17 Jan 06 - First meeting with Paul Branson

Paul came over to my house this morning. Over coffee we discussed how God had gotten us into this from each perspective and found some common ground and vision. Though the picture is unclear at the moment, it is clear that a relationship is forming and a partnership of some sort could result. We have abilities and resources that could work well together. It is possible that Habitat for Humanity will be involved, and we are open to that. If not, things will move forward accordingly.

Please pray for discernment and wisdom to follow God's plans.

Prayer...

Thank you Lord, for listening to the prayers of your people.

It meant so much to hear Victoria pray for this project during the Monday morning staff meeting at EC. There is something special, wonderful, frightening, and humbling about people involving themselves in a vision. It makes you fragile, gives you strength, encourages you, challenges you all at the same time.

I spoke on the phone with Dan and Kathie last night (16 Jan 06). We prayed about the meeting that Paul Branson and I would have today. I prayed about perspective. From our point of view, we see puzzle pieces, one at a time revealed to us in God's time. At times I try to force pieces in the wrong spots or in the wrong puzzle altogether! I am so thankful that God sees a beautiful picture with a master plan! Dan and Kathie spoke of "freeing people up" to do God's work, including people like myself. I don't know the what or the when of that, and to be honest, I'm not worried about it. It would be a blessing to work in a full-support raised mission and depend on God more, if I am called to that. If not I will continue to serve God at EC and in the community.

Second Visit - 15 Jan 2005

Julie, Susie, Victoria, Steve and myself traveled to the community with our list of people, in order to meet the people and assess what other needs were there. We were greeted by Vicente and his family. After some conversation in Vicente's home, we began travelling around the community to see what needs exist. For pictures of that day, browse to: http://www.theschottfamily.org/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=25

The generosity of the people was overwhelming. We were given a huge bag of peas ( en español "guandules" sounds like "juan" "doo" "lace") and "teyotes" (a vegetable that looks like a pear.) There are so many needs, we would walk down a stretch of road and there was no end, always more needs ahead, we would have to turn around and go back to look in other directions to get a clear picture of the original list. All in all we took a couple hundred pictures, and others (Victoria, Steve, Susie, and Julie) began to catch the vision as well. Comments were made like "I know of this guy who works in construction in Canada" or "There are a couple groups coming down in the summer that would be interested in working here." that reinforced we were doing the right thing.

We agreed to meet again in two weeks. Each of us will type or write a reaction of our experience and share it with others.

Julie and I invited Vicente to have supper at our house on the following Sunday, and I am anxiously awaiting it!

First visit

My wife Julie, David Wier, and myself went out to the community with Vicente to look at his house, so we could assess what was needed for the potential service project. When we arrived there, I saw many houses that were incomplete. I asked Vicente what was going on with those houses, he explained that they were donated to the poor by the government so they could have a house. The government did not have the money to build the houses for the people so they were left to their own resources to do so. During that visit, the thought "let's build 50 houses" kept entering my mind. Sounds crazy but I continued to pray about it, and have received confirmation in the following ways:

• A feeling of peace when discussing the idea with God.
• Conversations about the situation with Pastor Bill Bradley, a man of God and his word.
• Interest and excitement of others to be involved in the project (Jon Merrit, Steve Chase, Victoria Lawlor-McLean, Susie LaQuey, Julie Schott, and many more!)

The next step was to identify the homeowners and assess other needs in the community. We asked Vicente to get a list of the people who owned the houses and that we would come back to meet with the people and learn their story.

Please view the following page to see pictures from Vicente's house: http://www.theschottfamily.org/missions/

A few things for starters and introductions.

Greetings from Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic!

This project began long before I knew it would exist (if that makes any sense.) I will post an entry from my other blog, http://praisetoday.blogspot.com, as an introductory timeline:

(09:30:46) Peter: God is so good
(09:30:54) Shantasmagoria Wittow: :D
(09:31:00) Shantasmagoria Wittow: do you have a story?
(09:31:01) Peter: there are so many things to say
(09:31:03) Peter: oh yes
(09:31:13) Shantasmagoria Wittow: well, please tell
(09:31:16) Peter: do you ever read my blog? I may have put some of it on there
(09:31:19) Peter: I will tell though
(09:31:29) Peter: it started last july
(09:31:46) Shantasmagoria Wittow: okay :)
(09:31:47) Peter: i was thinking of vacation, not wanting to talk about myself and what I'm doing the whole time I was at home
(09:32:05) Shantasmagoria Wittow: oh yes!!!
(09:32:10) Peter: so I asked God what I could do and he gave me the idea to make a dvd showcasing various missions here
(09:32:22) Peter: so a couple friends of mine and I put it together
(09:32:28) Shantasmagoria Wittow: :)
(09:32:46) Peter: had the song "his eye is on the sparrow" as the theme as we let each of these groups tell their story and needs
(09:33:05) Peter: anyways, I was determined to show it to anyone that would sit down for 10 mins and watch it, then see what God did
(09:33:18) Peter: well the first day home, I showed it to Pauline...good Pauline :)
(09:33:38) Shantasmagoria Wittow: she's great
(09:33:39) Peter: she is affiliated with a new non-profit group called "rivers of life"
(09:33:51) Shantasmagoria Wittow: and a connection was born
(09:33:59) Peter: my goal in this video was to connect people/churches to missions in need
(09:34:14) Peter: to build relationshipsand offer a way for people/churches to give to reliable sources
(09:34:26) Peter: or if they were thinking of doing a missions trip it would spur that on
(09:34:30) Peter: etc
(09:34:38) Peter: well this rivers of life group has the same heart and goal
(09:34:46) Peter: and they are doing that with people in madagascar
(09:34:57) Peter: anyways they were having a board meeting the next day
(09:35:09) Peter: Pauline said they would be interested in seeing this and offered to arrange it
(09:35:11) Shantasmagoria Wittow: and...
(09:35:13) Peter: I happily said yes
(09:35:20) Peter: went out there, showed the video
(09:35:26) Peter: they got excited, asked what I wanted from them
(09:35:36) Peter: told them I would like them to be a conduit for resources to the DR
(09:35:42) Peter: they said they would pray about it
(09:35:50) Shantasmagoria Wittow: you flew?
(09:36:08) Shantasmagoria Wittow: oh wow!
(09:36:08) Peter: they prayed for me, received visions that I was going to have a new perspective on the DR when I returned here, that God was going to pour out blessing on the DR
(09:36:23) Peter: 2 hr later they called me and told me the answer was yes
(09:36:25) Shantasmagoria Wittow: I heard a little bit, this is more, and more fantastic
(09:36:30) Peter: and this is where it gets exciting
(09:36:39) Peter: they wanted me to be their "field officer" down here
(09:36:45) Peter: eyes/ears open for opportunities
(09:37:07) Peter: have me as a joint signer on a checking account to disburse any funds that come in
(09:37:29) Peter: and they want to send a few people down here on an exploratory trip sometime (possibly this month by now)
(09:37:34) Peter: I was home in october btw
(09:37:41) Peter: there's funny thing about that too
(09:37:48) Peter: I was planning on coming 10 days later than I did
(09:38:05) Peter: but my drivers license was going to expire and I was going to lose my CDL certifications for bus driving, etc
(09:38:17) Peter: and I wanted to keep them, so I needed to come back by a certain time and take this test
(09:38:26) Peter: so I came home a week early, lining all this other stuff up
(09:38:34) Peter: it "just happened to work out"
(09:38:35) Peter: ;)
(09:38:38) Peter: anywhoo..
(09:38:49) Peter: I came back here, and have been sharing with them when I see needs
(09:38:59) Shantasmagoria Wittow: wow
(09:39:03) Peter: I'm on two committees with our church here, benevolence and missions
(09:39:15) Peter: benevolence distributes money/resources to people in need
(09:39:22) Peter: and missions helps with missionaries on the island
(09:39:29) Shantasmagoria Wittow: this is so awesome Peter
(09:39:30) Peter: a man came to the benevolence committee
(09:39:46) Peter: who wanted concrete for a floor on his house
(09:39:50) Peter: he was building a house
(09:39:59) Peter: renting an aprt at the same time for his family
(09:40:06) Peter: couldn't afford the rent anymore
(09:40:13) Peter: so they moved into this house early
(09:40:28) Peter: no concrete floor, just dirt covered with carpet
(09:40:33) Peter: we went out to examine the site
(09:41:23) Peter: the house, it's a wreck...building the walls with scrapwood(basically bark), the ground isn't level
(09:41:42) Peter: and on the way out, we saw 14 other houses that hadn't finished their construction
(09:41:49) Peter: half finished houses, lined up in rows
(09:41:59) Peter: I asked the man what was going on with those houses
(09:42:15) Peter: said the property was donated by the gov't, and that the people needed to build the house on their own
(09:42:32) Peter: while I was out there I kept getting the thought, "build 50 houses"
(09:42:39) Peter: "in one year"
(09:42:43) Peter: thinking this is crazy
(09:43:01) Peter: kept praying about it, received confirmation through prayer and other people committing to help with the project
(09:43:20) Peter: talked with habitat for humanity today, someone from habitat is going to come here to meet with me and look at the sites, etc
(09:43:26) Peter: to possibly partner with us
(09:43:33) Peter: like I said earlier, God is good!
(09:44:09) Peter: so how do you like them apples
(09:46:09) Shantasmagoria Wittow: I LOVE THEM APPLES!
(09:48:23) Peter: please pray for Habitat, for Jose Abreu (the man who is coming here to see the project)
(09:48:31) Peter: check out http://www.theschottfamily.org/missions
(09:48:36) Peter: and pray for Vicente
(09:48:59) Peter: pray for the 14 owners of the houses and others that are homeless or living in substandard housing