Monday, April 26, 2010

Week 2 April 19-23

This has been a whirlwind week, doing the regular things at the village, feedings and medicial work is the norm..it is hot and we are feeling the effects of the humidity as summer approaches.
this week Bri arrived to help, it is so good to see her and have her here for a while.
This week manny is suffering the effects of spending a day back in the village, his breathing is very rough and we had to take him to the doctor for meds. The sooner we can get the mamma to talk to the doctor so she understands why he cannot be in the village the better it will be for him.
Pray for us, that hse understands his condition and agrees to give us guardianship because a return fulltime to the village will cost him his life, that I could not handle.
that about covers this week nothing out of the ordinary , please pray for us as we carry on the work of Dominician Ministry.
Update on Jim, he continues to improve every day a little bit, it is almost 3 months and we praise God every day for the progress Jim is making.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

so much happened so fast over the month of Feb and into the middle of March that for blogging there seemed to be no time. So over time I will try to fill in the blanks, but as for now I am trying to stay current so those of you who are following our adventure will have updates.
March 12 we left for Canada to spend amonth with our kids and grandkids (which went way to fast) and to get some business things attended to.
On April 12 we returned to the Dominician Republic to start our 3 month stay here working with Dominician Ministry.

Monday April 13
this is our first day back to the village after being gone for a month, most everyone was very happy to see us and there were lots of hugs and loud greetings. LOL
Things seem to be quite in order and have carried on quite well, due to the hard work of Mike from the USA and My sister Mar and her daughter Krista and their friends Pete and Laurie.
thanks guys for a job well done.
There are new babies and sick babies and new challenges today and we are into the full swing of being back to Villa Acension,

Tuesday: Update on Jim and Sue
Jim has made amazing progress over the month, he has good movment in his left leg and also movement in his fingers on the left hand....praise God for his goodness and thank you all who are praying so faithfully for his recovery. God hears the prayers of his people for his good servant.
Sue is adjusting and doing well, she does carry a huge load with a Jim condition and with Martha there little haitian girl who is an extremely handicapped phisically and mentaly.
to day there have been some really tough decsions to be made about the the kids Mar and Denny and Pete and Laurie are adopting. With problems in the village, the two younger children have been removed from the village by a man who says he is the father.
pray for safety for them. We are not sure what is happening at this point.

Wednesday : today it is much quieter in the village, things are returning to normal, except for Mar who is on her last day in the village with the children...she got to see and spend time with 4 of the six before she left for Canada, Suzanitia and Carolina were not in the village. Manny is with us today for his first visit back to see mamma and siblings since March , they were excited, Manny not so sure...he is getting old enough to realize that they are not familiar faces.
Today we feed approx 200+ children a meal of rice, beans and pork bits.
thank you God that today there is enough food with acouple of bowls full left to feed some of the pregnant women.
There are a lot of sick children today and we give them the medicene we have and send one to the doctor in a neaby town to get checked there for sickness we cannot treat without antibiotics.
2 pm we are finally home, time to take a rest...NOT.....3pm...phone rings, our dominician friends daughter is in labour and they have no way to take her to the hospital can we come and take her to Puerto Plata to the hospital? off we go, Krista stays with Manny.
We stop on Monteallo to check with the doctor, he says yes she is diffently having a baby now, go "rapido" to Puerto Plata......100 kms/per hour on dominician highway with a screaming woman giving birth in the back seat is not something Bill signed up for, but he is driving there just the same.LOL
after some discusion on the way, we descide that the public hospital is not a good place for a 19 yr old first time mom to give birth so we go to the private hospital...a quick natural birth can't cost much....WRONG....there are major complications, unless she has immediate surgury baby will for sure die and possiblly mamma as well, Good Old Americian Express card can be used anywhere...2 hours of intense waiting and praying with a very nervous father to be and grandmother......We see them coming with a sleeping mamma and a crying baby...both alive and healthy...Thank God one more time for answered prayer...we go home happy but exhasted.

Thursday:
today we are taking it easy in the morning, this afternoon we will go to pick up the food for packaging the food distribution bags for next week. the food bags consist of 1 lb bags of rice, beans and sugar plus a 1/2 litre of oil and some boulliouion cubes. we pack these in 3 different quantities for distribution depending on the size of the family .
the jeep is full to the top when do the pick up because we have enough food for 45 families for 3 days. somedays I wonder how long this poor old vehicle will go.
afternoon we pack the food bags and get them ready for friday.
We call to see how the new baby is and all is well, she can come home tommorrow, WOW, that is fast , ok another trip to puerto plata tommorrow after leaving the village inthe morning.

Friday:
We arrive in the village of Puncha mateo at about 9:30 am, Krista and I are off to a good start this morning, we deal with a machette cut (gross) and a servere burn on a little boys leg, while Bill deliveres the four food bags that go to families here in this village.
Ok off we go to villa asencsion to do our food distributiona and get ready to feed about 200 children their meal of rice and beans and chicken.
and its only 10:30 AM.
today we are to have amission team of 10 helping with the meal, should be a piece of cake with this many people...WRONG...the team do not show up until 11 AM, leaving us with 4 people to do the work of 10, sweat we did but it got done, the team showed up in time to clean up, which we gladly allowed them to do.
Done at the village, home we go to shower, change and go get the new mamma and baby and bring them home..praise God they are well and happy to be back home.

Saturday and Sunday:
thank you God for days of rest, the pool is a God send and we enjoy it to the full
rested and ready for another weel of helping the people of the Dominician Republic.