Marriage

It is typical in many Dominican families, especially in the poor communities, that the man and woman are not legally married. Most of the time a man and woman move in together, have children, and call themselves husband and wife, but they are not actually married. There are several reasons for this. One is simply that it is a cultural thing. Another is that the cost of marriage (and divorce) and fairly high. Thirdly, the esteem of marriage is not very high; adultery and separation are very common. It is pretty normal for a man or woman to have 5 children and they are all from a different spouse.

This is one of the cultural things that was hard for me to accept/understand when I got here. How can these 2 women in El Callejon have children from the same man and still be good friends? Or on the other extreme, how can this man and woman have 4 children together, have been faithful to each other for 20 years, and not be married?? I try to explain this to the students that come down, but it's just one of those cultural things that we can't really understand. This was especially challenging for a group of 3 American women that came down from a church in California in August. Through discussions and interactions with these women, we came up with the idea to legally marry some of the couples in El Callejon.

We first presented this idea to the Dominican women one day at Bible study in September. But because this is such a counter-cultural idea, a lot of the women just thought we were crazy. But after we got them excited about the idea of a wedding with cake and dresses and flowers, a handful of women started to consider the idea more seriously. We started to have weekly meetings with the couples where we would watch movies like Fireproof or have an outside speaker come in and give a sort of "pre-marital counseling." We continued this until December when we finalized it down to 3 couples. We have spent the last 2 weeks figuring out all the legal paperwork and details; figuring out food, cake, and decorations; and helping the women prepare by giving them facials and manicures.

On Thursday we had the formal ceremony. It was very simple. It was just outside of the Social Work site, but the couples came dressed to the nines and glowing with joy. One of the Students International leaders, Luis, gave a talk on marriage. We ate sancocho (a Dominican specialty). We had a beautifully decorated cake. It was wonderful!

















Our prayer is that God blesses the 3 couples. That they understand what God's will for marriage truly is. That this may be an example for other couples in the community to take this same step for their relationship.

We know that things like this that are so deeply ingrained in the culture we cannot change. Only God has that power. Please pray with us that God will change the culture's view on marriage.



On a totally separate note....we will be in Virginia Dec 19-Jan 16. We will be in Newport News most of the time and will be taking a short trip to Harrisonburg. We would love to see all of you, so let us know how we can make that happen!!

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.

About 3 months ago a man from the community named "El Suave" had a motorcycle accident on his way to La Vega (a city about 30 min from where we live). Since then he has been in the hospital basically as a vegetable. Every once in a while he would show some emotion or move a body part giving his family hope. His wife Francia stayed faithfully by his side the entire time. But then last week he died. They brought his body up to El Callejon and passed the next few days doing visitations, the funeral, etc. The community has been in mourning all week.

Then today the Social Work site had a Christmas party for the women. We spent half of the time in prayer and worship, and the rest of the time giving gifts and eating. Every year we have a basket in which each woman brings a small food item (i.e. rice, onions, etc) and then we raffle the whole thing off to one of the women. Daisy (my co-leader) and I were talking the other day and had the idea that instead of raffling the basket we would give it to Francia. But we were really nervous about the reaction of the other women because knowing how they are, we knew that some would say that they also have a lot of needs and that Francia shouldn't be held in a higher regard than everyone else. So when we announced at the party today that we were giving the basket to Francia, the women burst out in joyful applause. I was so shocked and overjoyed that it brought me to tears. What a beautiful thing that a community that has so little was so willing to give generously to their widow neighbor.

Please pray for Francia and her children during this time. Pray that God will use this tragedy to bring glory to himself. Pray that this family will be strengthened and full of faith now more than ever.


Francia


Their daughter Rosana with a student


Their son Hidalgo

Scavenger Hunt

Hello everyone and Happy Halloween?? It doesn't much feel like Halloween here, but hopefully everyone back in the States is having a good time dressing up and preparing for trick-or-treaters.

This week was the first week with semester students. There are several students here from Bethel University in Indiana. They arrived in the DR in September, had language school for 6 weeks, did some traveling, and now they are split up into ministry sites until December. Ryan and I each have 2 students working with us, and to help them get to know the community better, and have a little competition between the 2 sites, we sent them on an El Callejon scavenger hunt. Here are the rules:

"You have 2 hours to complete as many of the tasks below as possible. In order to consider a task “complete” you must take a picture of the person, object, or action required. At least 1 member of your group must be in the picture in order for the picture to be considered valid. Each task has a corresponding point value. We will meet back at the social work site at 11:00am to review each picture together and determine the winner. Every minute you are late is minus 50 points. If you have any questions…you are on your own."

Each "task" was assigned a point value anywhere between 200-900. They ranged from things like "Tule flexing his arms" to "Holding a chicken." Unfortunately, the Social Work Site team's camera broke, so we were unable to judge correctly who won. So we decided to all share the prize of going out for pizza. Here are a few pictures from the Micro-finance site team.


Preaching at the pulpit of Paula's church: 500 pts


A Waterfall: 700 pts.


A Girl with Hannah Montana paraphernalia: 800 pts


A Giant Heart...300 pts


The other side of the wall...600 pts.


Touching a pregnant belly: 700 pts


Ani and a member of N*SYNC: 500 pts.

A Dominican Year

On Thursday we will have been in the Dominican Republic for exactly a year. We can't believe its flown by so fast. It's been a year of ups and downs, learning and growing, laughs and tears. Here are some of our favorite pictures from this last year (most of which were taken by students that are always capture the great moments on camera...thanks!!).


Francis and Nikaury. 2 Boys in Ryan's club on one of their 1st meetings.


Vanesa. I love this girl! She moved out of the community a few months ago and we really miss her:(


Caroline and Yeimi. Another of my favorites. This is one of the rare moments he actually had clothes on.


Ryan and the boys on the day that Hidalgo bought the bike.


Brandi, Becca, and Karlie as Peter, Jesus, and Judas. They were such great sports to dress up in heavy blankets...in June...in the Caribbean.


Angie, Yohana, Kelly, Joandre, and Yoemy playing in the rain!


Dancing at a quincienera party. I'm not sure why Kelly is making that face.


Caroline singing a song with beautiful Vanesa.


Caroline with Katy.


One of my favorites.



Franklin with stickers on his face.


Chloe afraid of the chicken foot we were served at dinner.


Anel farting with his armpit. I distinctly remember him saying "me voy a tirar peos en mi cama" (I'm going to go fart in my bed)