BCS Team makes a come back...

We have had the priveledge of working with Jonathan Jankovich and the team he leads from BCS (Bradenton Christian School) for the 3rd time. He, himself, has been here 5 times now. This time he brought a team of 16 youth with him and we made sure everyday was loaded with activity.

They arrived Saturday afternoon and went directly from the airport to the church (Palabras de Vida) to share in a time of praise and worship, prayer and teaching with the youth group.

~Sunday was full of prayer and praise as we went to Palabras de Vida with Pastor Raffy Paz in the morning and Iglesia Accion Misionera with Pastor Juan Santos. It was their first visit to Jaun Santos' church and it was unforgetable. Jonathan was given the opportunity to prech the sermon of his life. What I mean is that he had thought long and hard about what he would say if he could only preach one sermon for the rest of his life and this was his time to share that sermon. After his message many came forward for prayer - some were first-time salvation prayers, some for healing, some for encouraging but all were to grow closer to God. They even learned a littel merengue at the end of it all! Dancing for joy is just part of the Latino culture. We love it!!

~Monday was spent working hard at Restoration Ranch. We were able to accomplish a lot of work in a short amount of time. The group was split up into smaller groups which allowed them to split up and work on several tasks at once. One group was cleaning up the apartments of the first building. They had to pick up all of the broken pieces of block and chip away at chunks of concrete that has spilled or fallen and such during construction so that the floors would be as smooth as possible. Another group helped to fill in all of the trenches that were left from plumbling being laid. They busted up a concrete pad that was left from the big concrete truck and moved all of the debri to fill in the footers of the next building. A team helped me to organize the kitchen and begin on organizing sheets and towels into plastic bins. During the entire time we were at the Ranch teams of 4 rotated in and out to prayer walk the entire property. It was a long hard day that ended with a quick trip to Las Salinas where the salt mines are along the coastline. We walked up the beach and spent some time in taking communion before returning to Santo Domingo for dinner and rest. =)

~The team started out Tuesday morning traveling to San Pedro to visit another missionary and helping to pass out invitations to a big event as well as establishing a plan for the Baseball team of BSC to come and be a part of all that is going on in the Hales' baseball ministry in San Pedro next year. Then a quick trip to the market on the way home.

~Wednesday included a trip to Ina's and clean up and minsitry in Cercadillo. Ina is trying to help the community to establish a sens of pride in their area and one of the ways to do that is to teach them to throw trash in a trash can and not on the ground. We started the process by dividing the kids of Cercadillo into teams with our youth mixed in and we raced to pick up trash. The team who filled the most bags won a prize. Then some went to share their testimony with the kids and play baseball while others helped to tote water from the well pump area to the homes. That was soem heavy labor!! Later that evening we were able to take the team to ride on the Metro (our new railway tram system that is both above ground and below). all 25 of us gringo Americans laoded on the tram and headed from Villa Mella to the Malecon to Euri and Zinyada's home where we celebrated with Brittany in her disperdida (farewell party).

~Thursday was when the trip was winding down. They headed over to work with Jerry Poppe in Los Alcarrizos to help by painting the Haitian church and its newly added area for children's church. They also gathered around to pray for a child who is deaf and play with several of the Haitian children. That evening we got all cleaned up and dressed up and went to "The Cave" to eat dinner. A real splurge for us, the Burge family, as we have only been there one other time. It was a time of great food and great fellowship to end a great and impacting trip!

~Friday morning was off to the airport to say so long until next time. It was also time for us to say farewell to our daughter, Brittany, for 6 weeks as she traveled back with them to attend school with them and have the high schol experience. =)

Healing and Freedom were the theme for this team's trip and they accomplished both...prayer and fulfilling of healing as well as being set free from old ways of living and thinking. Lives were touched on both sides and God was glorified!

Brittany has left home...

We now have a new respect for parents who send their children off to college. Letting Brittany leave 6 weeks early to go to Florida throew us all out of wack! She has been working very hard this school year to finish early so that she could travel back to Florida with the team from Bradenton Christian School. She has been blessed with the opportunity to go to high school there for about 6 weeks and enjoy being around other Seniors, go to prom, and go to the library - oh, how she loves her books! =)

We knew that letting her go with them in April was going to be hard but we did not realize just how hard it would be! After enjoying working with one last team with her by our side helping all the way we said so long - we don't like to say goodbye; it is just too final for us - we circled around her and prayed for her (as you can see in the picture on the right side. She is in the center...look at the feet) then we watched her walk through to the check point at the airport with tears being held down with large gulps. As I turned from watching her walk through the doors, leaving us and heading into a new adventure with God, I heard Greg say, "Well that SUCKED!" *Excuse our language. Haha!* It truly did suck! We walked out to the waiting guagua (bus) and loaded it with our heads down and tears beginning to flow. Once we were on the bus Greg asked Guillermo (the driver, who is more like a family member) to put in some music and we each retreated to our own seat to cry. Yes, grown men can and do cry especially when their little girl grows up and leaves home. =) After a while, we came together and talked and cried and then called to see if Brittany was able to get through Customs without a problem (since she is 17 and trying to leave the country without a parent she could have been stopped even with our letter of permission). She was fine and said that she had left us a gift at home, a letter. She even wrote one to Guillermo, she is just too sweet and thoughtful.

When we got to the house we gave Guillermo his letter which he started to read then got choked up so he put it in his pocket and said he would read it later when he was alone. Can you tell she has had an impact on everyone around her? To be honest, we have not read our letter yet...we just can't handle it, not just yet anyway. We are very thankful for all of you who have lifted us up in prayer. We know that Brittany is ready for the world with God by her side and that she is truly in the center of His will for her right now it is just hard to adjust to her being gone especially to another country. Sorry, no pity for those of you who are only a few hours drive from your kids. ;) We are an ocean away and we know that it will only be a few years before she is half a world away as she plans and believes God for His provision and timing for her to go to live in Europe and eventually Isreal.

Please keep us in prayer and more importantly keep Brittany in your prayers as she prepares for college and for the plans and purposes that God has for her in the future.

We love you Brittany and we will miss you, but we are proud of the woman you are becoming! =)

Monthly Challenge...

As many of you know, we have added a column on our newsletter which is the "Challange of the Month". The challenge changes from month to month and while we issue the challenge to each of our readers we also follow through with the challenge. I wanted to share with you the results from one of those.

In March the challenge was to go beyond yourself to reach out to a person in need. We know that the economy has many of you looking for ways to trim your budget just as it done to us, but we know that we are to trust God in all our situations no matter what the circumstances may be. It is yet another trial that gives us an opportunity to stretch our faith and continue to show and share God's love.

Most of the time when we reach out beyond ourselves and help another we do not get to see just how far our act of kindness reaches however, in this case, God allowed me to find out just what He was able to do with my willingness to reach out to another.

I had prayed that God would show me a way to reach out to someone in need. We help a lot of people here in the DR but sometimes I just want to do something random, something new, something different. As I was preparing for a team to come and stay in our home and writing a grocery list I heard the Holy Spirit tell me to make a list for Marisol. I was taken back for a moment though I quickly realized that this was the person I was to help. Marisol is a single Mom with 2 girls, she runs a hair salon out of a room of her rented home. She seems to struggle to make ends meet, as do so many others.

Two days later, when I went to the grocery store, I purchased food for her and took it to her house. When I walked in to deliver the groceries to her she was talking with a friend. She stood and asked me what I was doing and I told her that God told me to get the groceries for her and that they were a gift from God. She looked a little stunned. She asked me why? I told her that God loves her and that He wanted her to have them. I could see the welling of tears in her eyes. While I was unloading the bags of groceries from my arms the Lord spoke to me and told me to leave some money with her as well. I didn't think that I had enough money on me but I looked at what I had left and it was exactly what God said to give so I gave it all to her. I gave her a hug, told her again that God loved her, and that I would see her again soon. Leaving her home I felt a little lighter on my feet and my heart was full of joy! That was an awesome feeling and both of us were blessed, but God was not finished.

A friend of mine saw her a week or two later and noticed that there was a difference in her posture and facial expression. She asked Marisol what was different and Marisol shared with her what God had done. The day that I visited her and she was talking to her friend she had been telling her friend that she was giving up and that she thought God had forgotten all about her and her struggles. Her friend was trying to encourage her and tell her that God did love her and had not forgotten about her. A few moments later I walked in with arms loaded with groceries and a financial gift having NO idea all that she was thinking or feeling, but God did! She cried after I left, and she decided to go to church that very Sunday and gave her life to Jesus Christ. She knew that God did/does indeed love her and that He is watching out for her every need. Now she has her children going and even her boyfriend. She is on fire for God, sharing her story with everyone she meets. she even has a Bible out on her station so that when people see it and ask questions she has another opportuinty to share what God has done in her life! It is awesome! God is Awesome!!!!

I am so thankful to God that He shared with me what He had done in her. It could not have come at a better time for her and the revealation of it all could not have come at a better time for me, as I was struggling with the fact that Brittany was leaving home to start in her new adventure with God.

We are old...

Well, it is official... we, Greg and I, are old because we now have three teenagers. That's right, Isaiah is a teenager today.

Happy Birthday Isaiah!! We love you!

We were able to celebrate with him today and thanks to a friend Isaiah was able to find a recipe for making Chick-Fil-A sandwiches so that is what I made tonight. They were not exactly the same so I will play with the recipe but they were pretty close. Closer than we have had in over a year since there isn't a Chick-Fil-A in this country. =) We even add the pickles. I made tea mixed with fresh sqeezed lemonade too! We will be taking Isaiah to bowl in the next day or two as he requested.

A fireman in our family and "Did you hear that"?

We had a lot of excitement in our home today. As if we needed anymore of it. lol I must start at the beginning...

I told you in our last post about having a gas water heater downstairs. It is actually just outside of the bathroom downstairs in the laundry room. Well, we were enjoying having warm showers for a while, a nice break for the cold ones we usually have. Anyway, this morning Greg had taken a shower downstairs, then I did so we could go and run errands, buy food for the incoming team and such. We told Brittany that if she wanted a warm shower to take it downstairs and she said she would.

Off we go on our errands and just after we made our first 2 stops we receive a call from Matthew. He told us that the water heater had caught on fire and he had put it out. He was calling to ask what else he should do now that the fire was out. After getting back home and getting the full story we found out that Brittany had been in the shower. She said she was just singing Praise songs and had conditioner in her hair when she heard that still small voice tell her to, "Get out of the shower, now!". She said she started rinsing off to get out and that she heard the same voice (the Holy Spirit) tell her again, "Get out of the shower, NOW!" So she jumped out wrapped in a towel and looked out of the window to see the water heater consumed in flames. She ran to matthew and told him and asked him if he knew where I kept the fire extinguisher and he did so he ran to the kitchen to get it.

Brittany said that he came running back down the stairs with it and ran straight out to the fire and sprayed it like a real fireman and put it out completely. She said, "he was so calm!" she said she asked him after he came back in from putting out the fire if he had ever done that before and he said, "No!" She asked him how he knew what to do and he said he didn't. He said he was trying to read the directions while he was running down the stairs but it all looked like German to him and he couldn't read a word. He said he just looked at it and the thought came to him that the pin sticking out of it looked like one on a grenade so he decided to pull it out and see if he could get it to work. (Thanks to my brother, Brad, for the knowledge about grenades not that Matthew has ever pulled the pin on one of those.) He said he realized that it let the handle loose so he just aimed and sprayed. He backed up and waited a minute or so and looked for any remaining orange glow from anywhere and ran up and sprayed that then backed up again. He said that once it was all out he realized what God had just help him do and then he got a little shakey from it all.

After going out to the laundry room and assessing the damages we realized just how good God is and how tired our guardian angels must be ( ) because the fire could have happened while the kids were upstairs and it could have spread and caught the paint cans and cleaners that were on the opposite wall on fire, it could have followed the gas up the line and blown up the tank that is outside the kitchen window (how it did not only God knows). It could have engulfed the entire laundry room in flames in a matter of a few more minutes...but GOD. He was watching out for my family and for our home. While it did take us a few hours to clean up all that was burnt or charred we are so thankful that it did not spread any further. Go God!!

Later, as I was talking to Brittany about how she had listened and heeded the words of the Holy Spirit, she said there have been several times in the past, the last few weeks especially, when she feels like she heard that same small voice tell her to get up and close her door or close her window or other things and how, even she tought it was a strange idea or saw no real point in it, she would get up and do it anyway. I said that I experience the same thing a lot of times too and sometimes i follow through and sometimes I don't. Like when you lay something down somewhere and you immediately hear that voice or have that thought that says,"you shouldn't leave that there" and sometimes you move it but sometimes you don't and then you end up not being able to find it later or it gets broken or something and then you can think back and remember that "something" told you not to leave it there. I know you have experienced something similar, we all have. We talked about how that can be God using those small oportunities to train our ears to hear Him when He speaks. That we could be tuned in to His voice so that when He does speak to us to say, "get out of the shower" we will listen and obey.

He has such plans for you; plans for your welfare not for evil, to give you hope and a future, (Jeremiah 29:11) and even if you don't fully understand or believe it He cares about the things you care about and He is always there watching over you to protect you. However, you must have ears to hear and the willingness to follow through even when it may sound crazy or ridiculous to you like getting up to close your door or moving something to a different location. He loves you and those around you. Listen for Him today. Listen with your heart it might just save your life!

Thankfulness...

We have a team staying in our home this week. It is actually a combo of two teams, one has 5 members and the other has 15 members. We aren't leading this team just housing and feeding them. =) If you have never cooked for over 25 people you should try it sometime. It is a lot of work but it can also be a lot of fun. No really, it can be fun!

Anywho, we have a gas water heater and we were trying to bless the team with warm showers instead of cold or shockingly cold showers but it backfired on us because everyone was enjoying the shower so much that they were taking 2 a day and not in any hurry to get out. I know many of you are thinking what is the big deal right? Well, here in the DR things are different, obviously. We have a huge undeground tank (a cistern) in our front yard that holds water that is pumped in from the "street" or city water system and it does not flow everyday. We can actually go a week without it pumping in to refill the cistern. While our cistern is the largest on the block and holds as much as a small swimming pool but we still need to watch our comsumption because we never know when it will stop flowing and for how long.

Guess what happened mid week with this team? Yes, you guessed it...we went from a full cistern on Saturday morning to an empty one on Wednesday morning. That means that with 25 people in this house we could not flush toilets, run water in the sinks, or wash dishes much less take showers. We asked the teams to pray for the water to begin pumping in from the street again and that we would be able to contact a water truck, which can be expensive, to come and dump water into our cistern in the meantime.

We were able to contact a water truck and they were able to come out that afternoon to help replinish the cistern and while they were here emptying the truck of water the street pump came on. Praise the LORD!! It was getting pretty stinky in the humid house with 4 toilets full and needing to be flushed. Haha!

Once the water was back in the cistern we went to turn the pump on to get the water flowing back through the house and it would not work. Mind you that the pump was new, only a week old, and it wasn't working. Matthew came up with the idea of hauling buckets of water to a rope and lifting them up the side of the house to the roof to pour into the tank up there so that gravity itself would help to distribute the water throughout the house. Great idea!! After about 4 buckets he was already getting tired and we were recruiting team members to take shifts. 20 something buckets later the tank was finally showing signs of the work being put in. In the meantime we were trying to get the pump fixed and taking buckets full of water in and pouring them into the backs of the toilets in order to flush them. I just had to laugh. I mean what else can you do in that kind of situation except find the humor right?!

Fortunately, the pump was fixed within a few hours and we were back on track again. Needless to say, there were no more warm showers which meant that the showers were quicker and a little less frequent. Hahaha!

We are so thankful for the teams' flexibility and that they all seemed to just take it in stride. They also got to see God answer their prayers...quickly! All this to say that you need to remember to be thankful for the little things in life. Remember how truly blessed you are in the U.S. that you do not have to worry about your water running out, when you turn on the faucet it is always flowing. No worries about pumps to get water from under ground to your roof and from your roof through the rest of your house and the wondering of when will a repairman get here to fix this problem (in this country taking a few days to fix anything is "normal"). Not only fix it, but do it correctly instead of just rigging it to work for now. =) When you do not know what else to thank God for - though we know there is so much more to be thankful for - just tell Him thank you for running water, a roof over your head, humor, and good friends.

May His love abound in your hearts today and everyday!

Melynda

Team RC

Things are coming right along on Restoration Ranch. A team from Restoration Church in Spartanburg just left after working long and hard on the ranch. They were able to get a lot of work done in a short period of time.

I had the pleasure of working with Chris and Cliff in wiring one of the apartments of the first building. I learned a lot and had fun doing it. Greg and Matt had the manual labor side of things. They helped with everything from digging trenches for the plumbing of the septic system from the house to the septic tank to hauling cement and block. They worked hard. Brittany was cleaning the boxes were they were building the boxes for the drain system and she said she felt like an archelogist with her paintbrush in hand and gently but thoroughly brushing away the dirt so that the cement blocks and sealing would stay and not shift. Isaiah helped to shovel all of the excess dirt and rock and broken block up into wheel barrows for it to be wheeeled out of the apartments leaving behind cleaner and smoother floor areas that would be ready for the final pouring of the floor.

We also got to experience sleeping at Restoration Ranch. Greg, Brittany, and Matthew slept outside on cots under the gazebo while Isaiah and I share a small pup tent and slept on the ground with a blanket and pillow. Did you catch that? A "blanket"...it was cold down there. Yeah, I know, I know...you guys have had snow and really cold weather but for us, here in a tropical region, it was cold. We each had a blanket and we were curled up and still cold. It was unbelievable!! I was amazing to be able to look up and see millions of stars shining in the night sky because there were no street lights and car lights and such to obstruct the view. It was breath-taking! Greg and Brittany were able to see a shooting star together. A great Daddy-daughter moment indeed. =)

Another first was to be able to cook on a stove outside. It is so different than cooking on a grill. It was fun to try to beat mother nature by blocking the wind so that the flame on the gas stove would stay lit while trying to cook. But that didn't hinder us from making a cake to celebrate a team member's birthday. lol

The team also brought suitcases full of school supplies including pens, pencils, glue, markers, crayons and several hundred notebooks that we were able to take and donate at the school near the Ranch. It was fun to go in to each classroom and listen to the team members take turns in sharing their testimony and then hand out the school supplies to each student. There were several students who stood up before their classmates and either sang a song or gave thanks for the supplies or other forms of gratitude for the gifts they had received. You could see that it touched each team members heart and it was talked about more throughout the evening.

We are very thankful to the team and hope that they are all doing well and are blessed for all the blood, sweat, and tears they pored out to help the dream to become a reality. Blessings and love to each of you!

~The Burge family