A photo of Ivan and his mother and law who run and own my FAVORITE bakery in San Juan. Everyone on the squad goes there like everyday. 🙂
The bus from San Juan to Arroyo Cano… it was packed. But this bus was not nearly as packed as the bus I took the following week to go to San Juan for food and internet. What we Americans would call a 15-passenger van, was a bus full of 22 people crammed together for about 1 1/2 hours and it was hot and sweaty. After that… I lost my desire to make extra trips back to San Juan.
We hiked up to a gazebo in Arroyo Cano to see the view and spend some time with God. This is the view from the gazebo.
One of my personal favorite pastimes in Arroyo Cano was Dominican Dominos with Josias, Pastor Gregorio, and Tim (not pictured). Although it seems like the rules change everytime I play, it was a lot of fun. 🙂
We helped handout hundreds of gifts to children in Arroyo Cano and another village for Samaratin’s purse “Operation Christmas Child.”
One of the main ministries that we did in Arroyo Cano was door-to-door evangilism and house visits. We spent a lot of time just trying to build relationships with people in the community, getting to know them, and praying with them and for them. In the picture, Amanda is talking to our neighbor… a passionate woman who lived right behind the church where we were staying.
This is team Manna in Los Frijos. This is a town with very few Christians. We went here to pray for the sick and to go pray and encourage the few Christians that live here.
These are students from the highschool in Arroyo Cano where we spent the majority of our time. The guy on the far right in the back is Josias… he also attends the church where we were staying and is one of the people we got know the most. Coolest 17-year old guy I have ever met. He is studying English, so when we left, we gave him the Spanish-English dictionary we bought to help Amanda with translating.
These are some of the children in Arroyo Cano that would come to the church daily that we got to know this month. (None of these children broke the bathroom roof.)
Me, Bekah, and Teri… staying warm in Los Frijos.. 🙂
The view from where we camped in Montacito… A month in the mountains has been a great way to admire God’s creation.
Hanging out at Pastor Gregorio’s house
On our free day, Tim, Nate, and I went hiking with three of the Dominican guys from the church (Josias, Honey, and Anjer). It was about an hour hike from Arroyo Cano up into the mountains and this is the view from there. All in all, this was an amazing month! The people are the church in Arroyo Cano were incredible people of God and their dedication to their faith was inspiring. The people of the community were very open to us and we were able to build relationships with them, pray with them, and share Jesus with them. The pastor was very involved in our ministry and in many ways was an example for us to look back on as to what our ministry should look like everywhere we go. And the children stretched us in our patience. But it was a reminder that it is not always easy to serve God. Sometimes it is hard to love and we need to minister through God’s strength and not our own. But we ate well, I drank coffee everyday, and the Dominican culture was much like my personal culture… relaxed, layed back, and very relational. It has been a good month and I am sad to leave. But I am anxious to see what God does in me, my team, and the people we meet in Haiti next month and the rest of this year.
