Please pray for the following ARBC mission team members:

Leaving tonight and early in the morning: Weldon Ritchie, Riley Wentz, William Riley, Andy Bunn, David Largent, Warren Matlock, Mike Whisenant, and Sandi Whisenant.

Leaving early Friday morning: Suzanne Berry, Bobby Bownds, Ken Bownds, Rhonda Bownds
Jon McCaslin, Mike Motley, Steve Runnels, Gina Runnels, Brooklyn Runnels, and Payton Runnels.

Preparing for our arrival: Paul & Peggy Siebenmann and Franklin & Benita

The Ashburn's group at North Monroe Baptist Church will be in Barahona the following week and their blog is http://tothenations2010.blogspot.com - Pray for them as they prepare to go also.

Watch for updates from the "Runnel's Girls" soon! And we appreciate your encouraging comments!

Sandi

Barahona here we come!

It won't be long before we leave for the 2010 Mission Trip, July 8&9 - 17. We've got some great ministries planned for the week, but mostly hoping we will be able to build a cinder-block fence around the new church property. Pray for the survey to be finalized before we get there.

2010 Mission Trip

We're making plans to go back to Barahona July 9-17, 2010. The last week in December ARBC funded the purchase of land for a church building for the church in Barahona! We're excited to help them get started on a Baptist church for the community near the baseball field. Thanks to retired missionary Paul Siebenmann, The Dominican Baptist Convention, Santiago (a lawyer in the Barahona church), and the church's pastor Missionary Franklin Rodriguez, the deal was finalized and we are currently waiting on survey and title search. But the Barahona church is excited to make plans for clearing the land so that building can be begun if everything is clear to build by July.

Much has happened since our trip last July:
- Franklin & Benita had their baby, Addis, September 9
- We began helping a young boy, Timmy, with a health issue, then we found out that he was going to be sent to an orphanage in Boca Chica. He is now in the orphanage and we are praying that he is being treated well and that he will receive the help he needs until he is adoptable.
- Franklin's father passed away in the fall.
- Franklin & Santiago spent much time finalizing the land purchase
- In January, Franklin's grandmother passed away.
- In January, the Haiti earthquake has been an opportunity for the Barahona church to minister to the Haitians crossing the border into Dominican Republic to get help. The area missionary and the area churches are ministering to the Haitian refugees even though the people in Barahona don't have much either. Pray for resources to be located to help the Haitians and for the Dominicans to be open to helping them.

This may create new opportunities also for us on our trip in July as the Haitians will still be recovering from their losses.

If you are interested in joining us for this 2010 mission trip or would like to know how you can donate toward our ministries in Barahona, please contact barahona@arbcgarland.com.

God bless you as you read this!
Sandi

Ninos Para Cristo - Kids for Christ

We've set up a website to tell about our project to help kids in Barahona. Go to www.ninosparacristo.org to find out more and watch Kristen's testimony below:

Incredible Dugout Sign Story by Jim Clark

Last day in Barahona

Today is our last day in Barahona. Here's what we've been doing...
Yesterday it was pouring down rain and we thought the day was wasted, but we were flexible and shook our fist at Satan and headed out to do our days work. After we scurried about making changes to our schedule the sun came out! Suzanne headed to the caricatures, visited the hospital pediatric ward (a sad example of socialized medicine), prayer walking in the mud--I've got some great "kid water splashing" videos, AC & Jim have a great story about the scripture on the dugout that I'll post when I get back, Warren, BJ & Andy built a latrine, they worked on two houses and finished construction today. We had Bible studies & kids Bible activities. Then we had a youth rally which is actually a scavenger hunt. We probably had about 100 kids divided into teams and running through the streets looking for items such as a euro, crab, photo of president, etc. Nick's team won first place. Also to celebrate Nick's 21st birthday, Nick & Riley played Dominican dominoes with a couple of men at the park & Nick & Riley won! The usually play for eggs, but they passed on the prize.

At the businessmen's lunch today there were 15 Dominicans, 5 Americans, & 3 TV cameramen + Franklin. We shared our testimonies about what God has done in our lives. How God influences us in our work. We were very well received. Franklin said it was an incredible response. Some of the men got up and shared their testimonies of how they were inspired and how they can share this with their own families. They were excited about us being in the Dominican and our actions spoke louder than words. The guys in charge of the TV station did a recording of Franklin and said he would show it on TV as much as possible this year and next year when we come back we need to let them know and record us a couple of times while we are here, then show it on TV as much as possible.

Domingo, a hotel employee, brought Suzanne, Pat & Sandi a pitcher of water & napkins while we were eating lunch in the breezeway and told us we were his "mothers". Then he sang and gave testimony. He's 21 years old and a pastor. Now when he sees us carrying bags through the hotel, he offers to carry them.

Mike says it's amazing how much value they place on an empty paint can that's given to them. Mike gave a can to someone and now he sees them carrying it proudly through the streets.

We're getting ready to go to our last afternoon Bible studies and tonight we will have a celebration of the week.

Sorry I haven't had time to post pictures. But I will soon.

Bye--Sandi