Microfinance...GO

I've prepared, shadowed, studied and wrote for the past several months and it's been worth it. I feel ready. We have a good vision and good help. We had our first interest meeting about 3 weeks ago. We were expecting around 30 women and over 60 showed up! We're starting with just 1 group of 8 women and are in the process of selecting them now. We're also working on an official update that will have more details. If you would like to read the program for the site send me an email and I'll send it to you.

Below are a few pictures from the meeting (which I led in Spanish by the way!).


Miriam and I explaining the process to the women. I'm not too afraid of public speaking in
English but public speaking in Spanish was a bit new for me.



Miriam is working with me (up front with the blue shirt by the chair) and we started of with a game. She put numbers 1-4 in each of the corners and then rolled a dice, if you corners number came up you were out. It was funny because one side of the dice said 2+4 and she rolled it twice in a row. So on the third roll all the women went to 1+3 but of course what happened? 1+3 was rolled and they were all out!

Las Adolescentes

We've posted several pictures of the kids and women of El Callejon, but it seems like we haven't shared much with you all about the adolescent group. There are about 15 teenage girls who are involved in the activities at the Social Work site. This is one of the most challenging groups, but also one of the most fun and rewarding. Just like in the States, most of the girls from age 13-17 spend most of their time thinking about boys, clothes, and music. So we take these things and try to use them in ministry to the girls. We spend a lot of time talking about what a Christian relationship should be like, not finding our esteem in what others think of us, and building each other up rather than cutting each other down. We've done projects such as making purses out of old jeans. And one of their favorite activities was teaching the American students how to dance Dominican and then learning from the Americans how to dance like we do (yes, a couple students taught them the Soulja Boy dance!). Here is a picture of the group from a recent trip to the museum dedicated to the Mirabal sisters.



Please pray for these girls that during these developmental years that they would choose Christ rather than the temptations of the world.