Karen emailed be in regards to various difficulties or barriers between the Dominicans and Americans

In regards to

Language:

"Bill and I don't see much of a language barrier as we do a cultural barrier. They take 2 hour lunches and actually cry tears if they work 1 minute past 12:00. They want their food and want it now. Where as we Americans will eat on the fly. They will not do this no matter what. Again, there are more cultural barriers of things that are unbelievably hard to understand as opposed to the language barrier."

Cultural Barriers in Communication:

"You must be very careful to study a culture and what offends and what does not. The Dominicans love to communicate with Americans unless it is something serious. Then, they do not like it. Americans like to speak to Dominicans only if they feel confident in their Spanish skills. Because of the cultural barriers that are present, conversations need to be kept very light. Our humor is mainly offensive to them. What we find funny they usually do not. And what they find funny we find very simple-minded."

Translators:

"Interpreters are not much of an issue any longer since Bill and I pretty much understand. We do not speak eloquently and when preaching something very important, we will use an interpreter. Interpreters also interpret when groups come to help the poor."

Karen goes on to say:

The goals of our organization are:

to plant as many churches as we can in areas that do not have a healthy church,

support each pastor through the produce of the farm,

take care of 100 widows someday,

also in our mobile medicine program which is brand new: we will take care of children with diabetes, have a prenatal program as well as std education, place asthmatic nebulizers in each barrio so people have the ability to get medicine faster than they do now, which is wait in line for 30 minutes as many of them pass out during that time.

The obstacles in any of our programs are time lines.

The people here move very slowly.

We Americans organize then take the bull by the horns.

But perseverance has become our key attribute in these last 10 years.

And things are coming together pretty well.

We will finally finish our mission house this year after having to live in 3 rooms for the last 9 years.

So, Praise The Lord!!!