By Todd & Levonda Kreitzburg
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Today was a very special day in the Dominican. We started the day off by going to Jumbo, a store very much like the Wal-Mart or Meyers in the USA. Each of us got a shopping cart and put in enough food to feed four families for one week. Each family received rice, beans, vegetable oil, two cans of tuna, coffee, salt, and chicken broth, which comes to about $12.50 US dollars. We lined up with our carts and went through the check out line. Our bus driver, Tiko, even talked the store into a 10% discount. The bagger bagged each family's food in an individual bag. We loaded the food on the bus and then drove to a nearby sugarcane village named Aleman which means German Village. At the village, we walked through the village inviting the neediest families to the center of town for a program. We were able to invite 50 families to receive food and hear God's word. The program started with the villagers singing "Happy Birthday" to Pastor Bill- Yes, July 3 is Pastor Bill's birthday. They sang the song in Spanish. Katie and Chris gave their testimonies and Pastor Bill gave the message. Then we did our skit. After the program, we passed out 50 bags of food to families. It was just such a blessing to be able to know that people who have no food now have food for a week. God is such a great God and his hand was at work today.
Then we came back to the compound for lunch. Pastor Bill, got another Happy Birthday song sung to him. This time, the song was a rap sang to him by another group at the compound, "Kids Across America". They are a group of African American teens from all across the USA. They are really on fire for the Lord! Boy, did they ever have a unique way of rapping Happy Birthday, but Pastor Bill was a great sport and even seemed to enjoy the song!
We still had 27 bags of food left so this afternoon we went to a village names Palo Viejo. This was a much smaller village and had much more poverty. We walked through the village and invited all the children and families to the center of town. There were only about 25 families in the village so the crowd was much smaller. We played "Duck, Duck, Goose with the children in Spanish. Then, we passed out balls, sun visors, and yo yos to the children. We had a short program where Kerstin, Gary, and Angela gave their testimonies. The word of God was preached to the families. The village sang Happy Birthday to Pastor Bill in Creole. The best part of the day was when we passed out the bags of food. The people at this village really needed it. Many of the men work all day in the sugar cane fields. They get up as early as 4:00 AM and don't come back until at least 4:00 PM. They do this without any food in their stomach. The men wear long sleeve sweat shirts , long pants, and high boots so they don't get cut by the sugar cane.
In this village we went into a house that was about 5' by 6'. It was very dark with no windows. The man who lived there said he was about 80 years old. He had a wooden board that he slept on. All his possessions were hanging on the wall by him. He was very proud of his Bible and kept it under his pillow. This was the worst case of poverty that I have every seen. Before we left, we gave each child in the village a little back pack, some stickers, a little notebook, a colorful pen, and a pinwheel. They were overjoyed and excited. It was so fun!
On our way back to the compound, we saw a man working in the sugar cane field. Our bus driver stopped and asked if he had eaten today. He had not. We had one bag of food left that we gave to him. I truly believe that was God's hand working.
We also stopped at the old folks home in Monte Christy were we picked up Cindi, Don Young, Chappel Hill's Donny Young, Cheryl, and Jeff who had worked in the afternoon putting in the cabinets that they had made this week. They are for the women to put their clothes on. We had made an extra cabinet by mistake. So Cindi took the extra cabinet into the kitchen for the women to put their dishes on. The women thought this was the best thing in the world. They only wanted their very best dishes on this cabinet. The women were so happy and excited! The cabinets looked wonderful!
I am overjoyed and overwhelmed with what I saw today. One one hand it was wonderful to help feed as many families as we did. On the other hand, it was so sad to see the poverty and hunger that we saw today. My prayer is that God truly blesses each person we saw and talked to today.
It was such a busy, fun day. We were all tired, but it was a good tired because the Lord blessed so much today!
Happy Birthday Pastor Bill!!
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