Well we returned to the island after the holidays to some cool weather here. It had been a while since we had been here during a rainy season.The rain would start mid morning and rain till mid afternoon, for two weeks non stop it seemed like everything was just soggy. Then the sun would come out for a few hours, and it was just beautiful! It's the time of the year when you wear layers. At night I wanted to sleep with extra blankets on the bed because I was freezing and of course Eric thought I was over doing it a little. We had a wonderful time in the states visiting with family and friends. We took some time to just relax, and to do some things together as a family. We enjoyed showing off how big Colton has gotten. Ever the proud parents, it was fun for our family to see his "tricks." He is such a happy, busy little boy. We spent the majority of our time in Louisville, traveled to Kansas City, and then off to Omaha to spend Christmas with Eric's family. It was a relaxing time, and we had a lot of fun watching Colton run around with all his cousins. If we missed getting to see you, we will be state side shortly to work for G.O.'s biggest fund raiser of the year the "Kentucky Derby."
It's not always fun and can sometimes be painful, but I know that during these seasons I am growing. Learning to be a mom and a wife on the mission field has been challenging in ways that I never expected. I realize that the only way that I can be successful and keep my sanity is to abide in Him. That sounds like a simple concept really. But when the house hold chores pile up, your little guy needs attention, you haven't worked out, haven't had your me time or time with your spouse, it gets easy to sacrifice your time alone with the ONE who makes it all make sense. I want to abide in him daily so that when crisis strikes, I am comforted and strong because I feel His presence all around me.
Medically speaking, last year we had 7 medical clinics and 4 dental clinics visit the island. We treated about 5,000 people with medical/dental needs and shared the gospel with them as well. It really is a great week of ministering to the communities physically and spiritually.
Our community medical clinic located here in the community where I live is going strong as well. The clinic is open 5 days a week. Dr. Vladimir is our Dominican doctor here and he treat's about 50 patients a day. We charge 50 pesos ($1.30) to see the doctor and the medicine is free, but we never turn anyone away who can't pay. We have people who drive as far as 2 hours away to be seen in our clinic. They know we have "American" medicine. Not only is the medicine better quality than what you can buy here, alot of the pharmacies have been know to sell placebo's. We are known as a place of integrity.
Our biggest project of this year outside of medical clinics, will be the assessing of our Nutrition centers. We have 11 in total. With these nutrition centers, we are able to give 1,000 children across the island one hot meal 6 days a week. For most of these kids, it's the only meal they will receive. The centers are apart of our churches so that the pastors are also able to meet their spiritual needs. Last month, we began assessing the kids to see how nourished they were and what changes we need to make to get them to the best health possible. One of our visiting doctors from the U.S. came, Dr. Corrine Kohler, and we traveled to 4 of our nutrition centers. We took height, arm, ad weight measurements. We also recorded their names and ages. We are having the data analyzed so that we can see if the kids are getting enough to eat, and if they aren't, what we can do to supplement. We know the kids needs vitamins, and also are there extra things we can do to add to their food to build their muscles and immune systems up. Not only did it feel good to go out there and participate in the clinic, they kids loved the attention. It was a good feeling to talk with the Pastors and to let them know that we are working to get their kids in their communities healthy. After all the nutrition centers are assessed and all the information analysed, we will take our findings to the local health department here and see what THEY can do for their people. It is our hope that the Dominican health department here will provide additional boosters for the kids, and find out some other useful ideas to get these kids healthy.
We also gave each of the kids parasite treatment. They can have all manner of parasites and amoebas in their stomachs. We often wonder if the medicine is strong enough to kill them all. A few days after we had treated one of the communities kids, one of our Pastors stopped us in the street. He said that he had a trophy for us. He pulled up a photo of a felt worm on his cell phone. Deloris and I were immediately grossed out! The Pastor started laughing at our reactions. He said "The day one of the kids you all treated for parasites walked by the door of the church, and as he walked by me, this worm fell out of his pant leg. I wanted to show you all this picture so that you can see with your eyes that you all make a difference.
We will be traveling to Louisville, KY Tuesday March 27th. We will be state side for about 8 weeks. We look forward to visiting with you all. Eric will be preparing for Derby, and I will be assisting him when I can, chasing Colton around and keeping up with my own work. We will be traveling on to Omaha after Derby to visit Eric's family,and to see our supporter's there as well.
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