DR-vine Undertaking: 2013 in Review

It’s been a very busy year here on the base at Students International in the Dominican Republic; we hosted a total of 656 students and adults!

We began our year with two back to back groups in January then had a little hiatus in February before having a full month of teams in March. This is typically a very full month because many colleges and high schools use their Spring Break week to go on a mission trip. During this month, we welcomed at team from Jupiter Christian School as well as our dear friend Victoria Humphrey and her son Zachary. We were blessed to have them stay in our home—we love when people come to visit (hint, hint =).

Relax & Know That I am God In May, our whole staff went on a weekend Spiritual retreat to prepare for the upcoming eleven straight weeks of summer teams. The theme of the weekend was “Be Still & Know That I am God.” The verse from Psalm 46 refreshed us and reminded us to entrust the coming stress to the Lord—a timely word!

Although the days are long and the weeks seems even longer, we love the summer time. We get to reconnect with old friends and meet so many new people. We love serving these folks who give of their time, treasure, and talent and we are always encouraged by what we see the Lord doing in and through their lives.

Fall Semester Students Not long after we said goodbye to our final summer team, ten students and their director from Bethel College out of Mishawaka, Indiana arrived to spend the following twelve weeks with us. Mary Ellen took Spanish classes with them and we periodically hosted them in the guest house when they were not staying in host family homes in the surrounding areas of Jarabacoa.

Vermont Blessing In early November, Mary Ellen traveled to Vermont to meet our newest granddaughter Amalie, born to her oldest daughter, Melissa and her husband Shadi. We now have a total of nine grandchildren—what a blessing!

Family Visit Not long after Mary Ellen returned, her father Allen, mother Betsey, sister Pam, and brother-in-law Jason came for a week and a half visit. What a rich time of reconnecting with family. We enjoyed introducing them to our life here and felt so blessed to have them here with us!

Giving Thanks With turkey and fixings from Agape (our mail service) and ingredients from students parents, we celebrated Thanksgiving with the Bethel semester students at our home. We fed them comfort food and a little bit of the comforts of home. We were even able to stream a little football!

Christmas The following week we held our annual Christmas party for all our staff and their immediate families. In all, we served close to 150 people a traditional Dominican Christmas dinner complete with pork, roasted by one of our ground-keepers. The evening wrapped up with games, worship and a Christmas gospel message.

Joys of Ministry This is just a glimpse of the year and some of the highlights. In many ways, our lives are very routine. But we love to look for ways that the Lord can use us and pray that we have many more opportunities to serve Him! One of Dick’s greatest pleasures is that he gets to spend a Sunday evening of every outreach preparing the outreach participants to go into the communities the following day to do a prayer walk. He also spends meal times interacting with the students and adults on the teams; finding out what God is doing in their hearts, asking challenging questions and giving them an opportunity to process what they are experiencing. Mary Ellen loves spending time with the seven Dominican woman under her supervision. Conversation is actually happening now—which is thrilling but even more importantly, she is learning more about them and their spiritual needs. Please join us in praying for all those whose lives touch ours, that we will be a witness to God’s grace, love, and mercy.

This year, we will spend Christmas in the DR. Dick will be back in the Jupiter area in February for GIBC’s mission conference and hopes to see many of you then! We love you all and appreciate so much your investment in our lives and in turn, the lives of the people we work with—both Dominican and American.