Back in the USA, Part Dos

As promised, here's the next installment.

Most of today's blog will be about the 2 houses our construction crew built. You've seen some pix of what they replaced.

I told you yesterday about the rains that hit in the afternoon as we left the 1st neighborhood for lunch at the church. We were drenched -- I thought it felt great! I didn't mention how hot & humid it was. We were fortunate enough to have some electricity where we were. Sometimes we had a fan. But the stickiness was really hard for some of us. Okay, probably all of us :) I was so overwhelmed with everything the first couple days that I didn't even notice how green and beautiful the countryside was. I just kept thinking that it was the rain (it rained every day, I think) and humidity that made it that way. Here are 2 of the roads we saw. Yes, I guess that our Midwest is looking a lot like this. The pix don't do it justice -- you could've white-water rafted. It's also an extra challenge when the roads are just dirt to begin with.

Here's a great photo of the coordinator of the trip. His name is Ramone and he is really cool! He was a Martial Arts champion and also did Ballroom Dance! He was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to Puerto Rico before moving to the US when he was 17. We gave him a REALLY hard time about his white shoes! He had a difficult time keeping them white with all that mud!

This is one of our triage nurses (and Assoc. Pastor's wife) at our last clinic. It was in a little nicer neighborhood and we set up in a satellite church of the one we stayed at. The hardest part for me during each of our clinic days was when we could no longer take numbers because we were leaving in an hour or so and needed to get through those patients who were already there. We would close the doors of the church and the people would just pound on the doors and look in the windows begging to get in, or the kids would ask for more toys when we were out of them. On this day, our construction crew was with us, having finished their houses. Poppy & Cory did crowd control. Bob the Builder helped with the medical team, having been a corpsman in the military and a respiratory therapist. Andy, Cory, and Poppy would much rather have been building another house. I told them that this was way smoother than the first couple days!! PSean & Andy played football (American) and baseball with the kids. Our childcare angels played with the kids in the scorching heat.

Poppy took this picture. He swears that the little boy was smiling right before he took it!

Before the cement was dry in the first house, one of the kids walked through it.

Did I talk about the demolition of the first house yet? Oh wow, that was definitely not as much fun as I thought it would be! The young girls & I went with the construction crew to tear down the old shack, since the medical team went to tour a hospital and to see if we would be able to help some of the people we met down there with very difficult needs. More on that in the next blog, I guess. Anyway, yikes-a-malooney! (that's for you, Carly) When we took the walls apart, which were made of corrugated steel, all kinds of critters came out -- huge cockroaches, spiders as big as taratulas but nowhere near as pretty, that kind of thing. When Poppy took one of the walls off the wooden poles, a huge "volcano" of ants came up out of the ground about 5 inches high. We all started stomping our feet and Amber & I did a tap dance and the Charleston. Those watching really enjoyed that! I went around spraying everyone's legs with bug spray. By everyone's, I mean except mine. Oooh baby, I had lots of bites!

Here's part of the crew working on the second house.

PSean & Andy found out how hard it is to mix cement without that really big truck that usually does it!

This is how a lot of the houses got electricity -- illegally. Dangerously, too, I might add!

This is the outdoor "cucina" that Bob the Builder and Poppy made for Ursula at house 2. The old one is to the left. When they moved it from the old house to its new location, it fell apart, so they made her a new one from scraps. The stove itself is pretty cool. They built a wooden platform, lined it with metal from the shack, and poured concrete into which they set some rocks to support the pan for cooking. The cement held the heat in well. Ursula's neighbors all came to look at it!

This is the crew with Ursula and her daughter Anna. I have to say that at first, the people didn't trust us. The first day at the clinic, when I would write their physical complaints, they would try to read it because they didn't believe that I had written down what they told me.

Later on, I got to meet Ursula myself. She was so excited to meet the wife of one of the construction crew -- she gave me a big kiss & hug! There's a picture of Michele (one of the nurses), Ursula and me in her new house on Thursday's blog. Here she is in front of her new house with Pastor Carlos & Ramone.

The next picture takes a little explanation. The shacks all had a bag hanging by them and we didn't know what was in them -- ignorance is bliss! One day, a lady was carrying one of these bags. She tripped and as Andy reached out to help her, the bag sloshed over and hit him on the side. He noticed really smelly slime running down his side from the bag. Yep, it's where they dispose of their fecal matter! We called them "Andy bags" from then on :)

Sunday, our team was responsible for all the children's Sunday School at 9am. We found out that we would be doing that on Tuesday night, along with doing the Sunday night service. I have to admit that I was upset that we hadn't prepared for that in advance. I figured that we could have worked up something really nice back home (I knew that I would be overwhelmed once we got to the DR). When my Sunday School partner, Mary (an ICU nurse) asked me for ideas, I couldn't for the life of me come up with even a song to sing. I had to say, "I got nothin'." Fortunately, little Natasha, Pastor Carlos & Teresa's daughter was playing with 2 of her friends, and Mary & I asked her about the songs they sang. It was a lot of fun and got me out of my funk. Then Mary was going through some kids' Bible stories that we had brought in Spanish and English and had the genius idea to do the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet. Brilliant! We started out the Sunday school for the 7 to 11 year olds with some music and puppets "lip-syncing" to a song. It was supposed to be "Joyful Joyful" but ended up being some other hymn --can't remember which one. Then we split up the boys & girls (just a few feet away from each other on the back porch). One group,led by Heather & Nell (nurses) made those cool bracelets or whatever that use beads to tell Jesus' story. I still want to get one of those. With our group, I was able to read the Bible story in Spanish. Mary, the Doc, and I washed the students' feet and prayed for each one. It was really cool! BFF, you know that as soon as she suggested the story, I thought of Chip as Peter and Bill as Jesus! We had a translator (Marbin, who really was one of the team!) to help us. What a great experience, as we explained that we were there to serve the Dominican (& Haitian) people and they were also to serve those around them.

We also ministered in the Sunday pm service. PSean, Nell, & I did some worship songs (in English, but they liked them anyway, I guess). We did Trading My Sorrows, which some of our translators (who, by the way came to Sunday School to help us without being paid!) sang. When it came to "yes Lord" we sang "si Señor." I sang "He's Been Faithful." It's kind of okay that it was in English, because I felt that it was more for our group and for me personally. Two of our members gave their testimony which was translated by Pastor Carlos.

Monday, we had a typical "tourist" day. We took a bus 2 hours or so away and went on a catamaran trip to a private island and had lunch, then took a speedboat back to the main island (Hispaniola), then the bus ride back. It was a lot of fun. I said that we should only show a couple pix of the clinics, the shacks & the work and only show the last day's pix so more people would want to go. Maybe the next blog will be about that day.

The next photo was taken just before we left for the airport on Tuesday am. These people are all such heroes to me, for different reasons. God really put this team together. That sounds really church-y, but if you had witnessed it first hand, you would totally agree with me.

We had 7 wonderful nurses, who in AZ and CA work in the ICU or for hospice, or a school, or in their home. Our Doctor was a Family Practitioner with a successful practice. Our Dentist was recently retired and came with us even though he was not part of our church (we called him Jack the Ripper). Our childcare workers were both students, one 14 years old and one 18 and just out of high school. Our construction crew consisted of a landscaper/business owner, an Associate Pastor, a retired Asst. Chief of Police, a remodeler, and a financial consultant. They are all heroes to me now.

BFF, you asked me if I would do it again and I can't believe it, but YES, I will! It was the hardest thing I've ever done but I really miss our team and those involved in the ministry there.

I hope that I've been able to give you an idea of how things were, but I know that these photos and my writing don't do it justice.