Guest Bloggers::Roman and Stephanie Jaquez

Greetings to our family and friends at Terra Nova from Roman and Stephanie Jaquez.  We would like to start by saying that we are so blessed to have you all in our lives, and thankful for the opportunity to know you, and be known by you.

We are pleased to announce that we are organizing a group, in partnership with two local churches – King’s Chapel and Mountainview Evangelical Free Church – to go down to the Dominican Republic and serve.  We will be there for one week (February 13th, 2010 to February 20th, 2010) working on building a school in the village of Cotui.  While we are there, there will also be opportunities to interact with the community and share the gospel through a VBS style program.  This project is in association with a missions organization called Vision Trust whose mission is to develop orphaned and neglected children into mature Christians equipped to live in their own culture by enabling Christian nationals to meet the physical, educational, emotional and spiritual needs of these children.  Our project, The Grace School in Cotui, fits into this mission by providing education, meals, and medical care to the children of this small village where in most cases they would not have had access otherwise.  To date, the security wall has been built, and the foundation set, but there is still a lot of work to be done building this school.  The hope for this project is that it will have the same success as a similar project executed by Vision Trust in Herrera.  They built a school in this village initially to serve a small number of children which now serves 400+ children, is used as the church in the village, and provides clean drinking water and medical care to the community. The school in Herrera has become a beacon of light in the community, and turned many hearts to Christ.

As mentioned above, the trip will be from February 13th, 2010 through February 20th, 2010.  The approximate cost per person is $1,500 which will include flight, hotel, ground transportation and food. Right now we’re exploring some fundraising options both within Terra exclusively and in concert with King’s Chapel and Mountainview.  Our hope is that these efforts will reduce the cost per person in a meaningful way.  We will be holding an informational meeting at 409 on October 4th at noon.

It is our prayer that a team from Terra Nova could come together with the teams from King’s Chapel and Mountainview to work hard, and leave a lasting impression on this community.  If you would like any further information or are interested in traveling with us, please feel free to contact either of us.

Yours in Christ,

Román and Stephanie