Dangerous Job

This past week I saw something interesting - and frightening at the same time. We saw some painters working on a six story building. The painters worked in pairs. One man stays up on the roof and makes sure the ladder is secure and also is in charge of raising and lowering the five gallon bucket of paint for the man below.






The other man climbs down the ladder. With one arm he hangs on to the ladder, and all the painting is done with the other hand. As you can see, there is no safety equipment - not even a security rope for the painter. He just climbs up and down the rope ladder right out in the open.





Update:

A few weeks ago I told you about Juan and the robbers that tried to take his motorbike. The bullet wounds have healed up nicely. But, apparently, the bullet did some damage to one of the nerves that control the muscles in the wrist. Juan can close his fist but is unable to lift his fingers and wrist in any kind of upward motion. He is wearing a cast for the time being and may have to get some therapy. Please keep him in your prayers. Juan had been hoping to go into the medical profession. If he does not regain the motion in his hand, he may have to choose a different life's work.

Elections

Next May, the people here will vote in their local mid-term elections. The streets are already filled with posters and ads for all of the candidates from the three different main political parties. All the candidates are already campaigning to get as many votes as possible.

How does this affect the church work? Much of the campaigning is done on Sunday when people are off from work. For several Sundays now, Juan has had to postpone the beginning of the service while we wait for a candidate's parade to go past the church. This video was taken from the door of Juan's church.

As you can tell from the video, it gets VERY loud and the parade is quite long. Those people who don't have speakers blaring, are honking their horns and playing their radios full-blast. It is impossible to begin services or to concentrate on the Word with such a racket going by.

After the parade is past, your ears continue humming and buzzing for a while from all the loud noises. When we start singing our hymns -- it sounds very sweet!





In other news:

We want to again thank all of you for your prayers for the work here and for our safety. On Friday night, one of our members, Juan Fransisco, received a gunshot wound. Bible class had finished and he had already taken one person home on his motorbike. He was coming back to the church to pick up a second person to give them a ride home. Some other men on another motorcycle began following him, pulled out a gun and shot him in an attempt to steal his bike. Juan was able to continue riding his bike and arrive once again at the church property. There the members that were still around attended to him and took him to the clinic. Thanks to the Lord, the bullet exited his body and all he needed were some stitches.



We are all rejoicing and giving thanks to the Lord for His loving protection of Juan. Please rejoice with us that Juan is well and recovering. The Lord sent his holy angels to watch over Juan. And we thank you, also, for all your faithful prayers.

Santiago break-in #4

I'm a little pressed for time, so please accept this quick note.

The downtown Santiago outreach center was broken into again this last Tues night/Wed morn (Aug 19/20). That’s number 4 if you’re keeping count. The thief (I personally think it was a one man job) stole the offering from the past few Sundays and a large tool box that one of our members had left since he was working on replacing all of the electrical outlets and switches. It is indeed frustrating, but we know we are still in the Lord’s hands and he PROMISES to work even this out for the good of his children. We take him at his word!

We renew our efforts to make the building more secure.

The Lord bless you with his Peace,
NW

Robbed again

As you can see from the title of this post, our church in downtown Santiago was broken into again. I can't go into too many details right now, but here’s a quick summary:

(1) Thursday night/Friday morn (May 22/23) – thieves bent back a zinc (tin) roofing sheet and came down through the ceiling tile in the back third of the church (only front two thirds has cement roof). They took the CPU of a computer and a DVD player (I hope they watch the Communicating Christ DVD that was in it.) On Friday, we filed police report and cleaned up the broken ceiling tiles, replaced tin sheet and secured it as best we could.

(2) Saturday night/Sunday morn (May 24/25) – thieves broke in again, this time they completely removed the burglar bars at the women’s bathroom (we see now they were poorly installed) and forced open the louvre window. This time they cleaned us out: 29” TV, water cooler, the rest of the computer (monitor, speakers, etc), window a/c unit, wall fans, Missionary Monday’s tool set, even a 3 liter bottle of communion wine! By God’s grace we had removed the congregation’s cash on hand lock box after the Friday morning break in, so they didn't get that.

After a delayed Haitian service on Sunday, I attempted to file a police report, but was told to come back on Monday. Obed, one of our Haitian seminary students, and I replaced the burglar bars (temporarily) with cement, and cleaned up except for four items that had obvious fingerprints. Following EFL classes and the Spanish service in the afternoon we removed anything we thought the thieves might come back for (used batteries, three fans that remained, etc).

Mon morning we planned for a “work day” at church to improve security, only to arrive and find out that during the night they had broken into the veterinary office below us and took their computer and some equipment! Within a few minutes after we got there, news people started arriving. Freddy and I were interviewed. I even got to speak live on the radio with Jose Gutierrez, a well known news and commentary program here in Santiago with a large audience.

The police “CSI” team arrived and after they finished taking fingerprints, we cleaned, fixed the roof better and cut back tree branches to open up visibility. Still in the morning I went to file our police report from Sunday, only to be told to come back in the afternoon. I went back in the afternoon (an hour before they told me to return), and after waiting two hours, was told to come back the next morning!

So on Tuesday I went early to file the police report that we couldn’t finish Sunday or Monday because their computers were down. After close to three hours of paperwork and waiting in lines, the case was put on a list to be assigned an investigator. I finally went to church, hoping to get in at least an hour of seminary classes. Immediately when I arrived at church, however, some of the neighbor businessmen came over and said they knew where our stuff was.

Since our case was still waiting for an officer to be assigned to it, we had to return to the police station personally to inform them. They “immediately” assigned us an officer who took his time waiting for a partner – then he told me that they didn’t have a vehicle!!! “Can you drive us?” they asked. “What if you take someone into custody?" I responded. “Well, we’ll put him in the cargo area...” (I have a jeep-style vehicle.) Next thing I knew, Freddy (one of our sem students) and I were driving around these two officers to do their investigation. So much for teaching any seminary classes...

After asking around and driving to different places looking for information, we are 99% sure that the next door neighbors to the church either are responsible for the break-ins or at least bought the stolen merchandise from the thieves, to resell it later. But we have no confidence that the police will do anything about it--unless we decide to "wet their hand" (mojar la mano), give the police a cash incentive to act. (What we take for granted in the US!)

But God is good. We wait to see what the Lord has in store for us. Your prayers are requested!
Believe it or not, that is the *SHORT* version!

With you, declaring God’s praises!
NW

[By the way, in the third and fourth pictures above, you're supposed to notice what *isn't* there -- no TV on the TV cart, no air conditioner unit in the window...]

CSI: Santiago

As promised, part 2 of the Santiago church robbery. (Be sure to read the first part by clicking here or by scrolling down if you haven't read it yet).

There seminarian Freddy and I are, looking at the broken locks, scanning the room to figure out what is missing. A thousand thoughts a minute. What to do? First things first. Freddy calls 911 to report the burglary.

Wonder of wonders! A police car actually shows up! --The Dominican police force is *not* known for its reliability.-- The officer looks the building over, then tells us we have to go to the station to file the report. He'll meet us there.

By now the other seminarians have arrived, so they can watch the building as Freddy and I go to the police station. Once we find the right office, Freddy and I wait about 20 minutes for the officer in charge to show up. We tell him about the robbery. He calls for the "scientific investigation" team to accompany us back to the church to investigate the scene, then he will write out the report. We wait 10 minutes for them to show up. The investigation team tells the officer who called them that he has to fill out the report first before they go. They argue for a few minutes about what comes first, the report or the investigation. We wait another 20 minutes as the officer takes out a grade school writing tablet (I think it had "Dora the Explorer" on the front) and writes out a rather general report by hand. There is a computer in the room, but it is being used as a big CD player... --The Dominican police force is not known for its efficiency.--

Finally the report is written and we can lead the CSI team to the church. The "scientific investigation" consists of digital photos and dusting the doors for fingerprints. Since this isn't TV, they don't find a case solving fingerprint on the first try--nor do they solve the case in 43 minutes (60 with commercials)--but they do find one they think is "promising". Freddy and I are both fingerprinted so that they can rule our fingerprints out. We'll see if they get a "hit" on the fingerprint they found, but I'm not holding my breath.

By the time the CSI team finishes and leaves, it is our normal break time, so the seminary students go for a quick snack before starting to clean up. Right next door to the church, behind the fruit stand where the guys get their snack, is a run down house that has been abandoned for almost half a year now. Julio says, "Let's look around to see if the thieves left anything there." Can you guess what happens next?

While I'm still in the church starting to put things away, I hear Freddy call out "Professor Natan! Natan! Venga!" (Prof Nathan. Come here!) The thieves DID leave something behind! There behind some stairs is our window air conditioner unit. They had obviously placed it there planning to come back for it later.

Again, we see the little blessings the Lord showed us. He allowed us to recover the most expensive of the six items that had been stolen! We were even able to joke about--now the thieves are going to call the police to complain that we stole back what they had rightfully stolen from us! :-)

It was a long day, but after cleaning the church, buying and installing a new lock for the door, a new (much stronger) padlock for the gate, making copies of the new keys for everyone, etc. I finally go home. The story, however, would continue the next day......

Santiago church robbed

"Keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."

Jesus' words in Matthew 24: 42-44 became more vivid this past Tuesday morning as I arrived at our ministry center in Santiago at about 7:30 am to get ready for seminary classes. I unlocked the padlock and took off the chain from the gate along the street thinking it was another normal weekday morning. My heart sank as I arrived at the top of the stairs to see the gate to our front porch wide open and the front door ajar. Everything became slow motion for a moment as I saw that both door locks had been pried open and were now lying on the door mat in pieces. All I remember thinking was: "Oh, no..."

Seminarian Freddy had hitched a ride with me that morning, so we went in together to check out the damage, expecting the worst. The thieves had gone through the entire building opening cabinets, dumping out boxes, breaking into a locked storage room looking for anything of value.

They wound up dismounting and taking a window air conditioner unit, an inverter (battery backup system for the building), DVD player, radio/CD player, computer speakers and a wall fan.










Despite the feeling of being "violated", we thank God as we recognize that He was still protecting us and our resources:

• Noone was injured.
• Everything they took is replaceable.
• The thieves took computer speakers, but not the computer itself.
• They took the DVD player, but not the TV it was hooked up to.
  
• One of the few boxes the thieves did *not* look in was the one containing a small lockbox with the congregation's offerings.
• They left a mess, but did not vandalize or break anything other than locks.

I wasn't expecting thieves to break in on Monday night. What a vivid reminder that the Son of Man can come at any time also, even when we least expect him!!!

We are trying to prepare ourselves to prevent the thieves from returning--stronger locks on the doors, a security system, possibly a night watchman. What amazing grace that God himself prepares us through the Gospel to actually welcome his Son's return!!! Jesus has saved me from my sins. I am forgiven. I am ready for Jesus to return.

[ There is more to the story, even with a few unexpected twists. But you'll have to wait a day or two until I can write more... ]

The Lord bless you with His peace,
NW