Stories from West Beach, August 2009

Meroly Domínguez Félix , young resident of West Beach in the Dominican Republic

"West Beach," or "Playa Oeste" as it is written in Spanish, sounds like a tourist resort. But West Beach is actually a squatters' community on the outskirts of the city of Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. Tiny shacks—built of rough concrete blocks, salvaged lumber and rusty tin sheets—are crowded side-by-side along a polluted waterfront. The streets are dirt, or mud when it rains. Prostitution and drug abuse fuel the local economy. Children are sent out to work each day to help broken families survive. They couldn't attend school if they wanted to, because they don't have birth certificates. Neither do many of their parents. As far as the Dominican government is concerned, the people of West Beach don't exist.

God, however, has not forgotten them. Six years ago He sent missionaries James and Maria Jones to West Beach to plant churches. Yet West Beach is not a place where you can just preach the gospel. It must also be lived. So James and Maria started a low-cost Christian school for kids ages 4-12. Each weekday, about 140 children attend Vision in Action Christian School to learn how to read and write—and how to follow Jesus. Adult hearts have softened. James and Maria have planted a number of house churches in West Beach and nearby neighborhoods. Lives are being transformed.

A view of a small section of West Beach from the uncompleted third story of Vision in Action Christian School

Heaven's Family has been helping fund the construction of a new building for Vision in Action Christian School since part of the old building was destroyed by tropical storm Olga. We've also met some other pressing needs that are highlighted in four stories within this update. Your compassion is answering prayers in West Beach. On behalf of our spiritual family there who have benefitted, thanks so much. — David

Slightly Slow Angel
The Critical Medical Needs Fund at Work

Neiroby Vurgos, less than two weeks after being shot in the face by a 38-caliber handgun at point-blank range

Neiroby Vurgos, only fourteen, is in eleventh grade and at the top of her class. Since last year, she has also been teaching the third grade class in the afternoons at Vision in Action Christian School in West Beach, for which she is paid about $75 per month, a huge blessing to her. She loves her job, and all of her students adore her.

Just a few weeks ago, as Neiroby was walking home from her teaching job, she was confronted by a young man with a 38-caliber pistol. He demanded her sunglasses, and she complied. He looked them over and then grumbled, "My sunglasses are better than yours!" Pointing his gun directly at her face, he pulled the trigger. She fell backwards, and he walked away. Neiroby lay motionless on the ground as blood streamed from her face.

A few of the residents of West Beach carried her unconscious body to the local hospital on the back of a motorcycle. Her face was so swollen that she was unrecognizable. Doctors assumed the worst. The bullet was likely in her brain. But when x-rays were taken, everyone was stunned to see the bullet lodged under her nose in a sinus cavity. It had not penetrated or damaged any of her facial bones. It seemed to be a miracle, as if the bullet had been stopped by an angel (who could have done better, by the way, and stopped the bullet even sooner)!

Actual x-ray of Neiroby's skull showing the location of the bullet in her sinus cavity

Doctors did not want to attempt to extract the bullet until all the swelling in her face and sinus cavity had subsided. So they patched up her nostril where the bullet entered and sent her home for a few weeks. When I met her two weeks later, the bullet was still in her sinus cavity, and I was given an x-ray to prove it (see photo at above). Unfortunately, the doctors' fees along with the hospital expenses of $416 were beyond the means of Neiroby's family. Thankfully, however, it was not beyond the means of her spiritual family. Heaven's Family provided what was needed, and Neiroby no longer has a bullet in her head. A happy ending!

Marcos Nuñez, happy to have his sight back The Bigger Picture: We receive a regular stream of communications regarding critical medical needs from around the world, but we only respond to communications from members of our spiritual family whom we personally know and trust. Besides helping Neiroby, last month we also helped pay for cataract surgery for an elderly Christian man in the Dominican Republic named Marcos Nuñez, who was almost blind. We also met critical medical needs of believers in Rwanda, Myanmar and Mexico. We meet every need we can through gifts to the Critical Medical Needs Fund, of which 100% is sent overseas for their designated purpose.

Ana the Entrepreneur
The Widows Fund at Work

Ana Sarita, entrepreneur from West Beach

Anna Sarita is one of those people in West Beach who don't exist as far as the Dominican government is concerned. She never had a birth certificate or any I.D. Neither did her mother or grandmother. So Ana could never attend school. She never learned to read. At age fifteen, she moved in with her boyfriend and, a year and a half later, had her first of three children. As best as Ana can guess, she is now about thirty-two years old.

Five years ago, Ana came to the Lord at one of James and Maria's house churches in West Beach. Eventually, her promiscuous and alcoholic husband became very intolerant of her "religion" and gave her an ultimatum. Ana chose Jesus. Her husband threatened to kill her and their children, so James and Maria provided her sanctuary in a tiny house outside of West Beach, where she currently lives with her three children.

James offered Ana a job as a teacher's assistant at Vision in Action Christian School. Although Ana tried to keep her illiteracy secret, James said he was fairly sure Ana couldn't read when he noticed that her Bible was upside-down at the weekly Bible class. Yet Ana applied herself to learn to read along with the children she was helping to teach at Vision School, and once she mastered the basics, she read the Bible constantly until she became a very proficient reader. James, a former army medic, also trained Ana in some paramedics, and soon she was able to fill in for James, helping the steady stream of poor people who came to him for medical diagnoses, advice and treatment.

With James' encouragement, Ana started studying hygiene and preventative medicine. She began learning that there is a correlation between nutrition and health. Before long she was selling vitamins door-to-door, which enabled her to do even better at providing for herself and her three children. But she had one more dream. With the help of her oldest daughter, Ana wanted to open a retail health food store and restaurant that would serve healthy food and help change the eating habits of her clients.

Although Ana is technically not a widow, we made an exception in her case, providing the $350 from our Widows Fund that she needed to start her new business. She is bound to succeed.

The Bigger Picture: Through contributions to the Widows Fund, Heaven's Family is helping Christian widows around the world with business start-up grants. Last month in the Dominican Republic, 63-year-old Mercedes Martinez also received a grant from the Widows Fund. Mercedes formerly ran a brothel in West Beach before her conversion to Christ. She will be opening up a kitchen and restaurant where she will prepare food to sell to local construction workers and fishermen. Mercedes and her great-grandson are pictured at right.

Free Indeed!
The Drug Rehab Fund at Work

Ramon, now a different man. Inset: Ramon before his deliverance.

Holding a well-worn copy of the Spanish version of The Disciple-Making Minister, pastor Jose' Martinez was passionately exhorting a group of almost fifty former drug addicts. They listened attentively to him talk about the power of Jesus. He stood in the center of a rustic hall, right in the middle of a raised circle of concrete. Just a few years ago, the scene in that same hall was much different. Then, a crowd of men also gathered, but rather than recovering from drugs and alcohol, most were consuming both. And rather than listening to a sermon, they were paying to watch women strip under flashing lights, in the very spot where pastor Hose' was now preaching the gospel. Quite a contrast.

I told missionary James Jones that I would never have thought I would be sitting in a former strip club listening to the gospel being preached by a man who was very enthusiastically using The Disciple-Making Minister as a manual to teach former drug addicts. Not to be upstaged, James told me that when he was patronizing that strip club years ago, he would have never dreamed he would one day be sitting in the same place shouting "Amen" to a sermon! God is in the redemption business.

James introduced me to one of the young men who is living at Compassion Drug Rehabilitation Center. His name is Ramon. Six years ago, James was preaching on the streets of Javillar, a community adjacent to West Beach. He was invited by Ramon's parents to visit their small home, and there he was introduced to their son, who was then about age eighteen.

Ramon was insane. He would not communicate, except when he yelled profanities at his parents. He had not bathed, shaved, or cut his hair in fourteen months. His stench permeated the house. He had a monstrous afro, and his fingernails and toenails were so long that they curled under. He would eat, but he would add grass and leaves to his food. He was violent.

James, along with several believers, took Ramon to another location to minister deliverance to him. Ramon cursed and mocked James and the other Christians in English, a language he did not know (and still does not know). But the demons all came out. Ramon was completely delivered. In his right mind, he then agreed to receive Christ as Lord. From that moment, he was a different person.

One week later, James returned Ramon to his parents' house. His hair and fingernails had been trimmed, and he had bathed and shaved. When his father saw him and heard him speak intelligently, he fell on his knees, raised his hands to the sky and exclaimed, "I want to receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior!"

Ramon is now living at Compassion Center to study the Bible and learn how to minister to drug addicts. Those who enter the program must commit to living at the center's very primitive facilities for a year. The dorm rooms are impossible to describe by North American standards.

Trophies of God's grace: Pastor Jose' Martinez and most of the current residents of Compassion Drug Rehab Center. Pastor Hose' is holding his well-worn copy of The Disciple-Making Minister. Behind them is their gathering hall, a former strip bar and brothel.

Using gifts to Heaven's Family's Drug Rehab Fund, I was blessed to leave money that will provide a replacement for the very leaky roof at Compassion Center's main building. I also left funds for a used transmission for the Center's broken-down old van, which is used to deliver and sell shampoo and disinfectant produced by the Center's residents, by which the ministry is partially self-supported. Thank you for making these blessings possible.

Pastor Jose' with his well-worn copy of the Spanish version of The Disciple-Making Minister. So far, almost 1,000 copies have been distributed to pastors and Christian leaders in the Dominican Republic.

The Bigger Picture: Contributions to the Drug Rehabilitation Fund have been used so far to assist effective Christian drug rehabs in Siberia, Russia, and Havana, Cuba. Visit the Christian Drug Rehab Fund for more information. If the Lord has delivered you from drug addiction, this may be a fund to which you would like to regularly contribute. We've made it easy through monthly bank auto-withdrawal or monthly automatic credit card charge, which can be set up by visiting www.IWasHungry.org/drug-rehab.

A Vision for Darianny and Carmeli
I Was Hungry's General Fund at Work

Missionary James Jones with two students of Vision Christian School, Darianny and Carmeli

One morning I visited the West Beach "homes" of two of the students who attend Vision in Action Christian School. Darianny and Carmeli, pictured with James Jones in the photo above, started attending Vision School five years ago by entering the pre-school program. Both have learned how to read and write, something that they now use to help their illiterate mothers, who never had an opportunity to go to school. (Neither of their fathers live with them.)

Our first visit is to Carmeli's "house." It is difficult to describe. It can't be more than ten feet wide and twenty feet deep, and it is crowded between two other similar homes. The walls are built of concrete block and the floor is rough-poured concrete. There is no ceiling, and I can see the roof rafters and underside of the corrugated tin roof. There is some old furniture. Out back is a latrine with a shallow well beside it. We find a little shade there to take photos of Carmeli.

Carmeli is the product of her mother's hopeful relationship with a man whom she later discovered was already married and whom Carmeli has never met. Her mother, aunt, and grandmother, who all live with her and her siblings, survive by selling coffee and cooked beans in front of their house. I ask them all about their relationship with the Lord, and all respond with smiles. James tells me that they all are attending a house church in the neighborhood.

Carmeli

Our next stop is Darianny's house, where we are first greeted by her great-grandmother, who is 67 years old. The house is much like Carmeli's. Darianny is also age eight, and she has two other sisters who live at home with her. The three of them share the same mother, but different fathers, none of whom live with them. Darianny is exceptionally bright and is an honor student at Vision School. With pride, her mother shows us her report card and honor roll certificate.

If it weren't for Vision Christian School, it is very likely that both Carmeli and Darianny would be going out to work each day, and that they would ultimately end up in prostitution. But their mothers are hoping for a better future for their beautiful daughters.

Darianny and her mother

The third and second stories need completion The Bigger Picture: Using gifts to the general fund of our I Was Hungry division, Heaven's Family has been helping to fund the construction of Vision in Action Christian School's new three-story building in the heart of West Beach. When completed, it will serve 140 students each day and also function as a community center for adult education in the evenings, all in the context of the gospel of Jesus Christ. About $8,000 is needed for completion.

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Parting Shot
Miniature People of West Beach

Photogenic West Beach sisters: Yamilet and Oriana Franchesca De Los Reyes Santos love to see their photos on the back of a digital camera