La Romana

We recently took a trip to the opposite end of the island, to a town called La Romana.  We live in the northwest and la Romana is in the south east.  There is a brother in our hall from La Romana who was going to visit his family, so we tagged along.  Where we live the landscape is mountainous with a lot of vegetation.    The southeast is completely different.  It is super-flat and there aren't a lot of trees.

The city of La Romana is comparable in size to Puerto Plata (the city closest to us).  We stayed with the brother's grandparents.  It was a joy to get to know them and hear many stories from their years of service to Jehovah.  One story that stood out had to do with his grandfather (Br. Eustache) before becoming a witness.  He was 19-20 years old in Puerto Principe (Haiti) and was a pentecostal preacher.  He told us that in 1961 he had a conversation with a witness and that afterward he thought, " He's crazy..."  He then asked us, "Do you know who that witness was?..... Br. Franz."  Br. Franz was on a trip to Haiti and was preaching with a special pioneer who lived close to Br. Eustache (then a pentecostal preacher.)  Br. Eustache said that Br. Franz asked him to explain the whole trinity thing.  After trying, Br. Eustache said that it was just a mystery and that he couldn't explain it.  Br. Franz responded, "I can see that you are a sincere person.  Sooner or later you are going to become a witness."  After that was when Br. Eustache thought , "He's crazy..."  A year later he asked for a Bible study and soon after was baptized.

A lot of people in La Romana work at a resort complex called Casa de Campo.  It is a very high end, super nice resort.  It's actually more like it's own little country, because you don't feel like you're in the DR anymore.  The brother who we went with's father works there and we were able to get a tour of some parts of it.  www.casadecampo.com.do  Right there's the website where you can see pictures of some of the places in the complex.

Part of the resort is a place called Los Altos de Chavon.  It's a mini town built as if it were in the colonial days.  The town is set above the Chavon river.

Update #1

Where do I start?  Cherrie and I have been in a town called Imbert for the last 4 1/2 years.  Right after getting married we were in a small congregation called El Ranchito for a year.  The C.O. asked us to move to a nearby congregation to help out.  We did and have been here ever since.  The congregation here in Imbert is a bit bigger than El Ranchito.  We average about 30 publishers.  In the year and a half after we moved here a lot of foreigners moved in, and at one point we had 12 foreigners here in our little congregation.  Some were from Canada, California, New York and even Pennsylvania.  Now the only foreigners in Imbert are Cherrie and I, and the special pioneer couple who is from Austria.  There is also a single brother here who was assigned after graduating from the single brother's school.

In the small towns like this it can be hard see a lot of growth because a lot of people end up moving to bigger cities because of work.  There are very few jobs in Imbert and even in the short time we've been here two different families have moved to Puerto Plata.  Puero Plata is the main city of this province.  It's about 30 minutes from Imbert

In Puerto Plata there are a lot of witnesses.  There's an English congregation, a Sign Language congregation, a Haitian Creole congregation and at least 10 or 11 Spanish congregations.  The English congregation and several of the Spanish congregations have been formed just in the past few years.  When I first came 6 years ago there were only about 25,000 witnesses in the country.  Now we are up to 35,000.

The foreign language fields have especially been growing in the last 4 years.  Now there are 6 six English congregations in the country.  There's also two Russian groups, an Italian group and at least two Haitian Creole circuits.  Three years ago when there was more help in our congregation we were able to take one of the societies Haitian Creole language courses with the purpose of trying to start a group here in our territory. When some of the brothers moved away we had to refocus our efforts back to Spanish, but the course really helped us to reach more Haitians in our territory.

Haitian Territory

 There are also some pictures of different places in our territory mixed in.

Our dog Lili

She's not spoiled...

From our kitchen

A beach here on the north coast.

The house of some brothers in our hall.

at our assembly hall

Maimon Bay, 20 minutes from Imbert

Below us in the picture is the city of Puerto Plata.  This is at the top of the mountain behind it.  There is a cable car that takes you to the top.

It's Been Awhile

As the title says, it's been awhile.  Sorry we haven't sent out emails lately; everyday things always seem to get in the way.  Hopefully with this new blog it will be easier for us to keep in touch with all of our friends in the rest of the world.  A lot has happened in the last several years.  In the following posts we hope to get you updated as to what has been going on lately in the Dominican and our small town of Imbert.

Will be in touch...