The Latest News!!

Hello friends and Family

Update:

Things are happening.

It's a lot to read so skim if you must..

We leave for Puerto Plata in 3 weeks...

Our plan?

• To solidify a lease property for 2 to 3 years. It must have a house and some acreage near Puerto Plata
• To solidify the vision with our Dominican friends and lay out strategies for hosting work teams and staffing options for the children's home.

Here is a translated email from William Gomez our Mercy League Dom. Rep. director regarding the search for the lease property.
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5/24/07

"Hello Shane,

the weekend we worked looking for a house with the characteristic ones that we needed; we have an opportunity now, of a house near you take care of it. This property this behind TORES mountain ISABEL. It has his its own water and the house is of wood, this house has perhaps 100 years, and we have repárala.

The owner said to me that he is going to call to give me the security to me of which he is going to us to rent this house, the price of the house will say to whichever hill the rent soon to me. This house this near the school. Here photos of the house, we have some friends who are helping me to grant a scholarship but houses. God blesses brother to you In Christ William and Jaquelin Gomez
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5/26/07

Hello Shane my Brother,

Today I was in puerto Plata and met with the owners of the house. They have offered the house for 4000 pesos monthly, they want a year in advance, Also is our responsibility to take care of the house and to help with the repairs, we must pay 200 pesos for Electricity so far if we want to take over for June, and we do not have to pay to the water, because the property has its own water, Also they have a property to bandage.

God blessing to you in Christ,

William and Jaquelin Gomez

http://www.xe.com/ucc/full.php - currency converter...

Live rates at 2007.05.27 05:40:35 UTC
4,000.00 DOP	=	124.543 USD
Dominican Republic Pesos		United States Dollars
1 DOP = 0.0311357 USD		1 USD = 32.1175 DOP

Here is some communication that I have recently received about the children's home...

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"Hi Shane:

I thought of you today, and thought you'd be interested in this: After church today, had a very interesting discussion with missionaries, Donna Williams, Sue Coates, and Pauline Wren. Donna first talked about this baby in Redemption Village that is just tearing her apart with the neglect it is getting. It is Haitian. The mother is no longer around. The father leaves the baby to go to work. A dominican friend in the village looks after the child, but has 5 children of her own. The father is planning soon to leave for a job a ways away, and won't be around to look after the baby. He has already found a home for an older boy. Most times, when the Dominican woman is not looking after the baby, the father leaves the baby alone in the house! The baby is over a year old, and has no leg functions, because of the neglect. She will either sit where left to sit, or lay, where left to lay! It is so heart-breaking to Donna. If she could, she would take the baby home in a heart-beat. But she knows that's not practical. Her friend doesn't mind looking after the baby during the day, but doesn't have room for one more child to sleep at night! Donna is wishing there was a home/orphanage in the area to take in children like this.

Then Sue pipes in with their dream. There's an abandoned hotel on the way to the airport. Her husband, Jim, can't get it out of his mind about this place! He's going to make phone calls tomorrow, and start the inquiry process. They envision an orphanage. They envision taking care of babies. They also envision a "retreat center" of sorts for mothers and their babies to come there for instruction on baby care, and being ministered to by the word of God. Then they can return to their villages better equipped to look after their children, plus be encouraged, and refreshed. Donna said she could help with organizing groups to come down, to not only help with these children in the long run, but also initially to help get this building up and running! It will need quite a lot of work! Then Pauline pipes in that she has had a vision for street children. She envisions helping children to give them a meal, train them in skills, give them the love of Jesus and the gospel. These are children that are working the streets as shoe shine boys, etc. She also envisions a "retreat" center in the farm country where there would be animals and a place to plant gardens. So, it was kind of exciting to hear all this talk. We are hoping and praying that God will be in the center of it all, and see how things will pan out. Of course, Jim and Sue are not made out of money, and they feel like a small cog in the wheel. But they feel that if this is God's doing, it will somehow work out!

If you want to talk further with Jim and Sue, you can find them through their web-site at:

http://www.dominicanministry.com/

We are praying for you and God's plan for your future!

Lynn"

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Please be encouraged about these things,

Shane

The best gift I can give

This is a photo from a few years ago. It is me posing with a cute little fella at a place called... phonetically... odjo de buytola (hole in the ground) It is a slum in the city of Santiago which is situated on the northern part of the island of Hispaniola.

This slum is about 14 acres of land that literally sinks down from the rest of the city on all sides. It is a flood plain that changes every year, but the land is undesirable so the poorest of the poor occupy it.

One of the things that gets me into trouble is that I can't see people based on their socioeconomic status. I only see people. I mean.. I can see where a person will get placed on the scale. I have watched as... dare I say... "missionaries" have railed and disparaged friends of mine, while others would come to my house ( ok I upset even recalling this) and expect that my friend Jerry would not sit at the table with us for dinner. And worse... Jerry would never think of sitting with us despite pleading with him on every occasion. (Jerry was a Haitian young man that lived with us for three years. Kristie and I are the godparents of his son Sender.)

There is a saying in Haiti that goes like this, "Tout Moun se Moun" which means every person is a person. This is what I am talking about.

Every person is a person.

This simple phrase is beyond comprehension for some people. Many people attach a value to the a person according to some sort of criteria. For some reason that part of my brain didn't quite develop, or I wasn't socialized to look at people that way.

I guess that my dad(George) had a lot to do it. He was never one to qualify a person's pedigree before he could have a beer with them...

I remember another anomaly in school growing up. During a time when most of us teens were pretty worried about fitting in, I remember Dana Foster. I don't remember seeing her running over people to elevate herself. She did just the opposite. ( ya Dana I remember that about you!) She is now an active leader in my hometown and is part of an organization called the Yellowhead Ecological Association.

It may sound a little off but it is true: The greatest people in the world are those who give up their life for others. What do most people do? The exact opposite.


Enter the title of the blog (how do you like that for a transition)

If you ever get a chance to go and hold a child in a place like "the hole" or a batay in the cane fields you may get a dose of reality. People matter... especially the helpless children that will line up by your car as you stop at a street light and ask for food.

Living in Haiti for nearly three years Kristie and I remember several difficult scenes that will always be with us. Perhaps the most disturbing was to see too many humanitarian workers and missionaries stepping on the necks of the Haitians to gain as much as possible.

Maybe I will explain that to you if we talk personally some time.

There is a crisis in the Dominican Republic. There are over a million Haitians living in Batays like this one. The problem is the fall in sugar prices and the lack of work for these people. Here these two boys came to talk with me as I toured their village. They neither had adequate clothing or attended school. It is different when you are there talking to them face to face.

The best gift I can ever give you is perspective.


We leave on June 20th and December 27th.


Shane


p.s. Check out our Website too: http:www.mercyleague.org

Simple and Proactive

So here it is my friends... Keep it simple and work the plan.

That is my advice for anyone with a vision to do something great.

I believe that when the dream outgrows the foundation it is sitting on it will inevitably falter.

It is in my nature to dream big... too big.

At this point I would rather set something down on the ground than plan and dream... and plan and dream. ..Planning and dreaming doesn't get it done.

I have friends in Port-au-Prince. In the beginning of their dream they didn't plan too much or dream too long without taking action... instead they put something down on the ground. They took children in from the street.

Yes they created a problem for themselves in providing for these children who could have otherwise died in their poverty. But planning and dreaming until the perfect plan is laid out can also be a debilitating factor in the life of a vision.

David and Alicia Lloyd are heroes and champions for hurting and dying children in Port-au-prince, Haiti. They are the ones that didn't sit on a vision and let it simmer. They acted in faith and ran with it.

I remember talking with David, one day, about he and Alicia's hope to care for the orphans and abandoned and seemingly days later he invited the family over for dinner to meet his new children in his new orphanage... his house.!

He knew it wasn't perfect but he and Alicia knew that it was needed... the dying and starving children didn't have the time for the Lloyds to perfect the funding scenario or plann a perfect schematic for success.

David, Alicia, Davey and Hannah Lloyd Web-Page...

I wish you would contact them and send an encouraging word their way... if not a little donation to help them.

In like manner it is my belief that for our mission to the Dominican we need to get something of the vision on the ground. Something tangible.



We leave, God willing, in June to look for a lease opportunity near the North coast. We have people on the ground there looking for a house with ample land to put in gardens, fruit trees and room for animals. We have partners there ready to take up the cause of the abandoned children and hurting street children in the North of the country. William and Jacquie Gomez and his three wonderful daughters(Jesarella, Jasiel and Jasly) are the directors of Mercy league Dominican Republic. They are partners with us in our vision to support Dominicans caring for hurting children.

Keep checking back for new blogs...

Blessings to you,

Shane

Stone Soup

There is a famous story attributed to Marcie Brown in 1947.
It is called Stone Soup:

It is about three hungry soldiers traveling through a village with empty stomachs. They ask the locals for food and lodging but are met with excuses about how poor the villagers are and how they are unable to help.

The soldiers explain to the villagers how they can make soup enough to feed them all out of stones. As they borrow everything they need to make the soup they ask for small items like salt and pepper. a few carrots, a bit of this and that and eventually there is enough soup to feed everyone. Everyone gives what they can and there is enough for everyone. It is a wonderful example of people learning how to give what they can and see an miracle unfold right in front of them.

You can read the full story at: http://www.storybin.com/sponsor/sponsor116.shtml

It is a good reminder that we millions of dollars isn't the answer. Ordinary people looking after their neighbors, whether they are next door or across an ocean, is what we are trying to bring to the problems of poverty and exploitation in the world today.

This photo is from a small Batay on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. There are many Batays like it throughout the country. They are made of almost exclusively of Haitians.





The plight of Haitians in the Dominican Republic is worse than the country they fled... looking for a better life. There are three ways that Haitians end up in the DR.(Dominican Republic) The first and least utilized way is to legally gain entrance through the work and tourist visa's. The second is "Unba Bwa" which means "through the Woods." The third way that Haitians find themselves in the DR is that they are born there. Haitians that live in the DR are people without a voice or advocate. There is no place in the society for Haitians other than the lowly position of Servant, slave or sugar cane cutter in the batays. Children are born in the country with no hope for education, medical attention or emigration because of their "non-status" in the country. It is almost impossible for Haitians to return to their country of origin because they have children that are undocumented, travel is dangerous for Haitians and Haiti doesn't offer much incentive to return. These are a people who are between to countries without much hope for the future.

To compound the problem the sugar industry is suffering so the batays are without work for most people. The children eat sugar cane all day to stave off hunger and it isn't much better when there is work.

The good news is that there are organizations in the Dominican Republic that are working with these people. Many of the sugar plantation owners are allowing aid organizations to set up shop on their land to help with the problems the Haitians are facing.

We as an organization are partnering with our sister organization, Mercy League Dominican Republic, led by William Gomez, a 20 year veteran of international work in the country. We have access to many resources and partnerships in the DR.

We are currently looking at a June 20 departure date for our next visit to the North Coast near Puerto Plata. We are working with the Crow High School humanitarian Club near Eugene, OR and traveling with 4 representatives.

Kristie Mattenley with a Orphaned child in the DR

We love giving people opportunities to be involved in sustainable solutions for our neighbors in the world. We have plans to help the Dominican and Haitian people help their neighbors. We hope to model what it means to give a little and watch the soup grow into enough to feed everyone.

For more information about Mercy League International visit the website at:

http://www.mercyleague.org