“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8
Thank you for interceding for us over the past 3 weeks! We have felt your prayers as we and our three traveling companions sensed His physical protection from potential accidents and crime while driving through the city of Santo Domingo and region where we served during this trip.
We had a successful workshop attended by 130 people, the majority of whom are teachers and who were grateful to receive information on (1) practical communication theory and (2) how to help students with learning disabilities.
The attendees included volunteer teachers who serve in our literacy program and teachers from Christian schools in the area.
There were times when we sensed God wanted us to “see” someone. In one situation around 9:30 at night, we ran into a 16-year-old boy begging with a large bucket as we entered an ice cream shop in Santo Domingo. Following our group through the door I shook his hand just prior to going inside and asked his name, to which he replied “Brian.” I especially felt drawn to him when he motioned that he was hungry, making the universal gesture of quickly waving his four fingers toward his mouth. I asked him to wait for us and we would attend to him when we came out. I wondered how many people – if any – had touched him today. We then escorted Brian to a nearby Wendy’s where we bought him a hamburger, fries, and a drink. Total cost for feeding him: about $4. We spoke to him about whether he is in school (no), where he lived (Los Minas, a 30 minute bus ride from our location), and what he does during the day (plays baseball). Then we asked if we could pray for him, telling him we are Christians and we wanted to reach out to him and to love him, as Jesus had told us to do. He noted how we could pray for him and we did, and with our arms huddled around one another, Brian firmly in our circle of six souls agreeing together, interceded to the God of the universe for His hand to be upon this young boy and his family. We did this outside of the Wendy’s with the ongoing cacophony of city traffic coursing by, totally oblivious to us. We later agreed that “seeing him” was the most meaningful thing we had done that day.
Our team had numerous interactions with Dominicans and our three guest teachers – Marianne, Talli, and Emme, fell in love with the people, the country, and the culture! Our youngest teammate, 15-year-old Emme, enjoyed all of her interactions with children, giving a Bible lesson, singing, and showing children how to make a bracelet out of beads with various Christian phrases or words.
Our literacy program continues to grow! We now have eight literacy and Bible classes in process or starting up, all of which are housed in a local church and staffed with volunteer literacy and Bible teachers. We are following Jesus’ words to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, which for us in this context is the capital of the DR, Santo Domingo. Moving outward in concentric circles – as instructed in the above verse – we now have classes in the cities of San Cristobal and San Pedro de Macoris, and are moving farther out to towns such as Quiskeya (a sugar cane town) and Juan Dolio (a beach town).
We flew home yesterday with a sense of gratitude on many levels. Thank you for standing with us in our ministry. Without you, we wouldn’t be where we are!
Yours in Christ,
David y Mercedes
Some quotes from workshop attendees:
From Manolo Benitez… “The workshop was a first-class workshop and I enjoyed it immensely. The first teacher (Talli Sperry) talked about some communication techniques that will be very useful to me. The second speaker (Marianne Sperry), knows her subject and was excellent! It was a workshop for teachers and personnel related to teaching, to understand the pathology, and how to solve some learning problems. I really liked it and learned, too!”
From one of our literacy teachers, dentist Yvonne Jimenez… “I wanted to thank you for the activity on Tuesday.Actually that woman (Marianne Sperry) is an eminence… many of the techniques she told us about I used in class today and they really worked! Thank you very much. It was a very good activity.Marianne captivated me. She has a beautiful passion for what she does and she does it very well! I loved it!”
Speech Pathologist Marianne Sperry leads a workshop of teachers in how to reach and help students with learning disabilities. This photo captures the three Sperry’s in action... Talli holds the white board while Emme notes the key points her mother Marianne is making.
Emmelove Sperry, surrounded by some of the 80 + children from Los Coquitos neighborhood, who were drawn to play with her after she sang and gave them each a bracelet craft.