They're Married! (The Civil Ceremony)

Last Picture with Cory as a single man!

 Yesterday, February 12, 2013, Cory & Jeni were legally married!  It was a big day and we all got dressed up for the occasion. The legal paper work was filed last week at the government office and an appointment was made with the Judge for the wedding.

But just because we made an appointment, doesn't mean things would actually happen at that time! So we waited.

And Waited

And Waited

And Waited some More!

We finally got called into the Judge's office, all eight of us. The older couple, Brother & Sister Nunez were chosen to be the legal witnesses for the wedding. I think they told me they've been married for 65 years. They've served as full-time servants for many years and are like the grandparents to the Luperon congregation. What a great choice.

 As they were reading over the paper work to make sure everything was accurate. Oh, no, a mistake was found! They had misspelled the name of the mother of the groom! My Name! They spelled it Devora (which is a common last name in this area).  So we waited some more as they fixed this error.

Finally the ceremony took place,  rings were exchanged

And then more signing of Papers!

We drove over to the beach area to take a few Pictures.

We then  went back to Jeni's house where her Aunts had prepared a lovely lunch for us!

A few more gifts were opened.

We visited and enjoyed some stories told by brother Nunez. It was a very nice day. For those of you wondering. The community here doesn't view them as officially married till after the wedding talk at the Kingdom Hall on Friday so that is when Jeni and Cory will begin their life together.

Doug & I are moving out of Cory's house today, we'll be staying in a hotel in Luperon till after the wedding on Friday. And then the second part of our adventure in the DR will begin.  Stay Tuned!

Meet the Family!

 Jeni got to meet the Messerman side of the family yesterday! They arrived yesterday at a Resort in Puerta Plata so the four of us drove over to spend the day. It was pouring down rain when we got up in the morning (and I did order no rain for this week) but the day proved to be just fine, a bit cloudy but it didn't rain on us till the trip home that evening. So here are some pictures from the day.

Richard and Kelly were at the resort, they fly back to the States Tuesday, but it was nice to hang out with them too!

After lunch we had a little wedding shower on the beach.

Aunt Mary had put together a special gift for Jeni. She made a picture book of Cory's life.  I think Jeni really liked this gift and will treasure it.

This is a scene in Pennsylvania, a little touch of home!

 Jeni had a little something to give to the family then, a little token of the wedding.

Of course, what's a Messerrman gathering without a little volley ball.

Pap was the spectator.

It was  a lovely day, it's great to have some of our family here. For those of you who couldn't make it, we're thinking of you and wishing you could all be  here with us!

The Zone Visit

 I have to be honest, with all the exciting things to look forward to this week, the zone visit was kind of bottom on the list, just one more thing to be done with till the wedding.  But what a wonderful occasion! We traveled to La Isabella Kingdom Hall (Mike & Jess's KH) for the event. The two congregations have a combined total number of  publishers of a little over 40 but we had an attendance of 80!

We had been given the wrong time for the program to start. We had planned on being there over an hour before the program would start but because of the confusion of times we arrived 1/2 hour before the program started but it only took Cory about 10 mins to get things hooked up and the transmission of the program worked perfectly! There was a country wide attendance for the morning of over 35,000. But that wasn't the final total because some congregations were taping it to watch that afternoon or evening. 

Older Brother from the DR Branch was Chairman

 The program started off with a summary of the WT and then was followed by two fantastic talks. I was worried about being able to understand but the speakers both spoke slowly and clearly. The brother from the US Branch was American and very easy for us to follow. The first talk was about how we can keep pace with Jehovah's  organization and was a discussion of Ezekiel 1 .  The Brother then shared some interesting statistics about the work in the DR. He said the 35 percent of the country is not being preached to regularly, so could we serve where the need is greater! There is especially needs in the foreign language fields such as Creole and Sign Language.  What we need is faith and confidence in Jehovah to make such a move and he used the example of Abraham's family who moved to a foreign land. He also pointed out that the first miracle after the start of the Christian congregation was the gift of tongues to preach in different languages. The Main talk of the morning was on the theme of Continuing our way to the Mountain of Jehovah based on Isa 2 and dealt with four areas, controlling our thinking, self-control over our speech, excellent conduct, and preach with zeal. He then shared some experiences from around the world, including Cuba.

After the program, the congregation of La Isabella had some light refreshments for us! So the friends were able to enjoy a little association before heading back home. What a great morning!

I know you're probably getting tired of pictures of this family but I just adore them. They made the trip to La Isabella on the bike and Daniella sat with me in the front row for the program.

Six more days till the Wedding!

 Thought I'd share some pics from Playa Ensenada. You can see here how clear and calm the water is. Doug & I  were in the water, I was floating on my raft and he found a conch shell. It had a cool green color and it appeared to be empty, he handed it to me to hold as he pushed me back to shore. I was holding the shell down in the water and I felt something! I threw the shell at him and said that something was trying to eat me. After some patience on Doug's part, our little friend emerged from the shell and  I was able to get this picture of him.

 Can you see his blue eyes? He was a pretty color of orange.

We put him on the sand to see what he would do and he tried to walk away. Doug took him back into the water and let him go.

Enjoying another tasty meal of fish on the beach.

You can also order Lobster here on the beach. None of us are big lobster fans but we were tempted to buy one of these guys. As we were leaving the beach that evening. A truck came through with these guys in an ice chest. Some of them were Huge! I think they wanted about $12 for one but since none of us knew really how to prepare them, we passed.

I took this picture of the Milk delivery truck in service this past week. Cory has a study with a man who lives in the house behind and it is across from a cheese factory, now don't get mislead by the word "factory", it really is just a couple of shacks where they make cheese. But every morning the farmers bring in their milk to sell to the cheese factory.  This guy had finished his delivery and was heading home.

Cory's neighbor has a little saw mill next to his house and he got his delivery the other day. Doug was wondering how they were going to unload it. They untied the load and just rolled them off.

Jeni's mom Carmen & I worked in service together on Thursday. I took her back on a RV of mine that I had promised a Bible Teach bk. We had a really nice call and Carmen is going to study with they young woman.

The Luperon service group

Thursday night at meeting, Daniela, the Haitian girl wanted to sit with us again. She handed me a candy bar before meeting but this time I was prepared, I had some candy to give back to her! We chatted about what comments we had for the meeting that night and then I remembered I hadn't given her one of the bookmarks with the Bible reading for the year, so I handed her a pretty one with flowers which she went and showed to her parents and then she came back and handed me another candy bar! I tried to refuse saying it would just make me fat, she thought a little bit and then said that I could share it with my husband.  So I got two candy bars!

Jean Baptist, posing for a picture

This is Antonio with his youngest daughter in front of him, the woman with the little girl behind are his sister and daughter who he brought along for the first time and then his wife, yes that makes five. Daniela and Jean  waited at the Hall for Dad to return for them since 7 on the bike was just a little too many (the family of five usually travel together!



So you may be wondering how the wedding plans are coming together. We're six days away! This past week we made some arrangements for the extra chair and linen rentals that are needed for the reception. The pre-wedding legal paper work had to be filed at the civil office. Final negotiations for the two pigs that will be roasted for the wedding have been finalized. Oh and the final fling with the boys (I mean young men) occurred last night. Cory was given instructions by his friends to be Imbert at 12:30 yesterday to be picked up and that he would not be returned until sometime on Saturday. He didn't know where he was going or who would be there. I told him to take pictures for me for the blog but he just laughed, oh well.   Tomorrow, Sunday, we travel to La Isabella Kingdom Hall for the Zone visit. The congregations are being tied in electronically to the program. I believe this is a first for this country so we're excited to be a part of it. Cory is the main Tech guy so we will be leaving early to get things set up.  Also tomorrow my family will be arriving into Puerta Plata (unless the blizzard delays them)  We'll all be getting together on Monday so they'll get to meet Jeni for the first time!.  I hope to be able to give some brief updates at the next week unfolds.

Wish you could all be here with us. 

The Perfect Day

What is the perfect day? Well it certainly could be a lot of different things to different people. But for Doug & I, yesterday came pretty close. We had set aside some time this weekend to get away just the two of us. Cory had residency stuff to take care of in the Capital (all went well and he's good now for another four years). So we were anxiously watching the weather, trying to decide what we would do. I had wanted to visit Paradise Island which I had read about. There is a national park there with a protected coral reef and it is boasted to be one of the best snorkeling places in the Dominican Republic. To get there you need to take a boat ride from Punta Rucia (about an hour from Cory's house). They take you to this little dot of an island about 6 miles out in the middle of the ocean.  It is just a hunk of white sand with some little shacks in the middle that the tour guides use to serve their drinks and snacks. This past week the weather has been a bit unsettled with a lot of cloudy showery days. Ok for the ministry but not good beach day weather. We could tell Friday that the weather pattern seemed to be changing, started out as partly cloudy but by afternoon had really cleared out and when we got up Saturday morning and looked out the door, yes it looked like it could be the "perfect day".  So we loaded up the car and headed off. We arrived at Punta Rucia about 10 a.m. and thought we would just look around for and hope we could join up with a tour that was going out to the reef. Now just to give you an idea what Punta Rucia is, I don't know that you would really call it a town, you leave paved roads after passing Playa Ensenada and drive a few more miles down this really rough dirt road and every time we've driven it you have to pass through a herd of cows on the road. But anyway, we see some Dominicans hanging around with some boats and they seem to have a sign up for tours so we pull over and ask if they're taking tours out to the reef. They tell us that they have a group of 44 coming in just about 15 minutes and we could join up with them. They give us a price that we think is reasonable and we liked the timing of things so we park the car and literally within 5 mins the tour bus pulls in with all these white people. It was a little bit of a cultural shock but we quickly adapted. They were from some resorts in Puerta Plata and a mix of Americans & Europeans. They put us into three different speed boats (well not really speed boats, more like row boats with motors) and off we went. It took about 15 mins. to get to the island and it was just like the pictures that I had seen. Pretty white sand and the water was a beautiful turquoise color, different shades of blue and green. We had our own snorkeling equipment with us but the tour guide wanted us to wait to go out w/ them for the first time so they could show us where to go. So we patiently waited for the gringo tourists to get there gear and get ready to go. But the reef was not disappointing. It was gorgeous! You could tell the coral was alive and healthy, brain coral, fan coral, beautiful colors, the water clarity was great and the Fish were friendly (no biting)!  So after doing the group thing, we rested and ate a snack (the tour provided fresh fruit snacks and drinks) and then Doug & I headed off on our own. It really was a nice trip, they gave us about 2 1/2 hrs on the island. They stagger the tours throughout the day so that it doesn't become overcrowded. I estimate that there were probably 150 people on the island while we were there. They seemed to travel a little bit faster in the boat on the way back or maybe the water was a little bit rougher but there was a lot of water splashing over us, fortunately I was seated behind a  huge 300 lb Russian man who made a good shield (by the way, he was wearing a Speedo ugghhhh)  We spent the rest of the afternoon at Playa Ensenada (the beach down the road) where we ate and floated on my raft. When we arrived back at the house, Cory had brought home some fresh shark meat which we fried up for supper. So for us it pretty much was a perfect day. Sorry I don't have any pictures but I forgot to take my camera but if you google Paradise Island Punta Rucia, you can see some nice pics of the area.

So we're heading into our last week before the wedding week. We've got a couple nice studies and RV's going so we'll be saying goodbye to them and telling them that Cory & Jeni will be back in two weeks after their honeymoon.

These are the prettiest flowers, the tree drops its leaves but  these pretty flowers remain.

Here are some random shots.

In the ministry with a light shower.  (But it's still pretty)

The umbrella is for the sun today.

Hey Justin & Trish, our gecko is bigger than  yours.

 Two weeks  ago, I went on a Bible study with Roxanna (the special pioneer sister).  The study is with a Haitian family. Dad speaks and understands limited Spanish, mom doesn't speak any Spanish. The kids go to school here so can speak and read Spanish. We only covered a few paragraphs in the Teach book as it took a lot of time to explain words. Roxanna uses a Creole - Spanish dictionary to explain words that Antonio doesn't understand.  This was on a Wednesday and at Thursday night at meeting, Antonio (the dad) pulls me aside and tells me he has brought me some green beans and gives me this big bag. I was very touched by his generosity, this is a Very Poor family but they wanted to share.

 

This was stapled onto the outside of the bag of beans. It says The Mother of Cory and then his name

This past Thursday evening, Daniela (the oldest girl of the family) comes over to me and says that she thought we left  because she didn't see me at meeting on Sunday. We had attended the meeting at Jeni's hall so I explained to her that we had another two weeks yet. As we sat down for the meeting to start she came over and sat down beside me. She pulls out of her bag a snickers bar and offers it to me. This isn't the only candy she has, she has a whole stash of chocolate in there. So I happily accept the snickers bar. Even though people don't have much here, they seem to want to share what they have. Every meeting, I see the friends exchanging bags of goods. This one bakes bread that they share, another grows vegetables or fruit that they share. It's a wonderful spirit.

 
These are Antonio's children. When we arrived at meeting this morning they were there w/o the parents. I asked the boy, Jean Baptist, where they were and he said they were coming. When I asked how they got there. He said they walked all by themselves.This is probably about a 40 minute walk for them.  The little girl, I don't know her name, was sitting on a chair all sad which is unusual for her, she's generally walking around greeting everyone with hugs. So I asked her what was wrong and she showed me her knees which were scraped up, she must of fallen on the way over. When I bent down to talk with her, she wrapped her arms around my neck and didn't let go, the parents never did show up to meeting so she eventually fell asleep in  my lap. The Dad did show up on his motorcycle after the meeting to pick them up, so we don't know if someone was sick or what happened but anyway aren't they cute.