| | | | | Our house warming SURPRISE party with Glenn and Rhoda Martin and the Orlando team and friends. | | | | | | What a blessing to work with a great organization, Chapel Project. Building the locals up. | | | | | | | We are officially moved in and living in our own home here in Santiago, Dominican Republic. (see above picture) Not everyone throws a housewarming party for you at your own house when you're not prepared! haha! What a blessing this time of prayer was. We are still in need of furniture and some kitchen items. We would appreciate your prayers and/or financial help with these needs. Please ask for an update needs/wish list if interested. | | Catch-Up-Date January to March 2014
Catching you Up and an Update All in One! 2014 has been crazy busy for the Walkers!
We welcomed the Martin's back to their home and we moved into our own next door. This included a 40 hour lost dog drama that started when we came home from celebrating the New Year. What a way to start the year.
We hosted a YWAM Orlando DTS group of 25 in January. 8 of the 25 went and worked on NIKOland each week and camped up there while the other 17 did ministry here in the city. We worked alongside of them in a lot of the poor areas of town, did some street outreaches, and joined a ministry with a local young man playing sports with shoe shine boys who mainly live in the street. It was a super busy month.
February brought the departure of the DTS and the welcoming of the Ellis Family as they completed their outreach phase of their school. It was a lot of fun working with this family of 7 who work with children in Knoxville, TN. They came to help us prepare as we look at hosting more family groups in the future and they plan on hosting them stateside.
Chapel Project was a huge success with 2 projects during the end of February and March. We helped build the roof on a church in Los Tocones an outskirt of Santiago. Also was the finishing of the roof on the upstairs classroom, nursery, and office of the church in El Ejido where the fire was. And we were able to put a roof on the partial church building in village of Tamboril that the DTS had helped lay the foundation for and build a roof on a better home for a local pastor whose home was severely eaten by termites.
| | | | | | The Ellis family from Knoxville, TN who has worked with YWAM Orlando came and did a family outreach to help prepare us and themselves to host future family outreaches! Here we are eating lunch during a day of ministry up at NIKOlando.
Please be praying NIKO camp is in 2 weeks and will be a life changing week for many area youth. | | | | | SUYO, Kings Kids a program that combines learning about God, discipling local youth and reaching out to those in their own cities and around the world. | | | | | This is David. He is 4 years old and a good boy.....do you want him?
This was the question posed to me by the people across the street from a church we were working at. He had wandered up the day after a massive fire that destroyed 55 plus homes and had been "unclaimed" for a couple of days. Talk about a broken heart! Wow...God created David just as He created all of us and wants us to be in relationship with Him.
David is being cared for by his grandmother and it was a blessing in January to get to see him again and see him doing well in her care. | | | | | | | | |
| | Merry Christmas!! Feliz Navidad!! Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas from the Walker Family!
We love and miss you all. Can't believe we have now lived in the Dominican Republic for 4 months. Some days it seems like we have been here forever and others it seems like just yesterday that we were with you in the States.
May you realize how much God loves you and that He wants to be a vital part of your lives. Not just during the Christmas season but all year long.
Please remember to keep in touch. You can respond to this email or use Walker5forGod@yahoo.com
Our Mailing address is:
Walker Family
AGAPE Flights STI 27519
100 Airport Ave
Venice, FL 34285
| | |  Our First Home
in the DR! Well, here it is! This is officially our new home here in Santiago, Republica Domincana!
El Dorado II, Calle 4, Casa 26 House update: We have signed a contract for the house and are just waiting to get the keys from the previous renter. She is finishing up some repairs, painting, etc... Please be in prayer for her to finish up quickly. She is to give us the keys as soon as she is done which was supposed to be on Friday. This is where the language barrier is very frustrating as I can not even call her to ask what the progress is because we don't speak the same language. The sooner we get the keys the better so that we can be moved out of the Martin's home for their return. We also have a group coming from YWAM Orlando on Dec 30, so we will get quite busy after their arrival for at least the first few days!
We still need furniture! We found a refrigerator at the Chinese/Korean store where we buy fancy fingernail polish. Yep, pretty random!
Thank you to all who have given towards our furniture. Please be praying that we find good deals on good items!
You can still give directly for our furniture. If you would like a list of what we still need or any information, please let us know! | |  Surprise Visit from Uncle Thom!
A Visit from the Haiti side of the Island!
Christmas Visit from Thom: We had planned to go see Debbie's brother, Thom and his family who live in Port de Paix, Haiti for Christmas, but it was not possible financially. So Thom took a couple days of his Christmas break from school and came to visit. We were able to do the tour of the city with Thom that we have our visiting teams do so that they are able to get around town on their own. We ate some amazing Dominican food and enjoyed each other's company.
The relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic has been a very up and down not so friendly to say the least relationship. Tensions are quite high right now as the DR and Haiti both try to figure out residency and status of their people. Please be in prayer for these tensions to come to an agreeable and favorable for both sides end.
Our family has started to help in a ministry to local shoe shine boys who mainly live in the streets. We were able to help feed them a nice Christmas meal at a local restaurant and bless them with some candy, fruit and marshmallows as a gift. Probably the only one many of them will get this Christmas. | | |  Sammi turned 19! This is one of my favorite pictures of Sammi! She is sharing the love of Jesus with Antonio. Everyone is loved by God but not everyone knows it. Sammi loves sharing the word of God to others. Praying for people in the streets is definitely one of her favorite things to do here.
| |  Hannah is a blessing! Hannah is definitely a favorite to many of the Dominican children. Here she is with a pastor friend's little boy. Whether it is the SUYO kids that we work with once a month or with little children at church or at meetings. The kids love Hannah! She has a calming effect on them and can usually get them to smile, sleep or whatever is needed. What a blessing this is to so many! | |  Hardworking Jesse! Jesse is really getting to learn some practical skills here. He is quite the hard worker and is quick to learn. He loves going to Casa Grande which is a local ministry and learning to weld amongst other things. Here is a great picture of him screwing sheet metal to a chapel roof with Chapel Project. | | | | | |
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House Update | | Entryway and Living Room More pictures can be seen on facebook and on instagram....email me for specific information if you don't know how to "like" or "follow" us!  Thankful for the help! There is still time to help in 2013. We are asking for your prayers on how you can help! As support based missionaries we depend on you guys for our day to day living. We do not take this lightly and are in great appreciation for all that you have done. We are asking you to pray about how you can help set up our home. Some of you have already given and we are very thankful for that. We have been able to purchase a refrigerator and stove. We are borrowing a few items for a few months from YWAM Santiago but are still in need of many items. It is crazy when you get used to what you have and don't realize the multitude of all of the things in your house that you would have to purchase if you started from scratch. Honestly, we are quite overwhelmed by this all. We were also not expecting the amount of money that would be needed on light bulbs, locks, door knobs, and other things that in the states came with the house and you only changed as a luxury. We are in need of many things still and are asking you to pray about if you can help. Remember! Your prayers help! For instance, we found a brand-new stove for $30 US more than a used one. It was a Christmas sale that we just "stumbled" upon. This is what your prayers do! So thank you! We don't like asking for money at all! the hardest part of what we are doing many times is not what we actually do here..but asking for money and support from you. So please know that we feel we are to put this need of housing furnishings out there for you all to pray about. We will not be asking on a continuing basis but do have a very real need right now. Donations with end of the year tax-receipt can still be made online at http://ywamorlando.com/staff/56-ywam-orlando-staff/53-nwalker ! | | | | | |
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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!
