Thursday

Our day today was much like most of our other days as far as the routine. We started out the morning at Palo Blanco where several people continued the painting project and others in the group did home visits and walked through the barrios to get a better understanding of daily life in the Dominican Republic. One group went with Jan, the director of Palo Blanco, to visit a woman who wants to work at the care center. The woman explained that her husband has a job but all of the money goes to buy food for the family. The woman wants to work so she can afford to help improve the community bathroom that her family has to use. To emphasize her plea she guided the group past several homes to a small area that contained a wooden box that had several wooden boards overlapping the hole to make a seat. The area was permeated with the stench of human feces and urine.  Multiple families share this “bathroom” and it is unfit for animals.   As the team members took pictures of the areas they visited a Dominican woman was adamantly expressing something in Spanish. It was later translated that she was expressing over and over how important it was for us to share these photos and stories with people back at home in order to bring awareness and to get more people to help their community out of poverty. April later expressed to the group that one of her biggest fears is that she will go home and this week will be nothing more than a nice trip. We discussed how these experiences – all of these sights, sounds, and smells will mold us and change the way we live as we go forward. We also discussed that God has given us these children to care for and that in our abundance we have a huge responsibility to care for them well.  These children have softened our hearts and we are processing how to make that change permanent.

The staff at Palo Blanco has been incredibly hospitable and are so fun to watch work with the kids. Mirian, the director’s assistant is going through a very difficult time right now and has asked for prayers. She has been experiencing a lot of health issues and recently has undergone tests to determine if she has lupus. She will get her results on Monday and if the diagnosis is confirmed as the disease progresses she will require extensive medical care from multiple specialists. This disease effects multiple organs and the testing has already proven to be an extreme financial hardship to the family. Mirian and her husband Damaza are concerned about her future and what the future holds for her family. Please pray for God to perform a miracle in their lives and to provide for their financial needs as well.

Tomorrow we are getting up bright and early to do some shopping before heading to Palo Blanco for our last work day. I hope the stores know we are coming because we are going to buy them out of coffee and vanilla!

Thursday

Our day today was much like most of our other days as far as the routine. We started out the morning at Palo Blanco where several people continued the painting project and others in the group did home visits and walked through the barrios to get a better understanding of daily life in the Dominican Republic. One group went with Jan, the director of Palo Blanco, to visit a woman who wants to work at the care center. The woman explained that her husband has a job but all of the money goes to buy food for the family. The woman wants to work so she can afford to help improve the community bathroom that her family has to use. To emphasize her plea she guided the group past several homes to a small area that contained a wooden box that had several wooden boards overlapping the hole to make a seat. The area was permeated with the stench of human feces and urine.  Multiple families share this “bathroom” and it is unfit for animals.   As the team members took pictures of the areas they visited a Dominican woman was adamantly expressing something in Spanish. It was later translated that she was expressing over and over how important it was for us to share these photos and stories with people back at home in order to bring awareness and to get more people to help their community out of poverty. April later expressed to the group that one of her biggest fears is that she will go home and this week will be nothing more than a nice trip. We discussed how these experiences – all of these sights, sounds, and smells will mold us and change the way we live as we go forward. We also discussed that God has given us these children to care for and that in our abundance we have a huge responsibility to care for them well.  These children have softened our hearts and we are processing how to make that change permanent.

The staff at Palo Blanco has been incredibly hospitable and are so fun to watch work with the kids. Mirian, the director’s assistant is going through a very difficult time right now and has asked for prayers. She has been experiencing a lot of health issues and recently has undergone tests to determine if she has lupus. She will get her results on Monday and if the diagnosis is confirmed as the disease progresses she will require extensive medical care from multiple specialists. This disease effects multiple organs and the testing has already proven to be an extreme financial hardship to the family. Mirian and her husband Damaza are concerned about her future and what the future holds for her family. Please pray for God to perform a miracle in their lives and to provide for their financial needs as well.

Tomorrow we are getting up bright and early to do some shopping before heading to Palo Blanco for our last work day. I hope the stores know we are coming because we are going to buy them out of coffee and vanilla!

Another picture

Rachel and Gabriel (sponsored by Reed and Sue Juday)

Pictures!!!

Tracey and her sponsored child Veronica.

Maria, Destini and Coralma with their Padrino, Chris.

Rose and her sponsored child, Esmarlin

Tyler and his sponsored boy, Antony.

Jill with her sponsored girl, Yescauly (left) and Arlin (sponsored by Rachel and Chris Russell and Leona Martin)

Riley, playing in the waterfall with her families sponsored boy, Esmarlin.

Wednesday

We started off the morning by joining the staff at Palo Blanco for devotions.  After we enjoyed listening to a few praise songs in Spanish, Chris had everyone get in groups (some of our team members and some of Palo’s staff) and gave everyone a small container of Play-Doh.  We each made something with the Play-Doh that represented something important to us or about us and shared it with the rest of the group. This activity was a fun way to interact with the staff and create some more personal relationships.  We then had a lesson that reminded us that we are the clay and Jesus is the potter (Isaiah 64:8) and if we stay in the center of the potter’s wheel we allow God to work in amazing ways in our lives. We prayed together while everyone held their play-doh (clay) and asked God to make us soft and moldable for His purposes.  Everyone then put stickers on their containers with our main verse in Spanish and English to keep as a reminder.

In the afternoon both Jill and Tyler got to go visit the homes of their sponsored child. Jill sponsors a six year old little girl named Yadielis (Jah-dee-el-ee) and was pleased to see that compared to many of the families around here she has a decent home and lots of family support. Jill was able to meet several family members including Yadielis’ mom, cousins, grandma and great-grandma. Yadielis’ home has several beds and she only has to share a bed with one cousin. Many of the homes we have seen only have one bed for the entire family and often the children end up sleeping on the floor or at a relative’s home.  Just a few days prior to our arrival Yadielis’ mom was in an accident. She was standing on the side of the road and got run over by two mopeds (mopeds outnumber cars in the D.R. 20 to 1). She has severe road rash on her arms which are starting to get infected and she is very bruised and sore.

Tyler sponsors a little boy named Antony who is 9 years old.  Tyler was very excited to get to see his home which is in one of the poorest areas of town. Antony thankfully has one of the better homes for the area. Their home has a refrigerator and a small stove top in the kitchen for food preparation.  Food for the day was stored on the cement floor (a bunch of bananas and several onions).  Most families are only able to afford meat once every few weeks and mostly eat whatever grows around their homes. Beside the kitchen is a small area with a little table to sit around and next to that a curtain partitions off the small bedroom.  Tyler was very excited when Antony sat on his lap to have his picture taken with his padrino (sponsor).

In late afternoon we split into our two groups and went back to the neighborhoods for our second day of vacation Bible school. Each site again had over 50 kids show up from the barrios and we sang songs, played games, and did crafts. Katie, one of the missionaries, shared with us that each summer the Kid’s Alive teams host multiple VBS’s in different neighborhoods and by the end of the summer nearly every child in town has had the opportunity to attend and learn about Jesus! VBS in the DR is quite different than in the states. Kids show up on their own with no parents . Little girls who look to be about 8-10 years old walk in carrying their toddler siblings. The kids are rough and obviously haven’t spent much time in a structured environment.  Crafts are done under a small little lean to where supplies have to be rescued from the gusts of wind. The fact that these kids are showing up to VBS at all is a small victory!

Today we ask you to pray for Yadielis’ mom to recover from her accident and the infection in her arms to clear up. We also ask for prayers for each kid attending VBS this week to have soft hearts that are ready to receive Jesus into their hearts and lives.

Tuesday in the DR

The painting project at Palo Blanco continued today. Progress is slow with limited supplies but little by little the project is moving along.

This afternoon we split up into two groups and helped run the first day of a VBS program in two different barrios (neighborhoods).  Each site had around 50 kids show up ranging in age from toddlers to teenagers. As is typical in the Dominican Republic we lost power at one of the sites so we sang songs with no keyboard in the dim light of the small cement block church building. The children participating were enthusiastic and rambunctious and were especially pleased with the red sprinkle sugar cookies handed out at the end. We were told to expect the attendance to increase tomorrow as words spreads.

In the evening our team had the privilege of joining Vic and Leslie Trautwein and their family at their home for dinner. Vic is the field director for the Dominican Republic and has been serving with his family for about 11 years. The wisdom and stories shared by Vic and Leslie were both heartwarming and heartbreaking. We laughed and cried and felt so welcome by this amazing family’s hospitality.  For the past year Leslie has been living in Illinois (along with her family) battling breast cancer. We listened to her story and were overwhelmed by her trust in God and even, strangely enough, her gratitude for her trials. She shared that she has really learned to appreciate the mysteries of prayer and realizes that as a general rule we, as self-sufficient Americans, generally lack the understanding of a dependence on prayer. Leslie has been back in the DR for only about two weeks and will be returning the Illinois in a few short weeks to finish her chemotherapy treatments. She anticipates returning to the DR at the end of the year.

As our team is tiring of repeated meals of beans and rice, thin lumpy mattresses, lack of air conditioning, cockroaches and not being able to flush our toilet paper, we are grappling with the reality that this is daily life for the children we have fallen in love with. As we complain about the lumpy mattress we quickly remember the home that we saw today that had no mattress. As we wish for something different than rice and beans for the second time today we realize that some of the kids we sponsor only ate once today. And as we joke with each other about the inconvenience of not flushing toilet paper we understand that most of the families we have met don’t have any indoor plumbing at all. We are working hard to reconcile the dichotomy of our life at home with life in the D.R. And we are ever so humbled to be a small part of a bigger organization that is making huge difference in the lives of these children and their families every single day.  Child sponsorship is changing lives and it is changing the future of this city.

Today we ask that you keep Leslie Trautwein and her family in your prayers as she continues treatment. We also ask that you pray for each individual team member (Tracey, April, Phyllis, Chris W, Chris B, Chris R, Rachel, Rose, Riley, Tyler, Jill, Kim) to have a clear understanding of what God wants them to learn and take home with them from their experiences. And as always pray for the beautiful children of Jarabacoa (if you sponsor a child pray for them specifically by name!) to be safe, loved, nourished and most of all that they have a relationship with Jesus.

Tuesday in the DR

The painting project at Palo Blanco continued today. Progress is slow with limited supplies but little by little the project is moving along.

This afternoon we split up into two groups and helped run the first day of a VBS program in two different barrios (neighborhoods).  Each site had around 50 kids show up ranging in age from toddlers to teenagers. As is typical in the Dominican Republic we lost power at one of the sites so we sang songs with no keyboard in the dim light of the small cement block church building. The children participating were enthusiastic and rambunctious and were especially pleased with the red sprinkle sugar cookies handed out at the end. We were told to expect the attendance to increase tomorrow as words spreads.

In the evening our team had the privilege of joining Vic and Leslie Trautwein and their family at their home for dinner. Vic is the field director for the Dominican Republic and has been serving with his family for about 11 years. The wisdom and stories shared by Vic and Leslie were both heartwarming and heartbreaking. We laughed and cried and felt so welcome by this amazing family’s hospitality.  For the past year Leslie has been living in Illinois (along with her family) battling breast cancer. We listened to her story and were overwhelmed by her trust in God and even, strangely enough, her gratitude for her trials. She shared that she has really learned to appreciate the mysteries of prayer and realizes that as a general rule we, as self-sufficient Americans, generally lack the understanding of a dependence on prayer. Leslie has been back in the DR for only about two weeks and will be returning the Illinois in a few short weeks to finish her chemotherapy treatments. She anticipates returning to the DR at the end of the year.

As our team is tiring of repeated meals of beans and rice, thin lumpy mattresses, lack of air conditioning, cockroaches and not being able to flush our toilet paper, we are grappling with the reality that this is daily life for the children we have fallen in love with. As we complain about the lumpy mattress we quickly remember the home that we saw today that had no mattress. As we wish for something different than rice and beans for the second time today we realize that some of the kids we sponsor only ate once today. And as we joke with each other about the inconvenience of not flushing toilet paper we understand that most of the families we have met don’t have any indoor plumbing at all. We are working hard to reconcile the dichotomy of our life at home with life in the D.R. And we are ever so humbled to be a small part of a bigger organization that is making huge difference in the lives of these children and their families every single day.  Child sponsorship is changing lives and it is changing the future of this city.

Today we ask that you keep Leslie Trautwein and her family in your prayers as she continues treatment. We also ask that you pray for each individual team member (Tracey, April, Phyllis, Chris W, Chris B, Chris R, Rachel, Rose, Riley, Tyler, Jill, Kim) to have a clear understanding of what God wants them to learn and take home with them from their experiences. And as always pray for the beautiful children of Jarabacoa (if you sponsor a child pray for them specifically by name!) to be safe, loved, nourished and most of all that they have a relationship with Jesus.

Monday in the DR

Our morning started out with a learning experience for the women of the group. We learned how to get ready for the day with no electricity. We woke up to the power going out due to a rolling blackout and discovered that without showers, hair dryers and straighteners we had to significantly alter our routines. Just after we got things figured out the power switched back on and it was a mad scramble to hit the power button on the hair straighteners!

Our first stop of the day was Palo Blanco Care Center. We started painting the new building on the property that our February team was a part of constructing. It was amazing to see the progress of the building that was so far from completion just four months ago. The bottom floor of the building is now a woodshop where the older kids that attend Palo Blanco can learn wood working. It was so much fun to see some of the kids working on projects. The kids, with the help of instructors, had built folding chairs, miniature play houses, wall shelves, and corn hole games.

In the afternoon Tracey (accompanied by Chris, Rachel and April) got to visit the home of her sponsored girl, Veronica. Veronica’s story is heartbreaking and unfortunately very typical. We learned that Veronica’s dad had illegally gone to the US many months ago and on Mother’s Day in May her mother followed suit and abandoned Veronica and her two brothers. Veronica and her siblings now live with their grandmother who made it clear that she is not happy with the situation. The grandmother commented that the mother had left her with the children and she feels like she is stuck in prison now.  The importance of sponsorship and the involvement of Kid’s Alive in these children’s lives is so apparent. These kids are being provided for physically, emotionally and spiritually and being taught about God’s crazy love for them on a regular basis because of the Kid’s Alive sponsorship program.  And because of that we are able to pray and hope for an amazing future for them in the midst of unfathomable hardship.

In the evening we spent several hours at the Ark playing with the kids. We played board games, colored, played ball, and painted fingernails. Several of the girls at the Ark really enjoyed painting some of the guy’s fingernails. Chris Bennett looks great with sparkly purple fingernails but we wonder what kind of looks he will get on the construction site tomorrow!

Tomorrow we anticipate more painting at Palo Blanco, spending a little bit of time with our sponsored kids at ANIJA, and running our first day of VBS in a barrio (one of the little neighborhoods).  Tonight when you are saying your prayers we ask that you specifically pray for Veronica and her family and for intervention in a heart breaking situation.

Sunday in the Dominican Republic

Sunday – Day 1 in Jarabacoa

The first morning waking up in Jarabacoa was full of new sounds – roosters crowing, sky high bamboo shoots clinking together like wooden wind chimes, the warm breeze rustling the branches of the palm trees……the crashing sound of Phyllis running across the bedroom trying to smash a cockroach the size of a mouse, followed quickly by the screams and laughter of several of the other women.  It was quickly apparent that we are not in the U.S. anymore!

Our team had instructions to be ready for a quick orientation before church at 9:45am but due to unfamiliar beds, a new environment and most of all, excitement, most of us were up and getting ready by 6:30am. With the promise of seeing several of our sponsored kids from The Ark orphanage we were chomping at the bit to get the day going.

We attended church at La Vid  (The Vine) which is the home church for the kids at the Ark. Church is held in a big pavilion with a roof but no walls and it is not uncommon to see lizards darting around the beams of the ceiling. Several of the members of our team were able to sit with their sponsored kids during the service.  One of the most beautiful sounds in the world is the voices of those sweet kiddos singing praise in Spanish to our awesome God! The Dominican people worship with an enthusiasm that is contagious and soon we found ourselves singing along to worship choruses in Spanish. We may not have understood all of the words but God sure did. The reminder that God is a universal God – not an American God was refreshing and eye opening.  

Lunch was prepared at the team house by our amazing cook Carmen and her daughter Nani. We shared a meal of roasted chicken, beans and rice, fried yucca and carrot-raisin salad with several of the Dominican missionaries. After lunch we changed clothes and got ready to head to a waterfall for a hike with some of the Ark kids.

We packed into a van with our team, two Kids Alive missionaries from Haiti and two Haitian kids. The Haitian kids are in the D.R. for eye surgery at a nearby mission hospital but were able to join us for an afternoon of fun. The Ark kids rode to the waterfall in the back of a truck driven by one of the house parents and jumped out enthusiastically, ready to hike and swim. We made our way across several swinging bridges and a set of treacherous metal stairs before we made it to a small sandy beach at the base of the waterfall. The kids loved splashing in the water, throwing mud, sliding down rocks, getting buried in sand, and dunking the Americanos. Laughter and squeals were heard echoing off of the cliffs that surround the waterfall and everyone was reluctant to leave when the sky threatened rain.

After a fun filled afternoon we headed back to the house and waited for Jan, the director of Palo Blanco Care Center, to come to the team house and go out to dinner with us. We ate dinner at Delicias Columbianos – a Columbian restaurant that served up empanadas and homemade hot sauce out of a trailer under a thatched roof awning. The food was delicious and the meal ended with a walk in the rain to Bon, our favorite ice cream place.

Our team is looking forward to going to Palo Blanco tomorrow and helping with the first week of summer school. We will also be helping with painting and electrical on the building that we helped construct last February. More of our team will get to meet their sponsored kids, which has everyone excited!!! Thank you all for your continue thought and prayers!

On our way!!

Well we just paid a toll and are on the last leg of the van ride to O Hare! A big thank you to our fantastic driver, Troy Coblentz!  :) Our team has a trailer full of luggage and lots of excitement that we are taking along with us. We ask for prayers for open hearts, a willingness to let God break our hearts, good health, and blessings for all of the kids, families, missionaries, etc that we come in contact with. Here is a list of team members so that you can all pray for us by name!

Tracey Coblentz
April Clark
Chris Bennett
Chris Wert
Rachel Russell
Chris Russell
Kim Borden
Jill Roberts
Tyler Hager
Riley Martin
Rose Yoder
Phyllis Pierson



Thank you in advance for your prayers. Please leave comments on the blog and I will make sure the right team member sees them! Stay tuned for more updates - they will come as often as we have Internet!