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