| | Adjusting Well to the Dominican Republic! A picture with our Spanish teacher, Guarionex, aka. Professor X! We are doing well! We are busy with Spanish classes four days a week two hours a day. Last week we worked with a group called Chapel Project, so we did not have class but instead put what we had learned to use. Ned and Jesse were surprised at how much they understood. They are still struggling with remembering the right word to speak but that comes after understanding or so we are told.
We attend a Spanish speaking church called Oasis and are beginning to make some friends there. Mainly Spanish speakers but some who speak English too which is nice.
We enjoy going over to Casa Grande, a local ministry here run by Tim and Trena Johnson. Their son Darren is a good friend to the kids. Please pray for Darren as he is still currently in the hospital with complications from dengue fever. Prayerfully he will get to come home tomorrow. We have gone to visit him a couple of times to break his boredom.
We made a trip to Santo Domingo to visit the national directors here in the country. It is about a 2 hour drive but was a nice visit with the Norells and Sanders. We are hoping to get to go to Haiti around Christmas to visit Thom (Debbie's brother) and family who are missionaries there. Please pray for the funds for this trip! It will be about $125 each with transportation and border crossing fees.
| | |  YWAM Orlando Celebration Occupancy!! As you know, we are launched out of YWAM Orlando where we have served for the past 5 years. They still process our funds and are a great support for us. We, here at YWAM Santiago, were excited to get to celebrate with YWAM Orlando via livestream internet on September 27 when they finally after 3+ years were able to get the occupancy on some of the buildings. The current fall schools are living in the dorms! And can have class in the air-conditioned buildings!! No more army tent classrooms! God is sooo good!
We miss all of our friends at YWAM Orlando who are much more like family than friends. We are praying that they will be able to continue to send teams here and build the connection between them and us. Looking forward to hosting teams from Orlando very soon!
|  Ned's Health: It was quite the crazy month with Ned, Debbie and Jesse all having chest x-rays done and having fluid in the lungs. We have all struggled with bronchitis and issues. Some worse than others.
Ned scared the doctor quite a bit because his chest x-ray showed an enlarged heart. They were quite worried and rushed around getting us to have blood work, EKG, echocardiogram and other various tests. Ned's blood pressure, cholesterol and uric acids were all very high but the echocardiogram showed that his heart was not as bad as it first seemed.
Ned is now on cholesterol and bp meds and is trying hard to loose weight. Quite the task in a rice and beans and bread country where relationships are incredibly important and often involve food.
We were super blessed to not have to pay for the doctor's visits just some of the tests. The doctor is a good friend's dad and he has been quite the blessing and brings us star fruit and plantains to help us be healthy. Thanks for your prayers for health for us all but especially Ned. | |  Chapel Project! Helping to build churches alongside Dominicans!
This past week we were privileged to work with Chapel Project for the second time. Chapel Project helps to build a roof on a church building that the locals have constructed the walls on. The pastor and church must raise a certain amount of money and do a certain amount of work in order to be helped. There is a screening process that the church must go through also. Sometimes helping hurts....this is a lesson that the Dominican Republic and Haiti missionaries are learning from the past. A hand-out is not always the best thing for someone, but if that person can work alongside the missionary there is "sweat equity" and an ownership in what is being done. Sometimes a blessing is needed and sometimes a work project is better. This past week we were able to help build Iglesia Cristiana with Claudio and Berenice Moncion! They are some of the sweetest people I have ever met with an amazing heart for the people they meet to grow in their relationship with God.
It was a blessing to work with our friends with Chapel Project. Don MacCaugly is a true inspiration, having built chapels in Romania for years and now working on them here in the DR. Ned welded for the first time in over 20 years and Jesse was able to get to work. He was on the roof and helping to screw the sheet metal roof pieces to the trusses and pearlings. Debbie oversaw snacks and lunch and Sammi and Hannah were part of the street evangelism team that went out daily building the "church".
What a blessing to be a part of what God is doing here! Giving Dominicans a boost and encouragement as they minister to their own people! |  Jesse getting to help screw down the sheet metal roof | | |  NIKOland: We have enjoyed working at NIKOland up in the mountains outside of Santiago. We hosted a local pastor and missionary who has worked with YWAM Santo Domingo before. We along with Juan, who works with us part-time, went up and worked cutting out guava trees. Guava trees will quickly overtake the land as the fruit is plentiful and drops with lots and lots of seeds! The pastor and missionary worked so hard with us that day and then prayed a sweet blessing over our family before they had to leave. Sadly, the only pictures I got were too far off to show up well in the newsletter.
Funny story for you! The neighbors, with our permission, allow their cows to graze on the land. When we were working here last spring the gates were not finished and so the cows were normally tied or would not leave due to barb wire. WELL, now the gates are finished and look great. They work great IF you close them...well we didn't! We went to leave and the two cows and horse that had been peacefully grazing were gone! YEP, down the road somewhere. I had to go and tell the neighbors that their cows were gone. With my limited Spanish, I told them that the "vacas dice adios gringos"...yes, that means cows said good bye gringos. They laughed and said the boys would have something to do after school. Well, the next week there were 10 cows grazing. I guess they weren't upset.
Here is a pic of Hannah, Sammi and Jesse and of course Riza watching the cows! Trying to get them to come close enough to pet them.
| |  Prayer Requests! Thank you for your support and prayers!
* Housing! When the Martin's return in January we will need to move out of their home. We are currently looking around for a place to go. We would love to find a large home with a bit of a yard in order to house teams better than the current house which houses about 20 and is in a close neighborhood. Wisdom as we look and affordable prices.
* Language Learning! Continued learning and creativity within our learning styles. Also for the funds for the lessons.
* Sammi, Hannah & Jesse. God is providing some friends from past trips for the kids. Prayers that they continue to make friends and adjust.
* Finances.. A few more monthly supporters are needed. Funds for the needed misc. things to move for daily life. Funds for the first, last, security deposit for a home to move into and the furniture needed. Fridge, stove, inverter, washer, etc...are NOT included in a home when renting or buying here...so funds for these things.
*Safety and Adjustment.. We are adjusting well to life here which includes heat, noise, locks, alarms, etc... We are beginning to miss home and family and friends. Would you like to Skype with us? neddeb.walker is our Skype name. Chatting with friends and family from home helps a lot! | |  SUYO...His....King's Kids Suyo in Spanish means his. Here at YWAM Santiago, we capitalize it and use it to mean HIS. We belong to God. (King's Kids is a bit hard for Spanish speakers to pronounce.)
King's Kids is a YWAM program that has been around for years allowing kids aged anywhere from 6 on up to minister. Here at YWAM Santiago we have a week long camp and then once a month, the kids get together and have a teaching about a characteristic of God and then go do ministry together. They learn dances and dramas and use these along with their personal testimonies to share the love of God with others. Dominican kids sharing the love of Jesus and His Salvation with other Dominicans. We walked to a neighborhood "barrio" about 15 minutes from the mission's house and did a street performance and then prayed for the people who came to watch. What a great time serving God with these great kids.
Each night we ask the kids how they brought joy to God's heart that day. Camila answered that she did her cleaning chore well and that she loved her Hannah! She was right! When we love others, even in the simplest ways, this brings joy to God's heart. This Christian walk is about just that...loving others and showing them God's love!
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| | Home is now Santiago, Dominican Republic! August 27, 2013 was our arrival day! The Walker Family officially lives in Santiago now. We are working on staff with YWAM Santiago. Before we joined staff, YWAM Santiago consisted of Glenn, Rhoda and Jason Martin and Issa Peralta. The Martin's are now currently out of the country until January 2014 at various conferences and their daughter is getting married. So YWAM Santiago is Issa and us. Issa is a beautiful young Dominican lady whom we first met in Fort Lauderdale in January of 2010. She has been left in charge with us helping her. The biggest thing we will be helping Issa with is SUYO. This program works with Dominican youth aged 9-16. There are around 20 SUYO participants that come once a month for the weekend. We will have teachings with them regarding discipleship and Christian life and then we will do a couple of local outreaches.
We are transitioning well at this point. Mainly because we have been here before so we know how to get to the grocery and the local stores. We can communicate enough to get around. Asking where something is located is fairly easy, although understanding what the directions given to us is much harder! It is extremely strange to move somewhere so familiar yet still so foreign!
| | |  Spanish Class Our family's biggest task is to learn Spanish!! We are taking classes at ISLA, a local school with English classes. We have our own personalized class with the 5 of us. Our teacher, Guarionex, is a Christian and we start each class reading scripture. This is a blessing. We can't really pronounce his name correctly so we all call him Prof X. We all enjoy class because yes, it is work but he enjoys our family and we enjoy the time together! It is quite expensive but is it really one of the most important things that we can do to acclimate here.
| Mailing Address: Ned and Debbie Walker
c/o Agape Flights STI 27519
100 Airport Avenue
Venice, FL 34285
It is VERY important to include the STI 27519 in our address. Mail may be addressed to any member of the family.
We can now receive mail through Agape Flights mail service. Letters and small packages around 1 lb come in for free. Anything over that we pay $1.75 per pound. Agape Flights suggests having the sender bless us by donating the $1.75 per pound or part of it to them on our behalf. Please email us for more information!
Letters or small things from home would be greatly appreciated as we transition. | |  Missionary Flights International! Pilot Ray Oostdyk and the Walker Family! Our family was really blessed to get to fly into Santiago via MFI! Missionary Flights International is an organization that flies missionaries and cargo around the Caribbean. You can check out more information about them at Missionaryflights.org . We homeschooled with a lot of the workers there including the Oostdyk's while in Vero Beach. We flew on a DC-3 plane next to the cargo! It was pretty neat. Yes! Like you see in the movies! The rows were two seats wide with cargo, boxes, suitcases, etc...netted in next to us. We stopped in Exuma, Bahamas and refueled and then in Cap Haitien, Haiti to drop off and pick up some passengers. Then arrived here in Santiago, with 1/3 of our belongings. Due to the kind of aircraft, everything goes by weight and there was only enough room on the plane for us and an additional 650 lbs of cargo. On September 10, another 1/3 will arrive here and then two weeks later the last 1/3. Seems like a lot of weight til you start weighing clothes, shoes, books, legos, and all household items! So by the time we arrived in Santiago, we had been to 4 countries! Started in the United States, then the Bahamas, then Haiti and then the Dominican Republic! | | |  NIKOland One of our responsibilities: NIKOland is a 4 acre piece of property up in the mountains just north of Santiago. It is about an hours drive up the mountain and is very rural with no electricity or running water. It is the campo! The purpose of NIKOland is to run NIKO camps, which are survival leadership camps for youth. Sammi in 2010 and Hannah in 2013 both completed this program and it greatly changed their lives. Jesse will be allowed to participate in 2014! He is quite excited because he will be an exception and do it at a younger age than most.
NIKOland is also a place where youth or church groups can come and do leadership training weekends. Our first task as staff at YWAM Santiago was to help with one of these weekends. The leading Christian private school in the city and possibly the country had their Senior class leaders do this training. We were support staff and Debbie was in charge of cooking. Ned helped with this a lot as we were cooking outside over gas or on a bonfire. The kids got to help lead the night hike, which is quite the adventure in the dark. It was a blessing to be a part of this first leadership training weekend.
Our task is to do a few work projects up there including getting the frogs out of the water catchment system and making sure no more get in. Plus clearing the land of some guava trees. We are excited for this "out of the city" weekly task
| | Prayer Requests! Thank you for your support and prayers!
* Language Learning! That we will be able to learn Spanish quickly. Also for the funds for the lessons.
* Sammi, Hannah & Jesse. God is providing some friends from past trips for the kids. Prayers that they continue to make friends and adjust.
* Finances.. for the fees to pay for our cargo to be flown in ($1.50/lb) and the taxes due (hopefully minimal). A few more monthly supporters are needed. Funds for the needed misc. things to move for daily life. Living expenses.. for instances, toiletries are quite a bit more expensive here. (A $3.00 bottle of shampoo is $6.00 here)
*Safety and Adjustment.. We are adjusting to life here which includes heat, noise, locks, alarms, etc... One can not just leave things lying on a table here such as a computer or a camera. This makes people see what you have and since you are Americano you are already viewed as rich. Petty theft is very bad and we must hide valuables constantly and hide the laptop etc... when we leave. It is always a bit nerve wracking when arriving home to see if we've been broken into or not. | |  Jesse turns 13! September 25 is Jesse's birthday!
Can't believe my baby boy will be a teenager! That doesn't seem possible. He is really a sweet young man who is quick to serve others. He loves going to NIKOland to work hard. Physical labor is one of his favorite things to do.
This morning we arrived at church earlier than Brauny, a boy whom we met on our last visit, and Brauny slipped in to sit next to Jesse. You could see the pleasure in Jesse's eyes of having a friend! Brauny speaks English which is a relief to Jesse. They really connected last time when we were here when they learned that they share the same birthday. Brauny is a good Christian boy who serves his mother well.
It is neat to see how God is providing a friend for Jesse.
If you would like to bless Jesse with a birthday card that would really make his day. Even if it is a bit late :)
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Keep Dreaming and Helping Others to Dream
Nov 11, 1997 we took a little almost 3 yr old to the circus. There she fell in love with an elephant named Pete. By her 4th birthday Little Sammi Walker was dreaming of being a missionary elephant trainer to Africa. 4 1/2 years later she boarded a plane for her first missions trip to Mexico City. This spurred by the thoughts of her parents to help her reach this dream! "Let's see what this missions thing is all about!" we thought!
Little did anyone realize that this trip would re-awaken a dream inside of someone else's heart to actually make a difference in the world. The dreams of a little 4 year old would help to re-awaken the dreams long asleep deep inside the hearts of her parents!
You know the dream!! The one where you are a hero! Where you make a difference in the world! Those dreams are placed in our hearts as part of our destinies! We all have them when we are born! We are invincible and we can and will change things around us! We will be the one to make a difference!
Then somewhere along the way we get caught up in the day to day life and we stop dreaming in a sense. We stop envisioning our lives making much of a difference and those dreams go dormant. We listen to the lies of the world and sometimes people around us that say, "you can't make a difference"! But that's just it...we have to stop listening to these lies and realize that each and everyday we can make a difference in someone's life! On Wed, I went to the pool store..nothing big! Bought chemicals to put in the YWAM pool in orlando...but there on the corner stood a panhandler. The lady looked beat! Hot, skinny, sunburned, scrawny and yeah a little hungry. I was suddenly overcome with compassion for this lady, I have no money I thought. But you have bottles of water a little voice in the back of my mind said! Guess what I listened. I watched a car a couple cars in front of me give her a couple of bucks, she thanked him and dejectedly put the money in her pocket. When I pulled passed her I handed her the water with a quick apology of having to money. But there is was...the look of hope! The look in her eyes as she spied that bottle of water that looked as if I'd just given her a million dollars!
What was the difference! Holy Spirit knew what she needed and I listened. Bringing hope and helping people and ourselves keep dreaming through God's prompting is what missions is all about. That's what our family is working to do! Serving God as He sees fit! That looks different each day because each day is different, each of us is different and what each of us has is different. Rsch of out dreams is different. God can and will use all of us if and when we are obedient. I didn't do anything that any of us couldn't do.
What are the Walkers doing right now?
We are moving!!
The last week of August, our family will be moving long-term to Santiago, Dominican Republic. We will be working with YWAM Santiago and the Martin Family! We are super excited about this transition. But also praying for wisdom as we figure out visa's, residency, what to do with our things, etc...
As always, we are praying that the Lord will use us wherever we are!
Lord, help us not to miss the things you have prepared for us to do!
