TheTownsleys.org

Easter week is known as "Semana Santa" throughout latin america. Traditionally for Dominicans, it is one of the biggest holidays of the year and is a time to visit family, go to the beach, and generally take some time off. On the dark side, there are a generally a lot of alcohol related traffic and drowning deaths.

Here are some fairly recent pictures of the kids that we took around the house.

Yesterday, we took a day trip to San Francisco de Macoris (not to be confused with San Pedro de Macoris which is another city here in the DR). It is located about two hours north of us and is home to 185,618 people according a 2005 publication based on the 2002 Census. It is sometimes considered the third largest city in the DR although there are a few others that are close to it including La Romana, Barahona, La Vega, and others. At this time, we know of no Baptist churches in that city and we are praying that the Lord would raise up some preachers to start churches in that area. We ourselves are considering moving to that area or perhaps another area around it in a few years after the work here in Santo Domingo is established and has a pastor.

I am including a number of pictures we took yesterday. Most of them were taken in San Francisco de Macoris although those of the pig on the spit, little roadside fruit stand, and the rice fields were taked to the west of San Francisco. The larger fruit market is in the middle of San Francisco de Macoris.

We baptized four people after the service this morning. We have been working with all four of those who were baptized for more than two years now and it was a real joy to see them follow the Lord in baptism.

There were three young people who are pictured below with their grandmother. Also, Rosio pictured at the bottom lives down the street from us.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit what has been called the largest worm farm in the Caribbean. I have no way of verifying that, but it sounds good to me, and they really do have a lot of worms.

This may not sound like big news to you (and maybe it really isn't), but I had waited two years for it. Finally, I got in contact with someone willing to show it to me.

I had been wanting to start a worm box to dispose of our household garbage like kitchen scraps and newspaper and also, we have two Dobermans that have solid waste issues. My idea was to get maybe a thousand or so worms and start to worm compost it to use for fertilizer.

I called a missionary friend who was interested in going with me and at about six in the morning, went over to his house so we could ride together. Anyway, we got to the farm as the morning darkness was wearing off. After maybe fifteen minutes, and various efforts, someone finally came to the gate to let us in.

The farm really was impressive and if I remember correctly, it was said to have about 40 million red wriggler worms. The beds were maybe ten feet across and perhaps 50 feet long and were swarming with worms just below the surface. The man running the farm was about 80 years old and had been farming worms for 40 years.

All in all, it was quite the experience and now you know what missionaries do for fun.

Last Sunday we had a special picture day. For every family that came, we took a picture and will give them an 8x10 enlargement. We passed out about 2,000 fliers that we made up to pretty much every home that is in our area. We did have three or four families visit for the first time.

Last week we took our family to the Santo Domingo zoo for the first time. All in all, I would have to say that while it might not be the biggest or best zoo we have ever visited, it was worth the one dollar price of admission.

After the brief 4 week furlough that we took at Christmas, we have decided to postpone the furlough that we had planned for this spring. As many of you know, we were planning to take three months this spring from about March through May. We will be announcing in our upcoming prayer letter that we will be postponing that until this fall.

We recently returned home from a brief trip to the states. At almost the last minute, we decided to spend Christmas with our families this year. Also, we were able to attend the wedding of some good friends who are planning to come work as missionaries here in the Dominican Republic. Holly (Ferguson) and Erik Johnson's wedding was beautiful and Christ honoring.