Just imagine the amount of time and effort that someone would have to invest in order to recruit volunteers, coordinate schedules, make sure that travel documents for 27 people are all in order for a mission trip to a foreign country, and oversee the whole operation from beginning to end. That’s what Gayle and Kathi Wilson, Dallas (Ore.) Church members, did for the fifth biennial planning and building of a church, this time in the Dominican Republic in June.
They gratefully acknowledge a lot of assistance from Maranatha International, retired dentist Ted Flaiz, and the active participation of the local members at the building site, and, most of all, the providence and protection of the Lord through it all. Though frought with danger, the trip was completed without incident.
After 10 days a new church building for the Adventist congregation in the village of El Cinco was complete except for the roof, for which the materials ordered had not arrived on time. Many people also received dental assistance in a clinic run by Flaiz and several young assistants. The group conducted a Vacation Bible School each evening for more than 100 children.
Before the group came, the villagec hurch members met in a small house willed to them by a deceased member. But attendance kept increasing due largely to meetings held by a 15-year-old high school student, Eliezer Disent, who had prepared at least 20 for baptism, some of whom waited to be baptized in the newly constructed church baptistry.
In addition to the new church, the group left behind new Spanish church hymnals, Bible felts for the young, and a basketball hoop with two balls to be used in the lot behind the church for youth evangelism.
