Scholarship Support

The above, is a short video introduction into the system of Episcopal Schools run by the Diocese of the Dominican Republic. These schools provide an important ministry to their communities in a nation poorly served by public education. Many of the students can and do pay their own way, but scholarship support is needed. The cost is $300 per student per year.

More information is online at www.episcopaldominican.org.

Short Term Mission Opportunities

This video shows how teams can use the Bishop Kellogg center in San Pedro, Dominican Republic as a base of operations for diverse opportunities for mission trips.

A Vital Congregation

A Different Approach

It is impoosible not to notice the strong commitment the Diocese of the Dominican Republic has to starting and running Episcopal Schools. The idea is not new, I know from visiting Santa Cruz School in Santa Fe which has been open for 90 years. We met more than one school director who had gone through her school as a student.

The assumption here is not that every church must have a school, but they are very common. The assumption instead seems to be that feasibility studies should be done to determine if a church can support a school.

While I am no expert on private schools, I do know something of preschools and was very impressed with their rooms and their teachers. All over the DR, I saw commited teachers working with students, many of whom were at the school on a scholarship.

Our situation is not the same with regard to educatuion. Nevertheless, what would The Episcopal Church in America look like if we more readily assumed a feasibility study was in order and started schools at every church where one is needed?

As this gets posted automatically on Saturday morning, I will be making my way back to Orlanda by plane and Camden County, Georgia by car.

peace,
Frank+
President, King of Peace Episcopal Day School


A flag corps tat performed on Friday, the last day of school before the DR's independence day.


Tar Drazdowski in front of The Episcopal School of the Transfiguration located on the edge of the diocesan camp in the mountains. She has arranged for every child at the school who needs a scholarship to have one through donations from her church and elsewhere. They are $300 per student per year.

Vibrant Faith

We march with the congregation of La Reconciliation from their existing small church to their new church building. The church is best known in the community for helping build 22 simple houses similar to a Habitat for Humanity project.

Yesterday, our team from the Diocese of Georgia experienced an amazing welcome from the congregation of La Reconciliation in Azua, Dominican Republic. Words fail to convey the experience of the Holy Spirit as we sang and danced with fellow Episcopalians. Their vibrant faith is contagious. The church grew from 15 to more than 100 in a year and continues to grow. Their new church building is under construction and we joined them in praying there.

peace,
Frank+


Victoria dances with the congregation of La Reconciliation in a very poor part of Azua in the Dominican Republic west of Santo Domingo

Sustained Support for Haiti

The most urgent work in the Dominican Republic at present is their sustained support for their own mother diocese of Haiti. The diocese is sending food through to keep displaced Haitians fed by the thousands in the 26 refugee camps run by The Episcopal Church. In addition, important work is taking place on the border town of Jimani (pronounced Yih Mah Nee). The Rev. Jesus Mosque is the priest there at San Pablo Apostol Church.

Working with Episcopal Relief and Development the diocese here has established a Relief and Information Center in Jimani. A building with dormitory space is now under construction. Those of us here from the Diocese of Georgia plan to put together a trip there. I wish I had pictures, but the relief and construction workers have priority and at present we can't get to Jimani. Instead we have been in direct contact with those here who will make a return trip from the Diocese of Georgia possible. The logistics are now in place.

This will not be an easy trip. While safe to travel and to stay there, we need to put together a team that can come two months from now to complete the dorm. This will mean sleeping on the floor of the dorm under construction as the work is completed. We anticipate a painting and finishing work crew that will bring supplies and get the dorm useable by the steady stream of relief workers who will continue to be needed in Haiti for the coming years.

Do you feel called to this trip? Are you ready to go to work on a construction project that will matter for years to come? Are you willing to be led and to put your own ideas of how things should happen aside in order to get the work done? For those willing to rough it a bit, the upcoming week-long work in Jimani may be the most important thing you do this decade.

For those looking for something less challenging, there are two options: 1) the team that comes will have to have a Home Team offering support and prayer and, 2) we are also setting up other trips here to areas less challenging and more easily accessible and workable. Information will be forthcoming soon on several trips.

peace,
Frank+

Microcredit - Big Changes

At right is Salón Fantasia Joanna, which was started with a microcredit loan offered through a program of the Episcopal Diocese of the Dominican Republic.


Beauty Salon owner, Joanna, in front of her salon. Inside is a small sales counter for various related products, which is itself another small business funded through the microcredit program.

Small loans, some as little as $100 US, are making big changes in the lives of women in the Dominican Republic. The microcredit program run by the Diocese of the Dominican Republic helps with start-up cost as well as business know how to give the loan recipients the best possible start in a new venture.

Follow up is the key and the program has spiritual as well as economic components to support the women as they start their businesses. Rather than individual loans, the program works with small groups of women, which means those getting a loan have mutual support. Each group comes together every 15 days for some spiritual support and to go over their businesses. By providing such close support, the program boasts a 100% payback rate on its loans while the businesses themselves enjoy a 94% success rate.

This microcredit program had note been offered on the border with Haiti due to issues with contraband sales in the area. In the wake of the earthquake in Haiti, the program is finding a home one the border to meet the needs of shop owner and customer alike and the Diocese of the Dominican Republic is finding ways to make sure the businesses succeed.

Each local microcredit program is designed to become self-supporting in the third year as it makes all new loans from the money paid back from earlier loans. In this way, donations to the program becoming self-perpetuating so that the money given keeps on giving to the women of the DR.

This is yet another innovative way that The Episcopal Church is responding to the very real needs of the people in the communities they serve.

peace,
Frank+


Down the street from Joanna's beauty shop is a small shop selling goods off the front porch of the owner (at far right). This store was also started through the microcredit program.

Capacity Building

The current building for San Padro y San Pablo

Among the churches we visited today was the little store-front style church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in a very poor and somewhat dangerous area of Santo Domingo. We met Pimpa, a lay woman who was one of the founders more than 20 years ago. We also visited the construction site of the new two story building, built higher off the ground as the area is prone to flooding, particularly if hurricane season brings a storm ashore. The new building will include a school and will serve as a shelter in case of a storm.

This type of capacity building is common in the Diocese of the Dominican Republic, which has doubled the number of church buildings in the past decade to 70, with at least two new buildings being built each year and four under construction now. I was reminded of King of Peace's own story several times today while hearing people talk in the DR about their vision and their work. I am amazed at the diocesan support these churches are able to receive. This sort of capacity building that was ongoing is part of what is allowing The Episcopal Church in the DR to be the major conduit for aid to Haiti. More on that later.

peace,
Frank+


Pimpa and the current pastor, the recently ordained Deacon Adolpho


Inside the present church.


The new church under construction.


In the nave of the new church building.

Compelling Vision

An open window in an empty room, where San Gabriel Church in Consuela dreams of having a vocational school.

I am accustomed to discovering and casting vision and yet I was humbled in travelling around the Diocese of the Dominican Republic yesterday. At every turn there was another pastor caring for two or three churches and a school or two. Yet, none were anywhere close to being satisfied with the present level of service to their communities, much less present attendance in worship.

We could see vision that had reached fruition in former classroom space no longer needed since a new larger school had been built nearby, so it was turned into a medical rehabilitation ward attached to their medical clinic. Then at Buen Pastor we saw how a group of Churches in Tampa, Florida had come back year after year to help build and furnish the church, surrounded by the school expanding downward into preschool and hoping to get into day care for even younger kids. At both Santa Cruz Church in Santa Fe and San Gabriel Church in Consuelo, the congregations dream of creating vocational schools to add to their ministry. By adding short-term programs, they hope to help get unemployed people in their towns back in the work force, or even better, newly there after school so that they can save money to go to a university.

One disappointment was that the only road into a growing Haitian community was closed by road work and so we could not see for ourselves the need. But we could read on their pastor's heart his concerns for expanding capacity in a poor sugar cane growing area for the Haitians there.

This brief report doesn't begin to scratch the surface of the amazing vision that Dominicans have for what The Episcopal Church can do for the communities it serves. I am humbled by their quiet confidence that God will provide a way forward.

peace,
Frank+


A medical rehabilitation area at San Esteban Church in San Pedro, using what was three former school classrooms, connected through knocking doorways in the concrete walls.

Still Trembling

The Diocese of the Dominican Republic van picking us up at the airport in Santo Domingo

Deacon Bob Snow is an Episcopal missionary who works in Santo Domingo. He said attendance at the English speaking service in his Church of the Epiphany has doubled in recent weeks with attendance from refugees from Haiti. One man told him at the last service as he asked for prayers, "I am still trembling from the earthquake." This was true both physically and emotionally. There are many pastoral needs flooding into churches here on this other side of the island of Hispanola.

The Rev. Jean Bruno has been one of the priests in the Diocese of the Dominican Republic doing a heroic work to get aid into Haiti. On an ongoing basis, they are sending two large trucks of food over to Port au Prince to keep the thousands fed in the 26 camps being run by The Episcopal Church in Haiti. Even though the relief effort is increasingly dropping out of the news, the work here continues day by day as this remains the major staging area for all the work in Haiti.

Some at King of Peace will remember Fr. Bruno. He is the Haitian-born priest who preached at King of Peace on April 6, 2003. He was in our diocese to be with us at our diocesan convention to represent the DR and enjoyed being with an Episcopal Church in America meeting in a house. An audio file of his sermon remains online here: Losing Your Life to Find It. Just follow the link, scroll down to April 6 and press play.

It's Monday evening as I write. The rice, beans and chicken for supper was wonderful. The ceiling fan is circling away above and music plays through the window screen from nearby in the neighborhood. Tonight we have Internet access. We will not during the day tomorrow, but may well tomorrow evening in Santo Domingo.

I will keep y'all posted on our progress as I am able. Today we got brought up to speed on a lot of opportunities for assistance in places we will be seeing in person throughout our travels. More on that later.

peace,
Frank and Victoria Logue


Looking out of a clay tile opening in the wall in the hallway in our dorm at the Bishop Kellog Center in San Pedro, Dominican Republic.

Diocese of the Dominican Republic

Victoria and I are flying to the Dominican Republic today to discover the needs of the Companion Diocese to our own Diocese of Georgia. We'll be working to see two to three places each day through Friday, and finding ways to communicate the needs so that churches can see how to get involved in making a difference. In the wake of the earthquake on the other side of the island, the Diocese of the Dominican Republic needs ever more to expand its ability to reach out sharing Christ's love with all in their communities as well as the needs coming across the border. We will be all around the DR side of Hispanola listening to their stories, seeing what there is to see and finding ways to share what we discover.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Clergy Journalist/Storyteller