from the one there are three Spanish, one Creole, one English and also groups of Russian and Sign Language

This picture is for Danelle, This is Jana a mutual friend, she is currently serving with the Creole congregation.

I'll share two highlights from the ministry this past week. On Tuesday at Laura's study, we had a visitor. A young Dominican woman stopped in to see Laura. We had just gotten started in the study so Laura invited her to join us which she did. She didn't say a whole lot but when I was getting ready to leave, she said that next week she would come at the beginning of the study! When I talked with Laura on the phone the next day she said again that after I left the woman said how much she enjoyed the study and that I taught in a way that didn't make her feel "foolish". And that she wanted to come next week. So that made me feel really good. I'm often nervous and doubting my ability to teach in Spanish but this shows the benefits of keeping it simple, it's really what people need. The second nice experience we had this week was on Saturday at our study with Vilma. Doug had given her the assignment to teach her children Jehovah's name and also a quality of his by using an example in creation. She completed both assignments and related how she did so, it was very encouraging. Also during the study something cam up about time management and Doug told her that she would enjoy next month's magazines in which she replied "I've already read them online". We had told her about our website last week and the many tools it had to help us teach our children. So it was great to see how she had taken the initiative to not only check it out but use it!

Well that's all my news, it would be nice to hear from you! Enjoy some flowers around us.

Some Pictures

 Yesterday, Matt and Debra came over to the apartment for a visit. We had a nice visit, took a walk down to the beach, here are some pictures.

Matt was trying to get a fruit for me (can't remember the name of it but it is green with spines on it and suppose to be white in the middle, I guess we'll have to wait till one falls off to try it.

"I'm Having So Much Fun"

Cory gave the talk at our hall last night

After the meeting, Doug's talking with a new family that just arrived from New York, they are here for three months.

"Take my picture too"

I said those words, "I'm having so much fun" to the young sister I was working with in the ministry last Sunday. And it occurred to me that I don't really say that too much anymore. As I've grown older, one of the things I've discovered that I just don't enjoy things like I use to. The things that I loved to do when I was young, roller skating, skiing, running through the woods etc. Just don't get the same kick out of those things, probably because my body doesn't cooperate very well and I pay the consequences the next day. But there is a joy that we get from sharing in the preaching that it doesn't matter how many times I've done it, there is still a joy that is beyond all others. This past Sunday was a little extra special. It was announced at the meeting that Sunday would be a special service day in conjunction with another local congregation. The two congregations were going to help another congregation preach in seldom worked territory. Doug and I have participated in this kind of thing before here in the DR. We'd pack a lunch and go for the whole day up into the mountains, some remote are that didn't get preached to that often. It involved a lot of walking, passing through streams and over rickety bridges to talk to people seldom preached to. This time was a little different in that we were traveling to a town that didn't get preached in often because there was no congregation close by. We were told to meet at 8:30 a.m. at a local gas station and we would all pile into whatever cars, trucks, vans, etc. and travel about 40 minutes to this town. We had a large amount of support from the brothers here in the Cabarete congregation. It seemed like every publisher showed up. When we arrived in the town where we were to preach and were joined by the brothers from the Castillo congregation, the total was 90 brothers and sisters that had shown up to preach! We all piled out onto this side street where the brothers arranged us into groups of about 15-20 with a Captain assigned to work a certain portion of the town. It was quite a site to see! Matt and Debra McKinney are part of the Castillo congregation and Matt was asked to say the pray before we started in the Ministry (this was done in the Middle of the street in a voice loud enough for all to hear).  My partner Hannah and I had a beautiful morning enjoying many good conversations. One woman I talked to said that she had never talked to Jehovah's Witnesses, can you imagine! Since it was Sunday, many children were around, we had the opportunity to talk to several groups of young ones playing on the street and showing them was God's name is. Our part of the territory took us up a very steep hill where we enjoyed some beautiful scenery. We met a family group where four generations were living together. I talked to the older couple while Hannah talked with the two younger generations. It was really just so much fun! We were told to meet back in the middle of the town at a park where would all enjoy some lunch together. We had packed a little to eat but were surprised to find out that the sisters of the Castillo congregation had prepared food for all. No, there was no way they could have food for 90 people so we held back to see if there was sufficient. But indeed there was! We enjoyed some rice and chicken and had a nice time visiting.


We're continuing to enjoy many good experiences in the local territory. Doug found a woman last Wednesday who seemed very interested in learning more so he told her that he would bring his wife back on Saturday and show her how to study the Good News booklet. She was waiting and prepared, had great questions. We had a another great study yesterday, she had all the scriptures looked up and marked in her Bible. She said she was going to try to come to the meeting last night but she didn't make it. My study, Laura, came to both the Thursday and Saturday meetings last week and she made it last night also.

One of the things we enjoy while in the DR is eating and trying to recipes with the ingredients we can find here. Doug discovered this past week, that we have an avocado tree growing  next to our apartment building. So he found a big stick and knocked a few down. We waited a few days till they started to ripen and cut our first one up, Delicious! Since we have a free supply of Avocados, I started looking online for some different recipes to use them in. We like just cutting them up with a little salt or putting them on a sandwich but I found a recipe for Pasta with avocado sauce, hmmmm green spaghetti??  But decided to try it. It was weird eating green spaghetti but it tasted pretty good.

Meeting at the Gas Station

Some of the group on the street in the Territory

Quite a steep Hill, but pretty view from the top

Hannah and I

At the park for Lunch, can you pick out anyone you know??

The sisters dishing out the food!

So Cory and Jeni are with us  till tomorrow, we're heading to Cabarete this morning for some breakfast and enjoy some time on the beach.  Hope you all are well.........................................!