the twins' new ride

a big thank you to all of you who have helped us get all the things we need to raise the twins. here's a picture of them with their latest addition, which just happened to arrive the day of their 1st birthday party. while it may look like jacob is saying "what?" he's actually in the middle of an intense game of peekaboo.

krey-span-glish

Last Wednesday night a man named Josh and his intern Royce came down and, with the help of a few other people, put on a multilingual, multicultural worship event. It was held in a Haitian village called Ascensión. Both Dominicans and Haitians came, as well as our group of about 15 Americans. Songs were sung in Spanish and Kreyol, there was even one in English. It was cool to hear the different languages going throughout the course of the event.

The power went out 10 minutes prior to the start of the event, so the men played their instruments and sang without speakers and microphones and a PowerPoint slideshow was played by using a car battery. Bet you have never experienced something like that before! Despite it being hard to hear with kids talking at the same voice level as the ones putting on the event, it all went very well.

The next day Josh flew back to the states. Royce though will be staying for the next 5 weeks as an intern with Makarios. He will be teaching music to the kids during my classes in Pancho Mateo and Chichigua, which I am very excited about.

The next day the group from Taylor left for Santiago to see Ruben’s farm, as well as work on the land recently purchased for Makarios.

personal hygiene

in the midst of the students from Taylor, we were also joined this past week by Jen Kuhn, who is a pediatric ER nurse at the Childrens Hospital at Austin. she came to teach a few lessons on hygiene and basic baby/child care.

her first stop was chichigua, where we have found that many of the mothers don't know how to take proper care of their newborn babies. she started with quesion/answer time, and it went so well that she never got to an actual lesson. they all learned a lot about their immediate medical needs and how to treat them.

in pancho mateo, the kids got a lesson on personal hygiene. basic lessons, such as why we need to wear underwear and shoes, are very valuable in a place where kids run around naked through trash and mud (the same area where many of them relieve themselves). she was also able to do a little sex/puberty-ed for some of the older kids. though many of them have already been exposed to the facts of life, they lack knowledge about related hygiene.

it was such a blessing to have Jen here to teach these things to our students and help out the families. we hope to see her here again soon ;-)

a little help goes a long way

Things have been staying busy here. We have had our house of 18 people going strong. The group has enjoyed their time here thus far, and it has been nice having Ruben (a local farmer and staff of Makarios) here with us with his son.

Towards the beginning of this week, Ruben noticed a little girl who had a very large and extended stomach. (This is common for children who are malnourished). When the Austin Stone pastors were here in December, they told us that if there was ever a child that was in need of medical care that they could help provide the funds.

Ruben was concerned about the girl’s stomach and spoke to her grandmother about taking her to the doctor. They went to the doctor with a couple students from our Taylor group. He thought that she might have had a tumor, but it ended up being that she had millions of parasites. This was most likely due to her eating dirt because she was hungry and had no food. Although many people were surprised to see Americans associating with a Haitian child, the doctor was very caring and prescribed the appropriate medicine the child needs so she should be fine!

Thank you in your support for supplying the money to heal this girl!

There is also a 94 year old woman that lives alone in Pancho Mateo. She sells charcoal as a source of income and has a broken hip. Jennie was able to get her some medicine today (a bottle of Tylenol) and she was very grateful.

feed us!

more on the feeding program...

we still need about $400 a month to feed all of the kids in our program. it costs $4 a month to feed one child twice a week. right now we don't have enough for a full meal, so we are giving them a hard boiled egg and a glass of milk. one of the kids asked camille if we had a cow since we had so much milk. hmm...maybe we need to get a cow! until then, powdered milk it is! and believe it or not, they really like the powdered milk. but I know they would also like a piece of bread and fruit, so dig out the change from the sofa and send it in!

holas, 2007!

after a great time visiting family and friends for Christmas, Camille, Jennie and I are back in Puerto Plata, and we've hit the ground running.

our first group of the year arrives from Taylor University, Ft. Wayne, Indiana on Saturday. they will be spending three weeks with us, helping out with our classes, working on Ruben's farm, and working on a class project.

while they are here we'll be joined by three other wonderful helpers who will do such things as nursing, teaching music, and hosting a multilingual worship service.

and once all that fun is over, Jennie and Miguel are getting hitched!

it's going to be a crazy, but wonderful month to begin 2007.

we thank your for your continued prayers and support!