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
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