pictures to come soon**
Let me tell you about a new ministry that will hopefully be a intricate part of discipling young Dominicans here in San Juan.
For the past two months, we have been trying to put a face on what the coffee shop “Café Vivo” would look like. Our purposes for opening Café Vivo are clear: 1) meet the felt needs of those who meet, build relationships, 2) employ and disciple Dominican teens, and 3) raise funds for future Dominican missionaries, in the process.
The Café Vivo team consists of Miguel Santiago, Jonathan Tabb and I along with, three FYMs (Alli, Beth, and David). Every Monday morning for the past 5 weeks David, Jonathan, and I would get up at 6:30 to prepare the coffee in our house and finish any of the baking started the night before.
We shoot to arrive at the girl’s house by 7:10, sometimes we hit that target, other times we fly over it. After a short prayer asking for the Lords blessing on our day we head out to our destination, Town Hall.
In the States, this would probably be one of the worst places to set up and hand out free coffee and baked goods. In the south American/Caribbean culture it is one of the best locations, especially when those who work there can’t enter the building until the national anthem has been played by the city band.
“Picturesque of beauty”, this is how we describe the minutes of listening to the band play while standing next to the white marble pillars of Town Hall. While looking out over the band playing, you look up and see the sprawling mountains in the distance overlooking everything, including the small plaza with green grass, small flower gardens, rows of palm trees, and a monument of some not so forgotten national hero, right across the sidewalk of T.H.
Once the band plays the last note the rush begins anew. “Aye café?” “Dame café por favor” “Hechame un chin de café” The requests keep coming, the sugar flows as much as the liquid it dissolves in to, but gracias is a by-product mainly produced with eye to eye contact. As we hand out the goods our immediate question is “Dime, como te gusta?”
(tell me, how did you like it?). Knowing the culture we bypass there first response and go for a more telling sign of how they really liked it by asking a indirect question, usually about the amount of sugar or the fruit that was in it.
After the job side of the morning calms down we settle into a time of building relationships. We have a excellent reputation of being the “good American friends” among those who work for the city, but few will talk to us more than 5 min because they have work to do. Despite that fact, we have made many friends durning the morning times and have been able to share a little of why we are here in the DR and why we want to start a coffee shop.
Pray that the Lord sends local teens who want to work with us and be discipled. We are also praying for a building to be provided for were the local youth can have a good time in a positive way.
