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!