April 2010 Let me tell you the Haitian population has grown in the DR quite rapidly since the earthquake. The multiplied amount of beggars on the streets of Santiago well demonstrated the crisis. This is what we feared, this is what the DR is facing like it or not. We must be ready to meet the needs and share the gospel.
In the midst of my shopping for a poor Bonao family in Santigo I met him. He is nine years old. He held the arm of his father who held a cane as they made their way through the rapidly moving cars and honking horns. The gray haze that completely covered his fathers eyes left no doubt that his father was blind. His name is Juan. He wants to go to school, but his lot in life has been reduced to keeping his dad from being run down in the traffic. Dad is doing all he can to provide for the family, and Juan is doing what he can to help his father. "A few peso's to help a blind man and his family sir?" I was short anything of real value, but I did have a box of Granola Bars, and a small Christian pamphlet. The Granola was for my trip to Bonao, but not anymore. I don't know if I will ever see Juan again. I may never know the outcome of his young life, but for just a moment that little boy impacted my life. God has been good to me. I have been blessed. To whom much is given much is required. I must do with my life something that is justifiable with the blessings and opportunities I have been given. Help me God to live up to my opportunities.
Easter is a crazy time in the DR. They
call is Samana Santo (I probably spelled that wrong) which interpreted
means a weekend of drunkenness. The roads are so dangerous the
Dominican Government does not allow the large people mover vehicles to
be on the road. Unfortunately many die. I just returned after having a
great time with our Dominican Pastors school guys and we shot video
with five of them. You will be able to see their preaching videos at
www.EstudiosPastoral.com in the next few weeks. The many hours we have
put into the Spanish Church administration videos (19 in all) will also
be posted and the site published by the end of the month.
March 2010 We have been working hard in Lakeland to get ready for going back in May. It seems you just get home and you start planning to get back. We have been spending most of our time working on the Spanish video taping. We are excited about the various Spanish Pastors in the US who have volunteered to help us with this project. Mike has been speaking at various PRC's and helping them with their event preparation. You know that he is doing this until we reach full support to be in the DR on a permanent basis. It really is tough to divide your time here and there. We really do long to be back in the DR every week.
I really appreciate your prayers as we get school material ready to go with us. You end up taking about 70 pounds of school books each trip. The kids are hoping to be completely done with school so there is nothing at all to do in the summer but be part of the mission teams. We, on the other hand have decided to do ALL the reading requirements for the year over the summer. This will free their time during the school year a little bit. Almost every night of the week taken up with a church event, so having a few extra hours really helps out. Keep us in your prayers.
We really appreciate those who support us monthly. It makes such a difference. We are praising God this month for a check that came in we thought we would never see. It has been amazing to see the hand of God at work. He is always right on time. I'm the one who is often early or late.
Jan 2010 The Earthquake: I list it first because that seems to be everyone’s first question. Yes, it shook the north coast of the Dominican too, but we are fine. The overhead lights swung back and forth, but if you were in a car you probably did not notice, for the roads are so bad, you are constantly being jostled back and forth. All humor aside we are grateful to God for sparring our area.
The situation is heartbreaking to say the least. A good friend of mine lost her father, mother, sister, brother, and child in a matter of seconds. To say that the mood is rather blue even in our Dominican town is an understatement. Everyone in the D.R. has been affected by this. Millions of Haitians already live in the Dominican and some believe we will now see an influx of a million more coming over the border. Considering the economic impact, this would be similar to tripling the amount of illegals that have already come into the U.S. But this influx would happen in a matter of months. Please pray. We expect the three Haitian villages we serve could double in size. There will be children to feed and educate. There will be medical needs to be filled. And with he spotlight on Haiti it will be harder that ever to get the support we must have to feed them. Please pray for the work.
The situation is grim, and we all hope for a great outcome. In the coming days you are going to be asked for a lot of money for Haitian relief. Before you give one dime, find a mission that is already on the ground with a multi-year track record of working with Haitians in Haiti. This tragedy contains the opportunity for the church to rise up and shine for the glory of God, but the tragedy also has the opportunity for Haitian governmental hierarchy to corrupt the aid flow and thus embitter those who would seek to help Haiti in the future. The mission we serve is headquartered on the Leogone Plane in Haiti (ten miles from the epicenter). If you want to see some videos as the earthquake took place video go to www.NewMissions.org. Soon the next world tragedy will leave the Haitian people left to fare by themselves in the dust. Pray for the dear Christians in Haiti. My home church has set up a fund to help the Haitian refugees who will find themselves searching for work and a new life in the D.R. after the dust settles. I urge your church to do this too. I can direct you to a number of great ministries who can use this help in the coming months.
From Dec 2009 Our Apartment: The mission house is the old home of George and Jeanne DeTellis. We had the bottom apartment, complete with three stout dogs and a big Haitian man named Peter (Pedro in Spanish) who stood outside all night with a large machete. This house sits on the hill just above Cherimicos, one of the slum and drug areas of our north coast. It is a place that desperately needs Jesus. The mission house is in an area where everyone has a big dog... or two... or three. Not nice little lap dogs... but mean-hungry-angry pit bull type pooches with missing teeth. Dogs that would bark at anything that strolled by on the night whether that be a cat, another dog, and person, a motorcycle, or a stray cow. Yes we have those wandering around the hillside there too. Each night, multiple times, one dog would bark and that would start a domino reaction from the next house and the next dog and the next house and the next dog. I don’t think I slept for more than an hour at any one time for the first 2 weeks. You see, I know the stories of all the break-ins, and I just did not sleep well. I kept a big stick next to the bed, and found out that Chapman slept with his trusty pocket knife. But a little healthy fear is good for us all from time to time. Nevertheless we were very thankful that Jeanne offered us the use of the house until we got settled. In our 6 weeks there, our son Chapman was able to help teach Pedro English. Every night Chapman would sit out on the porch with Pedro (the guard) and they would teach each other words, phrases, and pronunciations. So needless to say that Chapman can speak better Spanish than any of us at this point. FYI: As I write Pedro is on his way back into Haiti to find out the fate of his family. Pray for Pedro.
We settled on the purchase of an apartment just a short distance from our tent church in Bombita. The “apartment” choice was partially because of security of multiple people together, location to the tent church & mission central, and... well... the price. It is a nice little two bedroom apartment with a combination eat-in kitchen/living room/porch. But one of the bedrooms is large enough to hold two sets of bunk beds for the kids and we are grateful. It took us the 6 weeks to repair and replace the bathroom facilities, somewhat fix the electric, replace a number of broken windows, and replace the totally rusted burglar bars. But we moved our suitcase menagerie inside in mid January.
The Suzuki: Is it a van? Is it a bread truck? is it a matchbox on steroids? Is it a station-wagon that got wet after midnight? The idea from the beginning was to raise enough money before we got here to purchase a vehicle that could carry the entire Williams family around to where they needed to go, and also be used to move Pastors back and forth to the Bible College activities. The funds that came in decided for us that we would buy the Suzuki rather than the Nissan. But there was a problem! It seems that the Suzuki dealers were all out of their shipment of Suzuki vans for the year. There would be no more until the spring shipment. Well, Praise the Lord, a local business was folding and they had purchased a Suzuki APV (All Purpose Van) the year before. It had just 30,000 kilometers (approx. 20,000 miles) on it, and it was Se Vende (For Sale). It had only been in one accident, and it started without jumper cables! So we bought it. With the money we saved buying the used one I was able to purchase a Chinese made motorcycle called a Legend. It is 100cc and will top out at about 45 mph. Seeing me on this thing is like watching a tomato balancing on a salt shaker, but God has provided these vehicles, both of which are being used by Pastors in the Dominican even now when we are away. The motorcycle gets really great mileage too. With gas hitting the pumps at close to 5 bucks a gallon... that is a great thing.
Our Mission Responsibilities: Pastoring the English speaking church in La Mulata has been a real treat. We had almost 100 people for the last service we were there for. How these English speaking people got there I will explain in another newsletter. It has been exhilarating to teach and preach on a regular basis again. I hope they find the feeling mutual! Terica and I have also been doing the music as Jesse our local German-Spanish worship leader has taken a new job and had to move to another town 8 hours away. I think he should drive back every Sunday... but I realize that some people do not have the same “commitment” level as others... LOL. We also started a Monday night English speaking Bible study group. There is Spanish Church on Tuesday night in Bombita, Tuesday morning at the big tent, Wednesday and Friday night in El Batey. We are also in the midst of starting a new church in Playa Laguna and holding special services there on our free nights. I will tell you an amazing story about this open air (very rain-able) service in my next book entitled “Noah Was A Sissy Compared To These Dominican Pastors!” Our Pastor School is now On Saturday, but will change when we get there in May. So the bad news is... we don’t have Television in our apartment - the good news is... we don’t have time to watch it anyway.
We are also filling the in between time filming new programs for the video curriculum that will go around the world training Pastors. This is quite an undertaking to take a four year college course and put it on video in multiple-downloadable 9 minute clips. The editing alone is thousands of hours. Then we will turn around and convert it all to Haitian (creole) language.
The call for us has been defined and refined as we have been able to be here on the ground. What started as a call to reach the Pastors of the North Coast of the D.R. has grown to a very workable plan to educate Spanish and Haitian speaking Pastors around the world. Yes... around the world. And that is not the Evangelist talking here friends! After reviewing the Spanish Bible material available for off-campus studies we realized there was a great need for quality college level material that would be available free of charge to any Spanish speaking Pastor in the world. The internet provides us with a means of getting the teaching to the remotest of areas. Who knew that my frivolous training in audio and video would one day worm its way back into this missionary call. So with the help of our many Spanish speaking teachers, which include Dr. Tony Poncetti who currently teaches classes in the D.R. at the college, we will launch the Spanish Bible College in a “free” online format this summer. There is much to do in the next few months. We must record and edit hundreds of hours of video in Spanish, and I must travel enough and speak to raise funds to complete this task. We want to translate all the programs into Haitian as well by the summer of 2012. Please keep the entire Williams family in your prayers. Never have we had to live by faith as we have this year.
Our Needs: I hate this part. But nevertheless I will share them. First it would be those who are friends who would seriously pray for us. Life is a little more dangerous in the D.R. than it is here in the states. We need resources to help with the many Haitian families that we work with in the D.R. These families will certainly have their tiny houses filled with family coming from Haiti. They will need help feeding the families and resources in finding them jobs. We re asking God to provide one church or family who will sponsor a Haitian/Spanish/English interpreter for our Bible College Ministry. This would be a man who could have as his duties the translation of all our spanish material into Haitian. I believe we have found the right man. We need about 500 dollars a month to hire him full time (60 hours a week). Pray that we will sell our house and be able to pay for the apartment we are buying. And finally, pray that we would be able to reach the support goal we have set for the ministry. We can operate the Bible college, the transportation, helpers, food, and our own personal support for about 75000 dollars a year. So if you know of a person who would like to partner with us in changing the world... please connect us. But until that day comes we will rely on you dear individual who send those monthly gifts. You know who you are. We know who you are. I know that God knows who you are. Thank you.
In Closing: I wish I could have you here on the field with me for a few days. I wish I could let you see and feel and taste and smell what we do every day. The passion of these dear Spanish Pastors drive us on. The faith of the missionaries around us inspire us to work harder and smarter. The grace of God in our own lives and the memories of where HE has brought us from spur us on daily. We have been blessed in our life... and to whom much is given - much is required. Thus we serve with all our hearts and welcome your partnership in this passion to serve Jesus. It is no sacrifice to loose what has little value in eternity to begin with.
Blessings to you in Jesus Christ,
The Williams Family
