I am Stateside!

Yeah, I'm back in the 'states' here for a little visit. I tried to surprise everyone, and I think they all were.

I will be up here in the cold until the middle of January, then I will be heading home.

I still have about 3 or 4 more sets of pictures in my catch-up series to post, so hopefully I will get a chance to use the slightly more reliable internet up here to post them all.

Also, now would be a good time to send some greetings to my cousins Chad and Michele in Ecuador. Now, we all know that the DR is way better then Ecuador, but their blog is still pretty cool. Here is the link so you can all go check it out:

Lost In Ecuador

Enjoy!

Part 3: Preaching

Obviously, we go about the preaching a little differently down here. First of all, the transport is a little different.


You never know where you will have to go. Yes, I am going to a house here. Three actually.
Some times it involves crossing streams.
Sometimes rivers.
Most of the time mud.


But we can´t complain about the results.


Yes, that is me being fed by my study, on the beach.
I don´t think anything more needs to be said.

Part 4 coming soon.

Part 2: The House

Well, before I dropped off the map (or at least off my blog), the last I posted was about moving to a new house. So, here is a little view of our new house, which we have settled into quite nicely.

I know you may have already seen the little video tour, but the place looks much better now.This would be the kitchen, in case you have trouble figuring it out.

And the rest of the upstairs:


This little breakfast bar that we built in the kitchen is actually where we eat most of the time.
If you know what a slackline is, you will go "hey cool, they have a slackline in the driveway." If you don´t know what a slackline is, don´t worry about it.
As you can see, we work really, really, really hard all day long.
Stay tuned for part 3.

Part 1: The Wedding

So here you are. As promised, I will start filling you all in. The original plan was to post every other day or so until I get caught up, but uploading all of these pictures I realized that it make take a little longer then that (the internet is not very fast down here).

I was thinking about trying to go in order with everything that has happened over the last month and a half, but I figured that everyone would want to see the wedding pics first. So here they are. Note: these are not the real wedding pictures. They are just a bunch of snapshots from about 4 or 5 different cameras, including some cellphones. If you want the ¨normal¨ wedding pictures, you can wait until the actual bride and groom show them to you. Even though, I will start off with my favorite:
That was the only one that was any good; the rest are just ugly mugs.



I think that everyone had fun at the reception. This is our roommate Eric for those that don´t know.

Very sophisticated.
Or not.
The food was great. I just had to take some pictures of these center-pieces made out of fruit and veggies.

I just realized that in all of this there is not one picture of Debora´s face. Oh well, like I said, these are not the real wedding pictures. I have 3 different peoples pictures from the ceremony, and none of them are really good.

Well, thats it for the wedding, stay tuned for more.

Hey, my Blog is still here where I left it!

Hello everyone!

The word that I have been receiving is that people are missing me on my blog. I´m so sorry guys. At least it is nice to know that I am missed. I have been just a little bit busy for that last month, so I hope everyone will cut me a little slack.

I´m not quite out of this stretch of craziness yet, but at least the worst of it is over and there is light at the end of the tunnel. The wedding went well, but we still have company staying with us. And only just now has Mike showed up to help us out with meeting parts and such in our new congregation so that it is not just me and one elder running everything.

I will make a deal with you all: give me another week or so until all the company we have leaves and things start going back to normal, and I promise that I will fill this blog up with posts and pictures to let everyone in on what has been going on down here.

Until then, I will just have to leave you all in suspense.

I am now in my new congregation

Moving was fun, and with our crazy packing skills we got the job done pretty quick.The hall I go to now is on the other side of the river, and this is how we have to cross.
By the way, the guy that is with me in these pictures is one of my new roomies, Eric.

So now I am in the same hall as the Cooks. Got a picture of them here waiting for their turn to cross the river.

We have our CO visit this week, as if I wasn't already busy enough. But no complaining, it has been a very good visit, and I am having a good week in service in this new territory. I already have a few potential studies, including an older couple that we talked to for over and hour this morning and they want us to come back Saturday.

I will keep you posted.

Matt´s New Friend

Matt makes a new friend in service.

Our Circuit Assembly

This past weekend we had our circuit assembly and pioneer meeting. Both were very good. I'm sure that most of you already know that, because you have already had yours. Some points that I will share are some that are specific to the DR. For example, perhaps you would like to know some of the statistics about the circuit that we are in down here. We have 1415 publishers, but had 2139 in attendance at the assembly. There are 192 regular pioneers in the circuit and 16 specials. We have 109 elders and 180 servants. Here is a good one: at last years assembly, they set a goal of having at least 500 different auxiliary pioneers in the year, and last year we made it with 607. That is well over a third of our publishers.

Another good experience was at our baptism. We had 22 baptized at this assembly, but when they announced the count, they announced 23. Where was the extra one? They later informed us that the Sunday before, a new brother was baptized in his own home, because he is paralyzed after a motorcycle accident. The circuit overseer actually went to his house and gave a baptismal discourse just for him and the friends from his congregation that were there. They played for us at the assembly a recorded interview with our new brother, so we all got to hear his appreciation in his own words. The CO told us that he is already an exemplary publisher, averaging over 20 hours a month, even though he is confined to bed. He makes arrangements with another brother to come over to his house and basically pull people in off the street so that he can preach to them. He has already started several studies that way.

All in all, a very good program. I am looking forward to hearing it again. Next month the branch office is holding the same program in English as a gift to all the foreigners that are serving here. The entire program is re-tooled to the needs of pioneers serving in another country.

Sorry if I haven't been posting much here. In addition to the assembly, I am also getting ready to move. fun fun

Some more new friends

After some of the last pictures that I have posted of new friends I found out in service, I thought you all might like these a little better.We found these guys way out, living under the roots of this big tree.

No, We Didn´t Get Blown Away

Well, we survived the hurricane. Our little apartment was transformed into a makeshift shelter for some in the congregation. We had an elderly couple from the hall staying with us during the storm. They are former special pioneers, and she, who is still pioneering on the infirm list, has been pioneering since 1960 when the ban here was lifted. Anyway, we had them, as well as another sister with 3 little kids with us for the night. We borrowed this big hunk of foam pad for the kids to sleep on. The storm really turned out to be not much of anything though. It passed far enough away from us that we only really got just a regular storm. The families that stayed with us got a little bit of watter in their homes but no real damage.

There hasn't been much else going on here, because Matt and I both have colds (still). I'm just getting over it, while he is just catching it. At least I have managed to avoid the pink-eye epidemic that is going around. And I'm not exaggerating when I say epidemic. Probably at least 75% of our congregation has had it in the past month.

The only other big event that has happed is that our literature finally arrived. Everything that we had ordered for the congregation since April (well, half of everything) all arrived last week. We really needed it, because we have been out of Teach books and Bibles for over two months now, and out of brochures for a month. That and a month and a half's worth of magazines all came at the same time. It was about as close as a bunch of Witnesses can get to, well, to the morning of a certain pagan holiday in December.

Hasta Luego

Just a note before we all get blown away

I am told that a big storm is heading our way. All of you probably know more about it than I do. We had the small storms pass by last weekend, but we just had nothing but rain from that. It wasn´t even a hard rain, just several days of it.

Sorry I havn´t posted in a week or two. The aforementioned rain had a little bit to do with that. Plus I have a cold. (don´t worry, I am happy with my cold - The whole town has either pink-eye or a cold, so I´ll take the cold any day)

I wish I had more to report, but that is about all that is going on down here. The new service year is here, so it´s time to preach preach preach. However, there hasn´t been alot of preaching done yet due to the weather.

Speaking of the new service year, a little birdie told my that a certain pioneer in Lewistown made 25 years! Congrats to Rose!

An interesting week

This has been quite the week down here. For starters, we had the storm pass by. We really didn´t get hit too hard, just a bunch of rain. The bulk of the storm passed to the south and west of us. Then after that, this whole past week the power has really been on the fritz. The storm may have had something to do with it, but I doubt it. The power in general has been rather poor for the last month. This week though we have had so little power that we couldn´t even keep the battery backups charged. The power would come on and start charging the batteries, but it would go out again before it could finish. A few nights, Matt and I about baked in our apartment. One night, neither of us could sleep, so both of us are standing around outside at 3 in the morning, trying to find a little bit of a breeze. Anyway, the situation was bad enough that our little town mad the national news for the riot we had here 2 nights ago. Don´t worry, it wasn´t really I riot like we think of in the states. Its just that a bunch of people took to the streets in the middle of the night and started fires all over the streets. Not actually doing any damage, just blocking of the intersections and such. The main intersection in town had this big giant bonfire. And then they started breaking glass bottles all over the streets. I don´t think anyone really got hurt though. And yesterday we had power for a good long time.

There has been a bunch of good stuff too. Matt and I went to a neighboring congregation Thursday and basically ran the entire meeting. So that was a good experience.

Video

OK, here we have a little video. Actually, I didn´t make this to put here on the blog, I made it just for Mike. This is just a brief tour of the house where we are thinking of living next year. Right now there is just one brother in it, and two more are moving in this fall. Plus Mike and I would make five. Mike and I would basically have the downstairs, but as the video shows, the house, and especially the downstairs, needs a good bit of work.

Also note that in order to put the video here, I had to downgrade the quality a good bit. The sound doesn´t line up right with the video, but you can figure it out.

To The Campo!

One of the sisters in our congregation just got a pickup truck. So we have been making good use of it to head way out to the middle of nowhere (the "campo").
This little pickup holds just about our entire congregation. However, this takes "dusty" to a whole new level.
And as you can see, there is not much regard for personal space, or personal safety. Matt is actually riding pretty much on the bumper here.
Thats why I have my bike. =)

Hats

The brothers down here have a custom that I thing would do well in Central-PA. They all wear hats out in service. Most of the time it is just your basic ball-cap for their favorite baseball team. This brother here, however, was visiting our hall and sports the more traditional sombrero.
What really got me started thinking about all these hats though was when I saw our special pioneer and service overseer spend the day in service like this:
At first I thought he was joking and started to laugh, but he was serious. Of course, they are respectful of the preaching work. This same brother gave an entire field-service group on making sure we take off our hats at the door while talking about the bible, so as not to offend the householder.

It´s August!!!!!

Everyone who knows my parents and how they have taught me to pioneer knows why August is awesome for me. That would be because I only need 28 hours in service for this month. Yay!! And I think that I am down to about 12 or 13 already. Thats a big change from the 100 hour schedule last month and the 120 hour schedule the month before. So in theory, I should have all this free time to hang out at the beach and generally goof off. In reality of course I just have different types of things to take care of now, but at least my schedule is still easier.

I want to wish all the Pioneers back home the best on rounding their years out!

(cough cough) of course, the service isn´t just about the time. One of my studies is going rather well, and he tells me that he is going to show up at meeting tomorrow. We shall see.

Another Little Friend

I grabbed this little guy out in service. Luckily, there are no venomous snakes here in the DR (or at least thats what they tell me).

One of the sisters in the hall really loves snakes and wouldn´t stop until I gave it to her.

What I Have Been Up To Lately

This is the house of a sister in the congregation named Sisa. (actually, I have no idea how to spell her name, as it is Haitian. It is pronounced like the letter "C" followed by "sa"). She is a regular pioneer, but has no family in the area. Last year, just before I got here the first trip, her house had to be torn down because, well, it was basically falling down already from termite damage. So for the past year and a half we have been working on it piece by piece as she gets the money to work on it, and she has been living with friends in the congregation. I don´t think they did anything while I was back in the states. But here last month she got enough to at least put the roof on it.

As you can see, there is a long, long way to go yet.
But I think it will be worth it.