The Barnabas Foundation...

It is amazing how quickly this new house has become "home." Oreo doesn't even like to get out of the car at the old house, and if she does, she lies outside the gate! I spent one day this week fixing up my flower beds- it was a fun experience- my two neighbors and I went to the "vivero" (nursery) which made for a fun outing.  I have enjoyed getting to know them. One is from Bogata, Colombia.  Last night they invited me to their friday night Bingo- it was an interesting evening, meeting professional folks from here in Santiago. They have formed a foundation, each paying $15 dues per month, plus the proceeds from their bingo games to benefit older folks who have need of medicine and other basic necessities. I also met another Colombian lady and we had an amazing conversation about faith issues. She is extremely well read and has gone through a lot of personal suffering.  I don't think she is quite a believer yet, but she is on the road. I was pleased to see that my work in Human Needs opens the door to witness and reach the professional class. She shared last night she doesn't like evangelicals with all their talk and dancing, etc., but she was impressed with my work on behalf of the needy- she felt like that was "real religion." Pray for continued opportunity to share and witness, that she and others may come to a genuine faith in Jesus.

I know this sounds cliche-ish but, I don't know how the week passed so quickly! We are in the final weekend of the campaign- don't you envy us? You have several months yet to go! Our elections are next Friday but after tomorrow the candidates are not allowed to continue campaigning.  Schools will let out on Wednesday to ensure that their buildings are ready for Friday.  We need your prayers as we enter into this election week- some are predicting a volatile election. In fact, I heard of one business pulling out their personnel on Thursday, just in case. Myself, I am looking forward to staying home for a few days! It will be good to have an excuse not to be out running around! 

What is coming up? This Tuesday (13th) we have a training event in disaster relief for our convention folks- we will have about 20 pastors and leaders from all over the country here. We have the director of Baptist Global Response (BGR) the director of disaster relief for the North American Mission Board (NAMB), our regional disaster relief coordinator and the president of the Emergency Committee of the Baptist Convention of Guatemala.  It is the first time ever a training event such as this has taken place in our region- we are excited as we anticipate many good things developing out of this experience. 

On Sunday (18th), we have a medical team and water purification team arriving from Richmond, VA. We are excited about the impact they will make- plans now are to work in Palmar Arriba, Espaillat, and in Brisas de Este in the capital. Keep these folks from Cool Spring Baptist Church in your prayers as they finalize their preparations for their visit. More later on these exciting projects.

Tomorrow we have our first round of interviews for the microcredit project. Pray for all us- the board members and the candidates alike. Whenever you have great opportunity for positive growth, there is the potential of great difficulties as well. 

On a personal note: I had been looking forward to and dreading at the same time moving one of our water purification trailers from Santo Domingo to Santiago- it is the size of a medium U-Haul trailer. While I have a little bit of experience with trailers (we have had boats, wave runners and snowmobiles all my life) it has been a long time since I actually pulled one and I was never all that great with backing one up. Just imagine pulling one here in the DR on our roads!  I made it- and I got the trailer backed in my driveway, perfectly in the middle and straight- I was glad no one was there to see me do it because it wasn't real pretty, but at least I did it. We brought it up for our event on Tuesday.