you might be reading this in hopes of an inspiring missions story, but today, boys and girls, you’re going to hear about missions reality, 101.  so sharpen your pencils and get ready to take notes.  life in the third world is no piece of bizcocho.

1.  building a house.  doing any kind of building project in the dominican republic is bound to be full of adventure and annoyances.  garrett can tell you more about this.  in addition to the cost of construction materials QUADRUPALING in about six months (thanks to oil and china), we are now being sued by a former construction employee for wrongful termination.  the dude stole from us and then got caught trying to bribe the guard to steal more.  i thought, dude, you should be glad you’re not in jail.  stop trying to sue us.  but as it turns out, the employee typically wins these suits because the judge assumes “wealthy” employers are trying to take advantage of poor workers.  oh yes, that’s what makarios is all about.  so we’re going to have to shell out a bunch of money to settle out of court.

2.  dominican bank account.  so we open a dominican bank account to have better access to funds than using an atm with daily limits.   in fact, we open a “dollar account” so we can deposit and cash US checks.  at first, it took 10 days for a check to clear.  kind of annoying because we would see the money come out of our account in the US on the day we deposited it.  so they were making money off of it for 10 days, but we can survive 10 days.  we’re used to waiting on stuff in the DR.  but the policy has changed.  we now have to wait 45 days!!!  what’s the point of having an account if you have to wait 45 days to withdraw money you put into it?  in that amount of time, i could withdraw the money in austin, tape it to the back of a monkey, send him walking to galveston, have him get on a back of a turtle who would swim him to the DR, and they would arrive in puerto plata in less than 45 days.

3.  please don’t come and poop on our school yard.  i understand why poor and hungry people would steal food that’s growing on our property.  but why do they feel the need to poop while they’re there?  the latest plan is to give the night guard a paint ball gun to shoot at them.  that way it’ll hurt AND we’ll know the next morning who it was by the paint stains.

there are highs and lows in life here in the DR, and while the highs far outweigh the lows, i didn’t want you think it was all cute kids and beaches down here.  :)   please pray for us!