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Friends and Family of CDMM,
It has been a busy and ministry-packed spring here in the Dominican Republic.
We had the privilege of working with my brother Joseph Klein, who was here volunteering for a few months this spring and is currently planning and preparing to return to the field full-time next summer. Please pray for him as he prepares for this move and raises support to re-join the CDMM team here full time in the summer of 2011.
Joseph has prepared the following update for you:
All growth is exciting to witness, to see people mature in Christ doubly so. Like the first fruits of your very own garden or your baby who has begun to trust his legs and leave the crutch of crawling, so is the Christian who begins to contribute to the work of reconciling others to God.
I'm excited to share with you, partners and friends of Christian Dominican Medical Mission and the Christian churches in the Dominican Republic, that this spring has seen profound growth in the whole Church network and especially within the youth movement. More and more people are sharing in the joy of knowing Jesus as their Lord, as many believers are beginning to really mature in a faith that motivates participation.
A young church plant project comes to mind in Salamanca. Adopted as a little sister project by Los Casabes Church, the Way of Jesus has begun to take hold since February when a new youth group was started (lead by youth who travel from Los Casabes, over an hour away). A special combined baptism service was held two weeks ago where six youth from Los Casabes and two from Salamanca were baptized into Jesus, and each has enthusiastically continued to participate and invite friends. One of the new believers is a close friend to a youth who lives adjacent to the church building in Salamanca, Oscar (one of the first baptized of the town), is always enthusiastic to share his faith and get more youth from the neighborhood involved. He really shows leadership qualities although sill quite young. The Salamanca church has begun to hold Sunday services (held by Ernesto Javier and the ministry team of Los Casabes). God is at work through these efforts as evidenced by the welcomed response of many, both youth and adults, and of course the children. The most exciting thing of all is the glimpse of spiritual growth that is beginning to transform some of the Los Casabes youth from children into leaders and mentors.
Many of the Dominican churches have seen similar growth beginning with noticeable spiritual growth and enthusiasm within the youth groups spreading through the rest of the church. This is due to the recent focus CDMM has placed on the monthly Youth Leader Training, where youth leaders from each church meet to learn and work though the four or five lesson plans of the next month, learn new songs, games, bible verses, skits, and new techniques in growth and ministry development. Organizing and planning the materials and training is well worth the time and effort and such a blessing to begin to see true maturity sweep the youth groups willing to let God work in them. The enthusiasm these young leaders bring is contagious. The monthly Youth Leaders training has been going on for a little over a year this Spring, and has sparked the start of five new youth groups, all entirely youth led (under the leadership and direction of CDMM and adult Christians).
God is truly bringing to fruit the seeds planted in the Los Casabes neighborhood just over ten years ago, when Gary found a woman in tears on a pile of rubble, which was her house, in wake of Hurricane Georges. Rebuilding homes at the mouth of the city garbage dump led to a church plant, the church in which Ernesto Javier and his family came to know Jesus. This has grown into a congregation of believers which has begun to show maturity in Christ. Los Casabes has now become the launch pad for a whole movement with adult growth groups, healthy leadership and a strong youth group. The Casabes youth group has now decided (on their own) to start small growth groups with three Christian youth in each group to help give opportunity to evangelize and share with more non-Christians.
This week is an especially exciting one for which the church family of Los Casabes and CDMM have been doing a lot of preparation. It is a special week-long evangelistic revival with a visiting evangelist and recording Christian music artist. We set the church building up with a new paint job, flowers, new lighting, and a banner, and the church members have been bathing the event in prayer. Everyone is so excited and looking forward to the opportunity to share this revival with all of their families and neighbors. God is working though the believers here in the Dominican Republic and through CDMM. With His spirit working among us, we expect a full house for the revival this week and for weeks to come.
This growth is God at work in people's lives, transforming souls, homes, and whole communities, and it is our privilege (yours and mine) to be able to join God in His great work here in the Dominican Republic.
* in regards to CDMM assistance in Haiti, we plan to continue visits over to Haiti in response to the tragic earthquake, as funds provide. As we are able we will aid in Haiti, working though a Christian church in Carrefour. CDMM feels our example of sacrifice (of time, rest, and personal resources,) and interest in the lives of others is an essential element of Christian life for us to model to our Dominican churches what it means to love God and love others, through service.
God bless,
Joseph M. Klein
Dear Friends and mission partners,
Though we have been making frequent trips to help those in need next door in Haiti, we have been running around constantly while here in the DR. We are doing our best to continue and expand the ongoing ministry here. So far this year we have had 10 groups visit us to work with the mission both here and in Haiti, with a total of over 100 visitors to cook for, work with and provide logistical support for. Between the work here & the trips to Haiti, we have offered over 20 medical, dental, and optometry clinics since the first of the year. CDMM has had the privilege of holding VBS's, monthly Bible college training, weekly Bible studies, and monthly youth leader's training sessions. In continuation withe the ongoing ministries, we frequently visit and often preach in all of the mission churches to uplift & encourage these growing congregations. Through these efforts, we have seen over 30 people make a decision for Christ, most of whom have continued in this faith and have been baptized in Him. Over the past three months we have been joined by a missions Intern, Yvonne Goll, who was a blessing to the ministry here and received a lot of valuable training while she was here. Currently at the school we have two full-time students, as well as the 17 part-time students in the Bible College, all of whom carry out ongoing ministry and are a vital element to the growth of the Dominican church. This spring we have been setting up a mission library for the students, preachers & church workers full of Bible reference materials and other valuable study tools. The book drive is going through July; please contact us if this is a project that you would like to get involved in.
In Haiti we have delivered over 1000 tents, and tarps, and have distributed tons of baby formula, diapers, clothing, shoes, food, and medicine to the disaster victims there. These distributions took place in the neighborhoods of Carrefour, called Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Aztec, and Joey's Hill, along with 4 hospitals, and three Orphanages. Trips over into post-earthquake Haiti find us sleeping in tents on mats or in the vehicles as the need arises, and eating mostly snack food which we bring with us. We bring in our own drinking water to avoid sickness and so as not to use up the supplies needed for those living in this disaster-stricken country. I have seen more dead bodies, protruding bones, infections, gangrene, diarrhea, and dehydration than I have ever seen in my entire professional career. God has been faithful and kept us physically, mentally & spiritually healthy, throughout the process. Our vehicles continue to perform wonderfully, and the Dominican churches are growing spiritually and in number as they continue to keep these suffering neighbors before the Lord in prayer.
This has truly been a difficult first 4 months of the year like no other. The Lord continues to provide all we need, and we see no end to the pace at which we have been working. I did take my birthday off (mostly), and it was my first day off in weeks.
Please keep the mission, our family, the Haitians, and the Dominican churches in your prayers! We will try to keep you up-dated as much as we can.
We write frequently on the mission blog:
(http://
post pictures and stories on the mission Facebook page:
(www.facebook.com/#!/group.
and try to keep our web-site (www.cdmmissions.org) up to date as good as we can.
Please look to these sites for updates and information on the Lord's work here.
We covet your prayers and look forward to an invitation to visit and report sometime this next Spring if at all possible. Please fit us into your schedule and budget for such a visit, so we can give you a full report in person after the rush slows down a bit.
God Bless!
In Christ, and for His sake!
Gary
When we reached the top of the hill in the neighborhood of "Jerusalem," it was immediately obvious to us that this was the prime location to distribute the much needed aid which we had brought. But yes, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.
After a long evening of last minute preparations, our team of 9 (6 brothers & sisters from the D.C. area, mission director Gary Klein, Hempson Lindor, a preacher & Haitian national and myself) Departed for Haiti to deliver baby formula, pampers, vitamins, and parasite meds, as well as other medical assistance. Traveling through the night, we safely crossed the border in the early morning. Throughout the night's drive, we had stopped every few miles to add fluid to the leaking clutch assembly, which despite having been "fixed" a couple of days prior to the trip, persisted in leaking fluid and loosing it's prime. Upon arrival in Port-au-Prince, we stopped at a reputable repair center to have the problem resolved. A result of January's earthquake, the dealer's showroom, waiting area, and repair center had lost an interior wall and had been joined into one large, hot, non-air-conditioned room. If it seemed a miracle that the shop was even open, the fact that they happened to have the needed seal and were able to resolve the issue in just a couple hours was even more astounding. It truly must have been a God-thing.
With mechanical problems resolved, we continued on across the wreckage that was the capital city of Port-au-Prince and into Carrefour. Upon arrival in Carrefour, after a quick lunch, we set ourselves about the task for which we had come. With the hot Caribbean sun still high in the sky, we hiked up the hill to the community leadership office. All along the way we were greeted by smiles & waves, longing stares from hungry eyes, and pleas in french creole for tents, tarps, food, or any kind of help we could offer. The neighborhood leaders were more than a little glad to see us return to make good on our offer to help their community. The last time we had attempted a distribution in this area, even with the assistance and security of several Haitian police officers, we were surrounded, about mobbed, and chased on foot and moped for miles. This is a very needy & desperate crowd. Even two and a half months after the quake, as foreign governments and international aid agencies are starting to make things look like they are coming together in the areas surrounding the airport, it is clear as day that the people of "Jerusalem" have seen very little if any of the help coming in. The hills of Jerusalem, Aztec & "Joey's hill" are dotted in and out with tarps, makeshift shelters, and a few tents here and there. These temporary residences are scattered amongst and sometimes even on top of the crumbling rubble that was once home to so many. While there were a few tents and tarps here & there, most people are living in multi-colored, makeshift shelters spliced together with bedsheets, curtains, old clothes, tin, empty rice sacks… anything the people can find to form some kind of shelter over their heads, no matter how permeable. As we approached the top of the hill in the neighborhood of "Jerusalem," it was immediately obvious to us that this was the prime location to distribute the much needed aid which we had brought. Rather then thinning, the population density seemed to thicken toward the top of the hill. Here, instead of makeshift shelters being scattered sparsely throughout the concrete rubble, there were bits of rubble scattered sparsely amidst the densely populated, very destitute yet organized plots. these hillsides are filled with rag-tag, pieced together shelters, broken down into blocks and marked with hand written address markers and street signs. This community was born out of the recent series of quakes and made-up of people displaced from their homes in the lower hillsides below it. Without outside aid or materials needed to build themselves adequate shelter from the imminent rains, winds & flash-floods that the area is prone to, this community has organized itself. They are doing their best to ready themselves for the long months and even years that it will take them to move on from this disaster.
Early the next morning, accompanied by 3 of the community organizers, we were able to drive to the top of the hill in Jerusalem, set up the distribution under an awning attached to the off-road vehicle we are using for this purpose, and distribute the meds and supplies as we treated the sick for their illnesses. With the harsh conditions that people are forced to live under, the health problems are only likely to worsen. Infants do not have the antibodies to ward off illnesses that are common under these conditions and this aid undoubtedly came none too soon for some of these struggling babies and mothers. Please continue to pray that these people will find a solution to both their spiritual and physical needs in this time of turmoil and uncertainty. Our short distribution was cut 20 minutes shorter then expected due to the fact that we had run out of medicines and things to give. Praise the Lord for a secure vehicle which has enabled us to deliver these supplies without any incidents. After packing up, we headed home, blessed with a safe visit, minimal trouble, and the privilege to help those in need, but with a pressing desire to be able to return soon to help those still struggling for existence.
Dear friends,
Grace & Peace.
The Lord is doing great things here, both in the on-going work in the Dominican Republic, and in the Relief work going over to Haiti.
With a dental team of 24 here and a full schedule of clinics this week here at home in the D.R., the disaster in Haiti and what we must do in response remains on our hearts and minds. We are counting the days till we can return to deliver more aid in the form of tents, medicine & food to the many still desperately needing shelter in Carrefour.
This past Saturday, we at CDMM welcomed a team lead by several alumni of the University of Louisville school of Dentistry. These dentist, now working in their fields, had first come to visit and work with us while they were in school as dental students. This ream was also joined by Ariel Baez (Christy's husband & Gary & Cindy's son in law). To start the week with a little fun and fellowship, on Sunday we held a baseball clinic in the local ball field in Cambita. Over 100 young men came out to receive training on their throwing, batting and catching. With ball gloves given to many and the Gospel presented to all, these boys were encouraged in their passion for the sport and challenged to pursue a fuller life in Christ.
The week from Monday on out found us at a different location every day, providing people with much needed cleanings, tooth extractions, oral surgeries and tooth restorations. Providing some with brighter smiles, removing dangerous and painful teeth that have become no longer useful, and restoring those that could be fixed. As always, the greatest work was that done by the Holy Spirit on people's hearts as the love and Gospel of Christ was shared. With one day remaining, we have already witnessed seven decisions to follow Christ, and treated over 700 for their various dental issues. Yesterday, (Friday, Feb. 26th), concluded the dental clinics for a total of 5 clinics in 5 different areas. Praise God for the work done for His glory, and please pray that the seeds sown by this outreach will continue to grow into fruition as the people continue to witness Christ's love demonstrated and here His word preached.
As another special element of this outreach team, several of the visiting dentists brought their fathers who are in the construction trade along on the trip with them. While here, they were very helpful with several projects including replacing non-working light fixtures, and replacing worn vehicle parts. It is wonderful to see what God can accomplish through people that offer what the have been blessed with to be used by Him.
The outreach and relief distribution efforts in Haiti will continue on March 8th when we return to Carrefour to deliver more tents and aid to people still in need of shelter there. Please pray for safety in this effort and that the light and love of Christ will shine through us into the darkness.
God bless,
David Klein
Missionary, Dominican Republic
