Safe Arrival...Minus a few things...

Safe arrival...minus a few things...like all 8 pieces of our luggage!  Good thing we packed our toothbrushes in carry ons!!  It's all in New Jersey since it missed the connecting flight.  Pray it arrives on tomorrows plane! Pray for a potential car for tomorrow.
Wonderful seeing Elio, Lena, Paul, Clara, and the beautiful garden complete with geckos.
Ben and Nicholas think DR is great!  Hayley is really happy to be back.
God is amzaing at creating a place like this!  We are grateful to be partner and serve here!

On laptops and internet cafes

9 Days to go!
When Helping Hurts

Please pray for the gathering/packing of everything we're taking down($25-40) per suitcase being mindful of development principals-- If we bring things down to give away for free, are we hurting the local shop owners by taking away their business?  If we give away our laptops that we're bringing down, will we put the local internet cafe in Esperanza out of business?  Will our well intentioned generosity hurt the locals?  I'm reading
'When Helping Hurts' by Steve Corbett.  Who wants to join me on an email book club to explore helping/hurting principles?

Peace amidst Preparation Pressures

Dominican Republic 2013

Pam and Mike Wilkins have been ministering at Runnymede Community Church for 13years and have been putting their faith in action through an ongoing relationship with a needy Haitian village in Dominican Republic called Esperanza. 

  In the last 7 years, we have visited Esperanza four times and seen huge progress and development such as the building of a school, a medical clinic, internet café and proper housing with sanitation and clean water through The Samaritan Foundation http://www.thesamaritanfoundationdr.com  

The current need in the village is for a library with Spanish/Creole books and laptops, as well Christian discipling of the young adults in the village through the Alpha course.  A Global Alpha Training(GAT) conference is being organized for pastoral training as well as computer and ESL classes.  Work with teenage girls will be done through the ‘Because I am a Girl’ Campaign by Plan International http://becauseiamagirl.ca  targeting education, gender based violence, youth pregnancy and work rights.  We will also investigate systemic problems and further the work of Birth registration – to enable young people to participate and benefit from services such as education, as well as helping to reduce child trafficking and tackle child abuse.

Prayer Requests:

Pray for Peace amidst Preparation Pressures --3 weeks  Vamos...!