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.)
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