The Dominican Evangelical Church (IED) and Community Health Evangelism

Bellanira, a Community Health Evangelism (CHE) facilitator in the Casandra community  in Barahona prepares a newsprint with information that her group discovered as they explored the  community of Boca Canasta using their five senses. Boca Canasta is a neighborhood in the southern part of Baní where the IED training center is located. This was one of the exercises during the three day workshop that we  (Mark and Jenny) expect participants to take back and use in their own communities or neighborhoods where they are implementing the practice of CHE. NOTE: I am posting as is, but will return and add photos. A New Phase for Us Last week Jenny and I started a new phase in our work with the Community Health Evangelism initiative of the Dominican Evangelical Church (IED--Iglesia Evangélica Dominicana). We held our very first full-blown training course at the IED's retreat and training center in Bani. Since we had not yet led any CHE workshops, of course we started with the sec

Marvin from Batey 7, son of Marleny and Guillermo, both members of the CHE work in Batey 7. On July 5, a group of 25 of us had a real day at the beach. It was a day of sun and fun, sharing food, bathing in the turquoise Caribbean sea, riding waves and rinsing off in the cold streams flowing down the forest-covered Bahoruco mountains. It may seem odd to start off a new blog site about Jenny and my new work talking about a day at the beach, but July 5th was a celebration, and celebration is a key part of our work. It is easy to forget that. What were we celebrating? We were celebrating the work of the Community Health Evangelism committee of Batey 7 (see, for example,  Batey 7: Health Screening ). We recently did an inventory of all the work they have done over the last four years and all of us were surprised at how long the list was.  We kind of ran out of room on our 18" X 24" newsprint. The most recent activities included: a) Visiting all 300 homes in the communit