Making Change

Mom and Dad are in town. We spent the day with a short-term team that is here for a week. This morning we went to Policlinica and this afternoon we spent the day at Pastor Domingo's house just enjoying time with his family and letting the team get to know him and his family. They have a river behind their home that we splashed in, and hung out playing dominoes and eating guacamole. But, that's not today's story.

Hanley Wiki:

Policlinica - a neighborhood near the Iglesia Nueva Vida tent where a large number of church members live. At one point it was going to be a Clinic, a small hospital, but it was never completed. Following a natural disaster in which many peoples homes were flooded, the government moved them to this area. Thus the neighborhood of Policlinica was born.


After dropping the team off at the hotel we decided to get pico pollo, grilled/rotisserie chicken sold at little stands throughout town. One of our favorites we call "Poli-Chicken" because it is near Policlinica. Unfortunately, the only denomination of peso we had was a 1000 peso bill, about 30 dollars. Well, a whole chicken with yuca is only $200 pesos (about $7). I knew breaking a 1000 was going to be trouble, so when I ordered I asked, "Can you change 1000", they checked and decided they couldn't. However, there was a white truck parked down the street that sales bottled cokes and water to the little restaurants, and the chicken vendor say, "Go ask him, he has money." So I walked down the street, waited for him to finish a conversation, and asked, "Can you change 1000". He checked and said no, but he told me that he needed to collect a bill from a restaurant, and if they paid he would have change. So, I waited for him to go collect his bill. When he returned he told me that they didn't pay today. I returned to Poli-chicken with my 1000 pesos. The vendor suggested the grocery store, the other direction. I went to the grocery store, and they told me that they could give me to 500 peso bills. So, with my two 500 peso bills I returned to Poli-chicken. The assistant chicken vendor, pulled all the bills out to change my 500, and had to take some coins from her back pocket to change my $500 for the chicken. So now, having worked up an appetite we went home to enjoy some tasty chicken!!!

For more pictures of the day, click on the album below:

Day with team at Domingos

Day Trip to Jarabacoa

We took a day trip to Jarabacoa (Hair-uh-buh-coa) with two other families. This town is about three hours south of Sosua, and is in the mountains. We started the day at 8:00, when we all met, and left around 8:40. We got to Jarabacoa around 11:30. We did not have directions to the place we were going, but stopped at a small gas station and called the number we had. A one-eyed motorconcho driver met us at the gas station and led us to Rancho Jarabacoa, and recreational area owned by the cousin of church members. This Rancho had an area to swim in the river, horses, ping-pong table, pool table, dominoes, and a restaurant. For a set price we were able to eat, be driven to a waterfall, and take a horse ride, as well as use all of the equipment on site. We played a few games of ping-pong, pool, and dominoes as we waited for lunch to be ready. We had a typical Dominican Lunch of salad, rice and beans, and either chicken or pork. After lunch we were driven to the waterfall. We spent close to two hours climbing rocks, swimming in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall, and exploring the river. When we got back to the Rancho, there was a small thunderstorm, unfortunately it did not clear up in time for us to ride the horses. We just played games and drank coffee at the Rancho until it was time to get on the road. We really enjoyed the day. It was nice to see a different part of the island. It was also, very cool, a nice break from the heat of the coast. You should be able to see more pictures of our day here.

Are you sinning tonight?

Well, that wasn't my intended question, but it was the one I asked someone tonight.

The Spanish Lesson:

There is just a slight difference in the verbs to preach and to sin.

To Sin - pecar
To Preach - predicar

Well, they look a lot different than when you say then. Then go to the next step and make it the ing form of the verbs and you get pecando and predicando.

The Story:

For the Friday night church services, two of the pastors, a church member, and I drive big trucks to four different neighborhoods to pick people up for church. I arrived to hand out the keys and one of the pastors, Domingo, was already there. He normally wears a nice shirt and pants, but tonight he had on a tie, and so I asked, "Estas pecando?" The strange look on his face let me know that I had made a mistake. I quickly reviewed the phrase in my head and realized my error. If only I had asked him if he was fishing, pescando, instead. Oh, well, we shared a good laugh.

Normal Day?

I've been asked what a normal day is like for me here in the Dominican Republic. The truth is that I have not had two days alike yet. The past 24 hours are an excellent example. Monday night I met with two families that have been having a dispute, which led to a physical fight primarily among three girls. The two families agreed to meet at the church with the pastor, myself, and Heather, another missionary. I basically led a four-hour group therapy, discipleship, conflict resolution, bible study session. That's right, about fifteen of us sat in a circle at the tent in Bombita. We spent four hours discussing forgiveness. It was really very powerful. Instead of simply reading bible passages and discussing them abstractly, we were able to discuss how to implement them in this situation. Did I mention that it was in Spanish. Heather and I had attempted to intervene the night before during the two-hours we spent with them Sunday after church, but we were overwhelmed with the Spanish, and the families were too heated to slow down for us. We invited and interpreter to assist us on Monday night. The meeting lasted until 10. Heather took me home. She is borrowing Becky's car while Becky is on furlough. Becky's car was backfiring and just not cooperating, so I followed Heather home in my truck to make sure she got home safely. Heather lives below Pastor George and Jeanne who were on their front porch when we arrived. So I went up and spent about an hour talking with them. It was close to midnight when I got home.



I decided not to go to Tuesday morning prayer, but woke up at 7:30 anyway because the workers building the house next door were bantering back and forth. Melissa, Kate, and I spent most of the morning responding to e-mail, writing letters, and catching up on paper work. We had lunch, curry chicken and potatoes over rice, and got Kate to school by 1:50. After dropping Kate off at school we ran our errands. We parked in front of the copy center downtown to make copies of invitations for a Health Center meeting in Bombita this Thursday. We then walked down the block to pay my cell phone bill. We returned to the truck and drove to the bank so we could deposit our rent check in our landlords account. Walked next door to get some fresh juice, and across the street to see if the small electronics and home appliance store in town had a curling iron, and then walked back across to a small condominium complex to see if we could find an American man that had visited the Friday night tent service. We didn't find him and walked back to our truck. We then drove to the Supermarket so that we could pay our home phone and Internet bill. We took the time to buy a few odds-and-ends that we needed. I dropped Melissa back off at the house and returned to Bombita. I got there around 3:30. I began going door-to-door to hand out the invitations for the Health Center meeting. My first stop lasted twenty minutes as I was offered a seat and chatted with the family, which happened to be one of the families from the previous night. I turned down the offer of coffee so that I could get the rest of the houses visited. Most houses offered me a seat, some I took, others I had to politely decline. I managed to visit about 20 homes before five o'clock. Now if you are picturing a paved street with evenly spaced homes along a straight city-bock, that is not at all the picture. It is a unpaved dirt road, with more pot holes than flat spaces. I would park off the side of the road and walk to many of the homes. Some homes are behind others, and I had to follow paths to get to them. One of the homes is at least a five minute drive away from all the others. I had to stop at 5, because tomorrow Melissa and I are going to Santiago. On Wednesday Nights I normally drive one of the big trucks to pick people in Bombita up for church, but a friend, Joe is going to make the run for me. However, he had never been down Bombita before so I needed to go pick him up, show him the route, drop him back off at home, and go pick Kate up at school by 5:30. I got a call from Melissa that I was taking Heather home as well. So I picked Kate and Heather up, dropped Heather at her house, and went home. We were home long enough for Kate to change clothes and Melissa, Kate, and I went to dinner. We went to a new restaurant we heard about, and enjoyed a roasted turkey leg, 1/2 a baked, chicken, and a hamburger. I also had fresh pear-pineapple juice. The restaurant is open air with a palm thatch roof right on the main road. We returned home and spent some time on the phone with people in the States including my parents, to check on our house closing today!!! Then I sat down and typed this blog post. So was this a normal day? Since for me each day is different, then I guess it is pretty normal. A day that I do the same thing I did the day before will be very different. Tomorrow I have to visit about 15 more houses in Bombita, while Melissa does some work at the school, and we are going to be driving to Santiago where we will be spending the night so that we can work with Agape Flights Thursday Morning.