Dominican Update

Tim Wolfe sent the following information about our team from Grace, this week:

3/01/2009. We all attended the SCORE church this morning and had a great time in fellowship and worship. Yesterday we were at the almecen in Mt. Cristie cleaning it and rearranging the supplies. In the afternoon the group got all ready for ministry next week.

3/02/2009. We went to a new village called Los Llamos. It is to the north over an hour. It has a small Baptist church with pastor Raul. Everything went well with two doctors and one dentist. The gospel was given in the morning and in the afternoon. We had people in line all day and saw around 90 patients.

03/03/2009. (Dad's birthday) Today was a clinic held at the village called Palo Viejo just Northeast of Mt. Cristie. Although it is only a short distance off the main road, it is like stepping back in time. It is a small, remote village with access down a muddy truck path through the sugarcane field. The housing is from the early 20th century; a row of single room concrete homes, side-by-side with no windows and broken down front doors. The people are dirty and smell as well as the surrounding area. They have a hog in a wallow, donkeys, horses and many mangy dogs running around all over the place. The kids are barefoot and scarcely clothed. We didn't see anyone eating anything but sugar cane while we were there.

The morning looked threatening so we prayed for no rain and within a half hour we had sunshine and partly cloudy the remainder of the day. The gospel was preached in English, Spanish and Creole morning and noon. The people are mainly Haitian old men and young women. There were no middle-aged men to be seen. We suspect that there is much abuse here in a village of less than 100 people. The clinic was successful; much good professional treatment was given. We set up under a metal roof held up by rusted steel poles on a concrete slab.

3/04/09. Today was similar to yesterday. We went to a small, old, poor village just East of yesterday. I don't even know the name of it. It was close to San Pedro, close to the main highway, but about 70 years back in time. There were rows of single room concrete houses. The village is Haitian and dirty with trash everywhere. Primitive is a good choice of words. We set up in a sparse church building. They had basic musical instruments all hand made including the banjo a guy played. Chickens were running everywhere and the kids all eating raw sugarcane. There were many old people as well as middle aged men which indicates they had no work. Like yesterday, the people were dirty and shoe less; some of the young children naked.
The gospel was preached. We saw over 100 patients. Dental had many patients and on one guy, they pulled 7 teeth as they were all bad. Dr. Studebaker did a minor surgery removing a large cyst from a guys chest. It did not rain all day but was threatening. When we left and drove South a mile the roads were wet. It all went very well.

Praise God for the good report and continue to lift our brothers and sisters up in prayer!