In the Lord’s Vineyard

in Dominican Republic

We are thankful for each of you and ask God’s blessing on you. We are grateful for the help that has been sent to our ministry. As a family, God has placed us where He has a work for us to do and for this we are thankful. I was sharing with a small class of 12 people the beauty and solemnity of being called a son of God and the power and privileges this holds. As I was speaking I realized in a special way how our Lord has given us evidence of what I was sharing in my life and the life of my family. Jesus has cared for us through some physically and emotionally trying years to be able to help us do what we are doing. Preparing our characters as we teach and preach about the present truth is a nice work.

Our last health patient was healed from 25 years of migraine headaches with simple hydrotherapy treatments, lifestyle changes, and the love from our community family. We are still in contact with her and expect her eventual conversion to the present truth. Her testimony of how the Lord healed her is a topic of interest in the town she lives.

Our small agriculture institute is growing in influence in our area. We can feel the Holy Spirit’s leading each day. The adult and young people who work together in these ministries are getting closer to our Lord and each other as we prepare for the solemn moments ahead of us. We have worked on a very tight budget for the last seven years. Only recently have we felt our need for additional equipment in order to improve our work and make us into a truly self-supporting ministry, like the school of the prophets.

One day, eleven of us men and boys had finished a full day of work “bush hogging” about three-and-a-half acres of land with machetes. I felt deeply impressed that the best way to take advantage of all the debris in our location was not to pile and burn it but to make our own organic compost. We could use this organic compost to help fertilize our gardens, as well as our lulo (an exotic fruit), which is one of our cash crops. In order to make this compost in a realistic time frame, and with the manpower we have, we would need a wood chipper. A wood chipper would automatically give us an excellent advantage as a self-supporting school. We could convert not only our own compost but all our neighbor’s refuse into organic compost in a very short period of time. The proceeds from selling the compost and the vegetables that we would produce with the compost would help some very worthy students to get the simple things that we now have to supply them through donations. Two or three teachers could be supported as well, who now only give us part-time assistance because they must maintain their own cash crops to buy their personal essentials.

The appropriate machine can be purchased here in the Dominican Republic for $6000 U.S. dollars. I have never made a direct appeal for funds like this before and I am sorry if this seems out of place. It is just that I can see how the work we are doing to train soul-winners, could be significantly advanced with just a little technology that we really cannot afford. We still do not have electricity in our center because a solar panel system is too expensive for our budget. We have never concerned ourselves with this and feel it is not a need. But we feel the wood chipper is necessary to further the work. We need to clear the land so we can begin planting the fruit that are in containers. We cannot delay the transplanting of these plants.

“The church of Christ on earth was organized for missionary purposes, and the Lord desires to see the entire church devising ways and means whereby high and low, rich and poor, may hear the message of truth. Not all are called to personal labor in foreign fields, but all can do something by their prayers and their gifts to aid the missionary work.”

Counsels on Sabbath School Work, 135.

By Elvin Easton. Email: missionfamily@gmail.com. Support for this work can be sent to TLC, PO Box 36, Oakpark, VA 22730.