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.