Today marks exactly 2 months since my last post. The time has flown by as I was surrounded by such a great community of family and friends during my trip home. The first two weeks of July were pure relaxation as I spent time with family and got reacquainted with 3 of my favorite little people in the world.... my 3 nieces. We spent a week together, having fun in the water, zoo trips and a day at the amusement park. The only movie that I saw during my trip home was Monsters University. Guess who picked the movie??!! It wasn't me :).
We also did a day fishing trip. I haven't been fishing in over 30 years, but I can definitely report that my fishing skills have not improved in the least. I left our fishing trip having caught a whopping ONE fish. However, I did help bait many lines for these little ones using squid and shrimp. It was way too gross, but these cute faces can get me to do almost anything!
Next, I spent 4 weeks in Chicagoland reconnecting with friends and earning a few dollar bills while working as a NP again. It was wonderful to reconnect with my Lawndale family and to provide direct patient care. Again that theme of community resurfaced as I saw how God provided for me during those 4 weeks. I paid $0 dollars for housing thanks to the generosity of a few kind folks. I was treated to numerous good meals and those of you who know me, know I enjoy dining on an eclectic mix of foods. So, during those 4 weeks I stuffed myself on American, Mexican, Afghan, Korean, Italian, Japanese and Thai cuisines along with some Chicago favorites like deep dish pizza and Portillos. I even cooked up a Dominican meal or two to share with friends and family. On the weekends I made a couple of quick trips to visit friends in nearby states, but there is just never enough time.
Those 2 months went by like a whirlwind of the best kind. Now, I'm back in the DR, but this time I'm in the rural area outside of Santiago. Yes, I'm becoming a campesina (country girl). Rural (campo) way of life is way different that city life, but I guess that's no big surprise. (I'm sure there will be a future post on that topic.) For now, let me update you on how I am spending my days. I am serving with a local non-profit organization, Project Hearts, to continue the launch of a community health project. Project Hearts is supported by several US organizations, primarily Grace Cares and Christian Medical Mission (CMM). CMM is sponsoring my time here in the DR by providing housing and a stipend which allows me to fully focus on the work in the community. CMM has really been an answer to prayer. When I first began praying about the idea to extend my time here in the DR, the idea of raising support was one of the barriers that I anticipated. There just was not enough time and I was running low on energy to make it all happen. This awesome group, were indeed a godsend. Thank you CMM.
The community health program started in June identifying leaders in the community to train as lay health promoters. These women meet weekly for training and then are asked to complete so many home visits a week sharing this pertinent health information with their community. The lay community health model has been used in many countries to drastically improve the health of the people. My predecessor, Meghan, did an amazing job with leadership training with the women and discussing water safety and purification. My assignment is to carry the torch forward by building in accountability and structure into the program, along with creating new modules on topics such as women's health, basic first aid, and nutrition. We are actively recruiting for a director for the program who can commit to spend at least a year focusing on developing the community health leader program.
If you have made it this far in this long post... THANK YOU! I would like to share with you a few ways that you can support the work here in prayer.
- Pray for me that I will be Christ's ambassador and able to share his love with those I encounter.
- Pray for unity amongst the organizations that are collaborating on this project - Grace Cares, Project Hearts and CMM.
- Pray for further growth in language acquisition so I may communicate effectively with the people. Rural accents are a LOT harder to understand, so please pray that my ears and brain will be able to decipher the rural, Caribbean Spanish.
- Pray for the search for a Director for the community health program.
- Pray for strong work relationships with Ruben and Anel, the executive director and project manager for Project Hearts. Also pray for relationships and a social community in this area that I will not feel isolated and alone.
- Pray for Mark and Ruth, two of the leaders from CMM who will be attending the Community Health Evangelism (CHE) training. Pray that we may be able to incorporate that model into our work here in Baitoa.
- Pray for safe travel. The rural roads are very bad in some areas and a lot of the travel is by motorcycle.
