The farewell ceremony at the end
of the week is one of the most difficult parts. There were so many people from
the community sharing their appreciation for us coming and supporting and
encouraging them. For the team it’s bittersweet we will miss these people
they’re great smiles they’re loving and Open Hearts and their friendship. At
the same time as things wind down we look forward to getting a a warm shower
and look great leap forward to being back home with our families. The people
spoke of the many years we’ve been coming here and their appreciation and of
course telling us that we are part of their family and welcome anytime.
A number of people shared poems
they had written Thanking us and praising God. Each of the team members were
able to speak briefly at the ceremony thanking people for their hospitality and
sharing memories. Craig took the opportunity to share the gospel and explain
that was the primary reason that we came.
As the ceremony wrapped up Pastor
Juan, who is a new pastor at the old church but also has many other churches to
support, asked us if we would participate in evangelism campaign the next time
that we were in Sierra Prieta. We are
hopeful that this will be another way we can support the local churches the
next time we are here.
During the farewell as well as
leadership training they were a number of comments about the vision that the
leader shared with us when we first came to Sierra Prieta 9 years ago. They had
shared a vision to have a better education for their children, clean water to
drink, a water system to bring water to each house, better community leadership,
a community center and opportunities for Technical Training. As far as we can
tell all of these specifics have been achieved and now they’re dreaming even
bigger. We look forward to seeing what God continues to move this community.
They thanked us for our part which we believe is really very small in the whole
scheme of things.
Some sad news we received on
arriving is that one of the special needs boys that team members had spent a
lot of time with passed away. His name is Jose and he was confined to a
wheelchair. We have some great memories of him being pushed around in that
chair by Nathan while playing tag with the other kids. Dan and Andrew and Bob
along with Bethany the FH nurse who helped our team, were able to speak with
his mom, Fanny, and pray with her. He passed away suddenly in December
immediately following a physical therapy session in Santo Domingo.
After leaving the community we went to the FH office. We
were blessed to have reunions with old friends including Carlos Nunez who has
traveled to Cornerstone to speak to us before. We were able to congratulate him
on his marriage last summer. We also saw Dr. Francesca again as she had stopped
in the community briefly, she was instrumental in helping us speak with the
teenagers last year. And we were really blessed to see the Paden family they
have become special to us over the years as Nathan has translated the previous
two years for our team.
Another person that we got to spend some time with is Tom
the country director for FH in the Dominican Republic. We had some excellent
conversations with him about the progress in Sierra Prieta the development of
things in FH here, and he asked us a number of questions about our church. It
was an excellent time of interacting and seeing the vision that continues to
grow through the FH organization.
Unfortunately overnight Bob was added to the stomach bug
casualties thus far only Dan and Greg have avoided it but it seems to be a
short one so we hope everyone is feeling well before we get on the plane
Saturday afternoon.
We are anxious to return home to our families that were here
the weather at home it’s not very hospitable. Thank you for all of your prayers
we look forward to sharing more in person of the great experience we have each
had here. God is surely working in a mighty way and we at Cornerstone are blessed to be a
small part of it.
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