Updates

Buenos tardes...

Tonight's update has to be cut a bit short, as we are running straight from dinner back to the

church for an evening communion service. We wrapped the clinic up today, with our

preliminary total of patients seen this week running close to 1,500. This afternoon many of the

medical providers and translators got a well-deserved break at the beach in Cabarete (don't worry

family members--especially wives--a lot of good shopping happened there, too!) Another vanload

of folks headed out to Taos's farm, where they drank fresh cherry juice and enjoyed a lively

environmental conversation focused on his cherry tree orchards.

Tomorrow we're spreading out in different directions, with a group heading toward Puerto Plata,

another to home medical visits and a third to the beach in Cabarete. We're hoping for another

beautiful and sunny day like we had today...your prayers for sunshine definitely worked. Gracias!

Until tomorrow, blessings!

More rain today in Sabaneta. We awoke to a grey sky and countless puddles.

Still, the construction team and the medical team headed out to their work sites, and were

able to accomplish a great deal. The addition to the chapel is coming along nicely, Gregg

McMillan reported this evening, as the group of burly men hauled one gallon bucket after

one gallon bucket full of concrete--or mescula--to be poured into pillars. The doctors again

saw hundreds of patients, and Dr. Sharon Dawso was glad to report that she finally saw a

convincing case of parasites in a pair of seven-year-old twins in Cuesta Bonosa. Typically,

she explained, many parents here are convinced their children have parasites because they

are craving sweets. Don't all children crave sweets?

The clouds seemed to part, though, when we all meandered down the street to Carmen's

home for juice after a filling lunch of chicken soup over rice.

Buenos, buenos! she called to us as we filed into her concrete home located just about a

block from the church at which she attends. The dark grey concrete structure was cool

inside, and the main living room was lined with plastic-covered couches and the white

plastic outdoor chairs found everywhere here.

For the twelfth year in a row, Carmen spent a morning making juice for the entire group.

Without any help from her daughter, she squeezed twelve pineapples and made the bright

yellow juice she served us in dozens of tall glasses filled with ice. It took her an hour and

a half just to make the juice, she told Mary Ruth.

It was still drizzling outside, as we sat around and sipped the cool liquid, a sweet treat at

the end of our afternoon meal. But we were infected with her kindness...we snapped pictures

of Carmen's home and of one another, we laughed and told jokes, and we daydreamed

about sunny afternoons on the beach in Cabarete.

The hospitality of the Dominican people parted the clouds for us today and brought us sunshine,

if only metaphorically. Please pray for a bit of the sunny stuff for us, as we finish our week here!

The pews are wooden, painted a deep brick red. They have no cushions, no comfortable curved backs.

A small space between the two seat boards leaves an uncomfortable crease against one's backside. They

clunk and rattle, wood against solid concrete, when folks sit down or get up, and sometimes, if pushed,

they create a deep squeal that echoes against the high ceilings of the chapels in which they are lined.

Today, these simple benches became pharmacy shelves for the pharmacists in the traveling clinic in Villa

Progresso, holding benadryl, ibuprofen, vitamins, and dozens of other medicines. Two of them were moved

so that they faced one another, creating a makeshift doctor's office for Dr. Al to see the patients. And well

over 100 Dominicans used these pews to rest as they awaited their turn to see one of the three

doctors or the dentist Jack Reed, stationed in the front of this little chapel.

The construction crew braved the elements to continue their addition to the chapel in Cuesta Bonosa,

pouring concrete for a room that will allow ten more of the red benches to fit inside God's house.

Bruce pointed out during his dinner report that those benches will allow 50 or 60 more people to hear

words of hope.

Robin preached words of God's hope, too, late last night to the teens of the community, using

Matthew 28.20 as a reminder that he never leaves us, no matter the circumstance. They gathered in

the Sabaneta chapel, of course, sitting on the simple seats.

After we leave, these benches will remain, sitting in their lopsided rows in the chapels. They will

continue their work, steady, strong, and predictable, ready to be leaned upon.

Hola!

After our first full day here in the Dominican, we have learned there continually is much work

to be done here. Pastor Cancu reminded us of this fact this evening after a dinner of pork,

coleslaw and yumma yucca fries underneath a zinc roof canopy.

¨My work is like my heart that keeps beating,¨he said.

Construction work began today at one of the Sabaneta church´s ¨satellite¨ chapels. Many

of the men did heavy lifting of the concrete blocks that make up many of the brightly painted

homes here. They are building a twelve foot addition on this chapel...

OUR work is like a heart that keeps beating.

The clinics opened for the week, and between the clinic located across the street from the

church and the traveling clinic that went to the village of Boca de Yasica (unfortunately

known for its prostitution), the doctors saw more than 400 patients, with a range of

ailiments. They will line up again tomorrow morning, along with the man and his wheelbarrow

full of speckled green oranges, for sale, just a few pesos...

OUR work is like a heart that keeps beating.

Jack Reed, sporting a shockingly bright patterned scrub shirt, along with a gaggle of

teenage girls, holed up in Cancu´s church office, performing dentistry on 33 children

and about 20 adults. Their cries of pain wafted through the late morning´s stormy breeze,

and could be heard in the pharmacy (aka the school´s main floor) while pill counters continued

to do what they do best...count pills...

OUR work is like a heart that keeps beating.

All week, we will beat. We hope your prayers...your work...will join this collective

¨thump, thump¨ thundering through Sabaneta.

After easy flights, we met up outside of the Puerto Plata airport around 3.30, with

many of us glad to meet sunshine and warm tropic breezes.

Palm trees, easter egg colored resorts, zippy motorbikes and a beautiful

¨sea horse ranch´ were the sights on the 45 minute drive from Puerto Plata to

Sabaneta. Clothes lines bore magenta and lime and chartruese shirts, a very

different sight from the Amish blues and blacks. The smells of animals, chicken

barbeque and exhaust tickled our noses, as we craned our necks out the windows

of the crowded vans.

We settled into our new home for the week, wrangling with mosquito nets and

suitcases full of medicines. Dinner was served in the ¨dinning room¨)misspelling

intended) outside of Pastor Cancu´s home ... a warm chicken, veggie and rice dish

soaked up with soft bread.

Pills await us back at the school. Counting, counting, and more counting is on our

schedule for the evening and tomorrow, when the first traveling clinic will depart.

Please keep praying for us, as we are welcomed into this new place, ever vigilant

for ways to let God to work through us.

Good evening from Sabaneta!