A Quiet, Merry, Cary Christmas

Last Christmas was spent with friends in the Dominican Republic. Luke and Melinda joined us on the 26th. This year, Melinda is staying in Europe, where she's been spending her Junior year at the univeristy in Montpellier, France. http://melindakays.blogspot.com So that she wouldn't be spending Christmas without family, Andrew and Luke left on the evening of the 23rd on the non-stop to London, then landed in Geneva on Christmas eve. They took a ski shuttle from the airport to Chamonix, France to stay at a youth hostel with Melinda. Their plans include a trip to Venice, Florence and they'll bring in the new year in Rome with fireworks. Luke is on Christmas break from UNCC and Andrew's company closed for 2 weeks for cost cutting reasons. God worked everything out for them to be there!

The married boys are with in-laws this Christmas, so we just spent a quiet night watching "Christmas from Saddleback with Rick Warren" on FNC last night. There were no toys to assemble, no boxes to bring in from the neighbors, and no one but us to put the luminaries out on the street. IT WAS AWESOME! The married kids will be joining us in Charlotte to be with the Miller family on Saturday. Later, the 8 of us, (married kids and their wives) will be going to the beach to bring in the New Year! It's not Rome, but Atlantic Beach is a close second.

Andrew arrives back from Italy Jan. 2nd. Nathan and Angela leave later that day from RDU as well. Luke returns Jan. 12 to start back at UNCC, only this semester, he'll be attending ROTC classes as a newly sworn in member of the North Carolina National Guard.

We're counting down the days until we leave for the Dominican Republic on January 2nd. We'll be with a Soccer Mission group from Cary, including Caleb Norkus, one of the Railhawk professional players. We've known Caleb since he was a baby. We attended church with his whole family 30 years ago. We'll be working with the Haitian Soccer teams sponsored by churches in Santiago, DR.

We promise to put small updates in more frequently this year, including a narrative of our entire 2007. If you have trouble sleeping, then after we get that posted up, you can save it for bedtime reading. It'll be like a family slide show, or home movies, only worse!

Much love from Karina y Jorge!

So much to say...

So much has happened these last couple of weeks, it's hard to put it into a blog. First some GREAT news from the home front... A new location of LifePointe Church was launched 2 weeks ago in Wake Forest, NC and 595 were in attendance!!! People are seeking, whether in the US or down here. Pray for the work in Wake Forest. God is changing lives.


We had a tremendous group from Hanover College down, doing construction and medical missions. Karen and I both worked with the Medical team, translating and encouraging. I'm including some pictures from the medical clinic. We saw lots of folks with sinus infections, scabes, fungal infections and parasites. The clinic was conducted in what's referred to as "the Hole" (see previous posts for more information)

We're without teams this week, but 2 arrive in a couple of days. We'll be really busy then. In between teams we are spending time with the locals, both from church on from the "hood". Karen and I have been in several Dominican homes in the last few days.
Keep us in your prayers!
K&K

17 Baptisms in One Day!

We’re two months into our four month mission trip in Santiago. Sunday the 17th was the highlight that prompted this update. We are working with and supporting an inner city mission that reaches out to alcohol and drug addicts. After the last couple of months of studies, a site was arranged for those ready for baptism. The church meets in an office building without a baptistery. The site at which we arrived today seemed not to be a normal community pool, and with good reason. It was a confiscated estate of an imprisoned drug lord! How fitting, that 14 men, formerly addicted to drugs, came to Christ in the pool of perhaps one of those that profited through supplying them the drugs! A 3 person team from Kentucky was on hand for the event, after spending a week of training the local preachers in how to reach out to those with addictions. This “Celebrate Recovery” program has reached many across the US and is now reaching those in the Dominican Republic. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” Mark 2:17 There were also 3 other baptisms today at our neighborhood church building, counting one of the members of a 35 person mission team from Louisville. This second team also included the Louisville head football coach and NFL Quarterback Chris Redmond. Never have we witnessed so many coming to Christ in the same day! Please pray for workers. The fields are ripe!

This week we both are working with a Medical Team from Hanover College in Indiana. We'll be working in Hoya Bartola, otherwise known as "the Hole", providing a clinic with free treatment for the residents. Our job will be translation and assisting the students and doctors. We expect to see a lot of fungus problems, sores and scabs, rashes, infections, etc. It's a former trash dump with "squatters" originally taking refuge there, now with 600 families. There are only open sewers and a river runs through it, sometimes flooding and backing up the sewage in the homes. The Church began about 6 years ago, the only church there, with just the preacher and his wife with a visitor or two, a couple of missionaries and a dog. (See earlier post.) Now there are about 60 there on Sunday services. The community is run by a Drug Lord, who called the preacher into his "office" for a meeting about four years ago. Felix explained he wasn't there to turn anyone in to the police, but to minister to the kids. The Drug Lord saw the good he was doing and agreed to "protect" him. Now about 80-100 kids are fed there every day. It's the only meal most of them get each day. The plates are color coded to give the right amount of food. Newcomers don't get much because they've been used to so little, their stomachs can't handle it.

We've been to "the Hole" many times, with all of our kids in 2006 and many times since arriving last December, but never for a medical clinic. Be praying for our work there.

We are praying for direction, both for us and our brothers and sisters back home. Please continue to do the same!

In Him,

Karina & Jorge

Visited Christopher Columbus's House

Karina & Jorge decided to take a little excursion and see the beach. Brian and Jen, two of the other American Missionaries took off with us for the north shore and a town called Luperón. It is 90km from our home in Santiago. We stayed at a resort on the ocean. We relaxed, ate international food, and met quite a few Canadians and Brits. Ken did a SCUBA dive through the on premises SCUBA shop and school. Karina soaked up the rays and relaxed on the beach. We sat at night and talked, played crazy eights and relaxed some more. It was so quiet, much different than our city home.

The highlight was probably visiting Christopher Columbus's first house in the New World. We got a guided tour of the town of Isabela, founded in 1494, on Columbus's second voyage to our hemisphere. (Cost 100 Pesos for the 4 of us, about $3.)The site is absolutely stunningly beautiful! It's near the mouth of a river on the north shore, between Luperón and Monte Cristi. (Monte Cristi is the birthplace of Tony Peña.)

Pretty neat to step into the house that Christopher Columbus lived in over 500 years ago. We had visited many times the Lost Colony in North Carolina, settled 90 years later. In addition to the house, there was a church and graveyard. Unearthed is the grave of a Spaniard who died over 500 years ago. Hurricane Noel downed quite a few trees on the property, but it was in remarkably good shape, considering.

Now, we're back in Santiago, looking forward to a new week preparing for another mission team. Karina's mom and aunt are on a cruise this week, but will be flying down to visit us for a week, beginning next Sunday. We had a nice visit from Nancy Winfrey and hope that the work in Guatemala will grow and thrive.

Vaminos Dominoes!

We're getting settled and familiar with our surroundings. Alan, our good buddy, is painting some of the house for us. This is "Azul Turqueza" going in the main living area.

We thought we had a line on a true Mexican Restaurant, but when we arrived to the location, there was a new high rise going up! One of the guys sitting on the street told us that was where it USED to be. We settled for a little bar and grill. John and Brian took our doggie boxes with them and fed some folks on their street when they got home that night. They reported that the food was much appreciated. We're still looking for REAL Mexican Cuisine!

We've started a Dominican Domino Ministry. We found out that most of the American teams that come down here, return, never learning how to play Dominican Dominoes. We've hosted quite a few games with the locals, so now we're getting ready for the next team. (See picture of our in-house tourney.) Check out more information on Dominican Dominoes @ http://www.colonialzone-dr.com/pastimes-dominoes.html.

We worked with a team from Valencia, California last week. (The suitcase nuke that went off during season 6 of 24 hasn't caused any more problems.) Real Life Church brought a group of 10 down. We went and worshiped with them Sunday Night in "The Hole", where they had been doing construction all week long. We walked down a narrow sidewalk, stepping over open sewers to arrive at a bare wall concrete church building, with 4 light bulbs running off of a generator. We were greeted with hugs and open arms. We took with us leftover food from the kitchen to help feed those in the neighborhood. Six years ago it was just the preacher, a couple of missionaries, a dog and maybe one or two folks. Last Sunday night there was a lively worship service with about 60 in attendance. The church has a feeding program and provides meals for children in the neighborhood, probably the only good meal they get each day. The sermon, in Spanish, was on the parable of the banquet. It was really neat to hear the story of the banquet while sitting in a church in a garbage dump. (Quite a few houses were washed away by Hurricane Olga, but thankfully no lives were lost there.) Hearing about the excuses people had for not attending the banquet, (the Spanish word sounds the same) seemed even more silly, sitting with people who would jump at the chance to attend such a banquet. In America, more things pull us away from attending the banquet. We are busy with work, studies, yard-work, vacations, etc., all of which can keep us from being at the "great banquet." But excuses know no international borders. Dominicans have to make the same decision: Give up this life, for everlasting life, or Go after everything you want in this life, and forfeit your soul.

After having been really sick with a bacterial intestinal illness, I'm even more appreciative of clean water and food in the US. It's easy to see how folks die from dehydration. Had the Go Ministries Dr. not come to the house and given me an IV, getting 3 bags of fluid in me, I would have had a hard time recovering. As it was, I even needed IV Antibiotics. The Dr. taught me how to give myself and IV and I gave myself the last three. You never know when this training may come in handy!) It's great to be vertical again, however the horizontal time was well spent. Fleeting thoughts of dying in the mission field, followed by fervent prayer... It was a great experience!

Karen has picked up some "tropical" plants. With our good neighbor Dave's help, they have planted them out front. We'll get a picture posted up when it's complete. It's neat to buy tropical plants and know that you can leave them outside "for the winter". (BTW, it gets up to the mid 80's in the day, and down to the upper 60's at night...sorry y'all but can't say that we miss the gray skies and cold...guess it's a trade off for good water and water pressure.)

Spanish class is going well for each of us. We're doing private lessons with separate teachers, an hour a day, with lots of homework. Communicating at the local Colmado is getting easier as each week passes.

We're following the local baseball team for the Dominican Winter League, Las Aguilas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81guilas_Cibae%C3%B1as) MLB has a site devoted to the Caribbean Winter league: http://www.mlb.com/mlb/events/winterleagues/?league=car.

Luke and Melinda are pictured here outside of Tony Pena's house. Tony Jr. is currently a Kansas City Royal SS. There's an infield with backstop installed at the residence, which helped prepare Tony for the Majors.

Taxi rides are lots of fun. Two passengers in the front and 4-5 in the back of usually a Toyota Corolla. Here we are after visiting the monument downtown in Santiago.

We're looking forward to hosting Bill and Nancy Winfrey next week! They're coming down to spend a few days with us and see how G.O. Ministries is organized and how they host teams. Bill will be looking at the sports camp opportunity. It is used as a major outreach to teens here.

For now, from down here,

Ken (for Karina & Jorge)

(Photo taken during our Language School in October, on a weekend excursion to Morocco. That's the Rock of Gibraltar in the background. We'll post some photos and comments about that trip to Europe, that helped to prepare us to speak Spanish, in a later posting.)