Zone visit in Dominican Republic

Today was the Zone Visit here in Dominican. We had been planning as a congregation to rent a bus and go to the capital where they had rented 2 stadium's for this event.

Renting a bus here would be really expensive, it was going to cost 600 pesos per person which would be about $18 American. I know that it doesn't sound like much but $18 dollars could take most several months to save.  One sister was planning on taking a loan out at the bank so she could attend. Also, its a 4 hour drive and the brother`s were going to have to leave at 3am just to arrive at the start of the program.
 And Duverge is only one congregation of the many that were in the same financial situation.

However, Jehovah blessed all the brothers because just this week they made provision for the talks to be streamed LIVE via internet. So in the comfort of our local Kingdom Hall we sat and watched a projector of the speakers that were all the way in the capital.

 Jehovah made it all possible because none of the brothers own this equipment!

When Chris found out that we could stay here and be connected the search was on!! So he needed to get an internet wireless stick and a projector. In Canada not such a difficult task as every cell phone has wireless capability and a projector can be rented from an electronic store, but remember we are in Dominican....

But with Jehovah's help we found everything!!! A cousin of Bonnie (Michelle worked with her in service) had the wireless internet stick and flagged us down in service one day to tell us that we could use it.
Chris called one return visit of his hoping that they still owned a projector, but they didn't however Chris remembered that another return visit might have one. So we tried to locate her and eventually made contact on Thursday.
So when Chris said, "we have the internet connection but are in need of a projector" the woman replied "you dont need a projector because you already have ONE!!!"

It really couldn't have come together better!  Of course it was a scramble the whole week but Chris pulled it off. The CO even called and said he had 'no fear' that Duverge would be well organized.

The brothers were very moved at the talks that were given. Gray and I were pleasantly surprised when a brother from the New York bethel (who spoke english) gave one of the talks. It was translated into spanish for the audience. I think everyone was impressed that we were able to be apart of the stadium, hear the singing see the crowd yet be 4 hours away.

Duverge has 32 publishers, we had 62 in attendance!!!

The total of the entire Zone Visit is: Santo Domingo Stadium             37,616.
                                                      San.Domingo Stadium Creol       1,289
                                                      Assembly Hall San. Domingo      4,364
                                                      Assembly Hall Villa Gonzalez.     2,489
                                                      Cibao Stadium                            12,661+727
                                                      85 cong. like us                             6,021
                                                                                                      ___________
                                                       Total                                        65,167

This country has only 34,643 publishers!!!! It was awesome to be apart of this special visit.




After lunch and our siesta Gray and Chris went to play basketball with some of the younger brothers from the congregation.  Sports are something that the boys really like here, they are also very good at them as well.

You likely will recognize them, as most have been on other days of our blogs.

As you can see they are very good at basketball!!



Tomorrow is our day off for "vacaciones"