Well it's officially, official as of Sunday night!  We have launched a school of ministry here in the Dominican Republic!!  Last night,  the parents who attended our kick off meeting were teary eyed at the idea of their kids living away from home, but obviously extremely proud of the choice their kids were making.  During this year these 4 students will be immersed in Bible courses, communication, and leadership classes (to name a few classes), serve at our various churches and in the community, and overall learn what it means to lead by serving.  The school's name is LEGADO which means LEGACY. Leaving a Good Legacy for those who come after you is a lot of what they will focus on. 

Pray for us as we get the honor of pouring into these young lives and imparting the legacy of what has been given to us over the years! 

Please mention these young people in prayer, as they face new and exciting challenges.  More specifically, they are all believing God, and trying hard to raise, $100/month tuition. That is the lowest we could make it, so we are also believing for provision for them! (Between donations and our local church here we will cover all costs above that.)

Here are the students:

Yoelia from Cantico Nuevo

Yokaira and Wilkins from Las Palmas, and

Anna from our Haitian church in Los Alcarrizos.

 

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Root Update...

Hope this finds you all well.
We love and miss you.
Drop us a note and let us know how you are doing!
Much love
Kirsten and Family

Rich and Kirsten Root  
Agape Flights #18736
100 Airport Ave
Venice, Florida 34285
www.rootsgrowdeep.blogspot.com

 

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Pedrenales, Dominican Republic

This was at an kids outreach this weekend (4th of July to be exact), in Pedrenales, D.R. We went with New Song Church, from Nashville, Tenn. It was a good time. Interesting town, only about 5 miles from the border of Haiti. 
I saw so many kids, I could of just taken home with me! These two little ones were soo sweet.  
 
 

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Here Kirsten is at our most recent medical outreach in Cercadillo. We did this with the help of 3 doctors from our church and the most awesome team ever, Anthem 09!!

friends

Here we are with our great friend Caleb Backholm, who came to visit in January 2009. We had so much fun with him and can't wait for him to come again!

 

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Caleb Backholm came in January to visit and we put his Spanish to good use. Proof that we will put you to work if you come visit us. =)

Here Rich and I are working together bagging medicine and giving consults to patients in this medical outreach at the Las Palmas Foursquare Church here in the capital. (January 2009)

Here is Kirsten working in a medical outreach - This was with a great team from the Washington DC area. They actually came to work with our friends, Bud and Karen Simon (Karen is standing facing me) we just got blessed to get to work along side them. (January 2009)

Rich thought his pharmacy days were over when we moved here, but here he is counting pills again at one of our medical outreaches in our Los Coquitos Church, San Cristobal.

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Group shot of the worship team meeting

Faith having fun with some our youth at a Worship team meeting in January.

Playing the tamborines in a sudo-parade.

These are some of the sweet girls from Cercadillo in a music class that was offered by a team that was here, way back in November (I am so on top of blogging, I know.)It was so fun to see the girls having fun playing the different instruments!

The Haitian Foursquare Church in Los Alcarrizos.

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Below are some pictures I just posted on Facebook. These were from yesterday in Cercadillo.
We have re-started our sewing ministry after lots of delays and cancellations due to all the tropical storms that have moved thru our region.
We have officially named it "Cafe Con Cristo" We start out every time now, with coffee (cafecitos) and some times a little pastry, which is a real treat for the ladies. We then spend about a half hour to an hour doing a bible study and talking. They have so many questions and although most have grown up with a knowledge of Christ, it is very cultural, and most have never even read the bible.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=59343&l=155dd&id=648146775

This is a short video a friend of ours Ryan Prouty, put together to help show what it is we do down here!! It might take a second to get loaded, but hopefully it will be worth it. =) Enjoy!
Post a comment to let us know what you think!

Since October 31st we had the pleasure of having Noah Wimberly live and intern with us. On June 16th we had to say goodbye to him and the rest of the Anthem team that were here serving.
What a sad day for us! Noah really became a part of our family. Ask Esther she always referred to him as "Nona Woot". We miss him terribly, although we seem to have lots more leftovers now.
=) Now we are going to start working on his brother Matthew to come down...

June 9th and 10th, when the Anthem team was here we took them to Cercadillo. The team was awesome! They built a bathroom, painted, did activities with the kids and carried water to peoples homes. It was very hot these days and we worked them hard. I can't say for sure, but I think if you talk to the students, some of their hearts may have been stolen by these precious kids out in Cercadillo.

Check out the pictures below...

(above: " 'dillo boys" in a mango tree.)

This is how people in the village get their water.

They save every type of container possible and fill it up when

they get the chance.

Josiah took his job of filling the containers very seriously.

He was a great helper!

These anthem guys did some of the hardest work out in Cercadillo. They helped build the much needed bathroom behind our buildings.
If you could only feel how HOT the days were, you would definately feel compelled to buy them a coke! =)

Seriously though, they mixed the cement out in the blazing sun and I never heard one complaint. They were awesome!!

This is how they carry the water....












This is how WE had to carry the water...

Those buckets are stinkin' heavy, I have no idea how they can carry them on their head. If you don't believe me, come down and give it a try.
(I challenge hopefullly...smile)

Carrying water

Faith, Zach and Wesley painting benches in Cercadillo...

The Anthem group in front of the newly painted building in Cercadillo.

These are some of our awesome youth girls, getting ready to lead the Anthem students to a neighborhood, only a couple miles from their own, but vastly different.

Togehter the teams brought food supplies, fixed holes in roofs, repaired doors, and floors and did an amazing VBS for about 100 kids.

Here is the whole team getting prayed up before going out to the outreach.

These pictures kind of show the steep pathway you have to descend
to get into this "neighborhood" that is literally built on the side of a
precarious dirt hill. If you look closely you can kind of see how quickly it drop off
by the small people in the background. (click on the pictures to make them larger)

Below are some pictures of Faith's last day of third grade.

She had a wonderful year and did superb, almost straight A's!!

She got a special award for the best overall science student in the 3rd grade!

Pictures from top to bottom are:

1. Faith at her desk

2. Faith with her buddies in the hallway.

3. Faith with her best school buddie Isselle.

4. Faith posing with her 3rd grade class.

and last but not least:

5. Faith posing in the entrance to school.

What a great year Faith had! We are so proud of her!! She is an awesome student!

Faith at playa Juan Dolio, with some great friends on a free day. (see pictures below!!)

Faith after a fun sleepover with the Hanibal interns.

Doesn't she look good with braids??

My beautiful girls at the beach.

Faith having fun on a down day with a couple of interns from Hanibal college. These gals came down for a couple weeks to work with my friend Ina in Cercadillo, and we had a great time!

the LAS PALMAS Project

In a poor urban neighborhood named Las Palmas, at a dead end road where you could find drug dealing, children from abusive homes, young men sitting on the street corner with a hopeless look...A Foursqure Church was raised up a few years ago, and is now a growing congregation, pastored by Micaela, a woman who received the Lord when the Finocchiarios first came to the DR. However, the church has been in need of help: Micaela, a single woman who both pastors and works a job was becoming overwhelmed with the responsibilities. Also, the worship in the church was suffering as they really didn't have a team of musical people who could lead the congregation, or those with musical ability were falling away through poor decisions and difficult circumstances. At the start of 2008, I took on the task of serving that congregation by dedicating time during the mid-week services to 1) lead worship 2) preach and teach in the service and 3) Most importantly, gather, train and equip people who can be developed into a worship team. We went as a team, with Noah bringing his drumming, and a young leader from our main church named Carlos as my right hand man.

God is blessing the effort! People have been responding in the times of worship, and God's presence is evident. God is speaking to hearts, and Micaela is excited again as she sees what God is doing in her congregation. And (yes!) although we have a long ways to go, young people with some musical talent have begun to gather early with us to pray and practice, and they are learning to play together. I kind of feel we are on the frontlines when we go and minister there, so please keep this effort in your prayers. Also, we (you!) have been able to bless the congregation together with us...how? The only instrument the church really had when we came was an old, cheap keyboard. We have been able to purchase a bass and amp for them, and get their broken guitar repaired. They are still in need of a few things (speakers, music stands, guitar stands, small sound board...) but they're praying for those things. If you would like to help bless the new worship community in Las Palmas, let us know!

Rich

OK, OK, so I have gone a little crazy with the smilebox creations, but it is so much easier to load my pictures, so bear with me. Besides, I think they are kind of cute too. =)

Love and miss you all!!

Kirsten

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

Last week we got to be a part of a ministry with a lady named, Ina York, (pictured above) who has become a good friend of mine. She works in a very poor community, just outside the city. Most people in Cercadillo have virtually no education and very little means of making money. They have no electricity or even running water. Ina got 10 sewing machines and is going to attempt to teach these ladies in Cercadillo how to sew with the hopes that they can use it as a trade.

A team of ladies came from Chicago, did an awesome job getting them started with the basics. I (Kirsten) went to translate and loved it so much that I am going to be going there once a week to help out. Quite different scenery than we are used to in the heart of the city.

So Noah came along, not so much for the sewing part, =) but was a great help playing with kids.

Here are some cuties waiting for their moms and watching all the excitment.

The sewing project takes patience as we get machines threaded and re-threaded! Many of these women have no experience working with any sort of electrical equipment. We run all the machines off of a generator.

Little boy in Cercadillo.

Here I am translating for the sewing project in Cercadillo!

Kirsten, Esther, Gabriella and Juan Diego

Local man cleans in the mud in the aftermath of the storm

This little church hosted services each evening until the flood filled it with muck

Community church, days after the flood, inundated with muck and water, chairs and benches scattered

Local boys jumped in alongside us to help clean and restore the church that had been flooded and filled with mud

The church: restored and ready

The entire community joined in prayer with grateful hearts. We, the american team, were the ones most deeply touched by the heart of this community recovering from disaster

Welcome Noah!

He'll be interning here and living with us for the next few months.

Driving through the storm>>>

At this point, we hadn't realized that the bad weather was Hurricane Noel...our first clue might have been the huge waves crashing against the rocks and covering the freeway...

Josiah had so much fun when these guys from the New Song missions team spent a couple of weeks with us...You should have seen him--he got so excited he almost popped out of his skin several times

Young adults team from New Song in Tennessee joined with our youth for an awesome day together. What an amazing group. We love you New Song!

Kids join in songs at Las Palmas

New Song young people combine with our students here in our home for an amazing time of prayer

Congratulations to Faith, who this fall got baptized at a Dominican beach. Atta girl!

Baptisms at the beach!

Four young ladies and Faith were baptized on this beautiful day at the beach.