Dominican Republic Day 9 - Friday (Nov 7)

Finally after a busy holiday season I am finding some time to finish up my stories about our mission trip. Friday was our last full day in DR! Before starting for the day we went out to the beach for sunrise devotions. It was cloudy, but it was still a beautiful setting to see the start of the day. 

Sunrise devotion

Roy before the big wave

Roy after the big wave. The pocket with his camera is the only inch of him that stayed dry.

Kike with his gift and Roy

In anticipation of our leaving soon we gave some gifts that my dad made to our translators. In total we had 5 translators, Felix and Kike (brothers), McNelly (the only girl), Hector and Daniel. We didn't always have the same ones each day, but we really appreciated each of them. From my western point of view, the translators helped us to do our ministry. But more than that, it felt like we were facilitating their ministry. We were the attraction to bring the people so that they would have the chance to build broader and deeper relationships. In reality we were both working together for God's ministry!

McNelly with her gift

Today we headed into the capitol city of Santo Domingo. We first picked up Dr. Marcel from the San Pedro vet school. Then at the vet school the doctors and professors were very eager to show us their school. They seemed pretty well equipped. I was happy to see that they had supplies such as x-ray processing chemicals tanks of oxygen which the San Pedro clinic lacked. Then we went into the agriculture and crops department. We saw greenhouses and sprouts to look at germination rates, some of their research and equipment. This was truly Roy's domain and he enjoyed learning what they were doing and finally he was hearing names of plant diseases that he was familiar with!

One of the greenhouses at the university

Then we were ushered into a conference room and  the dean of the agricultural college met with us. We learned that this school was 476 years old! We introduced ourselves and had a nice conversation...most of which I've forgotten.  We hadn't expected to meet with the dean. In DR when you meet with authority you always dress in pants not shorts. (You can do everything else in shorts.) We were all in shorts and we felt a little out of place but the dean didn't seem to mind. (We were thankful that he was in jeans.) We learned that DR is first in the world for exporting organic bananas and cacao. He invited us to work with the students, to come and teach a class sometime or to send them some American vet students to work with them.

visiting with the dean of the agricultural college at the University in Santo Domingo

After the vet school we were way behind our schedule and continued on. Our next stop was the clinic where Dr. Marcel first worked. It was a five doctor practice and was equipped pretty much the same as the average vet clinic of the same size in the US. They even had the same brands of dog food! (This absolutely floored me after living in Ethiopia where we could only occasionally find manufactured dog food at one store in the whole country!)

a treatment area in the vet clinic

the vet clinic with lots of options of dog food

Next stop lunch: we ate at El Conoco, a buffet with traditional Dominican dishes which was rumored to be the best restaurant in the country. It was good, and then they had traditional dancing where they even danced and spun on a bottle. Roy and I even got roped into dancing a little.

traditional dancing at the restaurant--spinning on the bottle

With our bellies full we went shopping at the "straw market" for a half hour that turned into an hour. This is basically a tourist market with all sorts of vendors where bartering was encouraged and expected, although Roy and I noticed that they all seemed to have very similar bottom prices for the same things.

Our team at the straw market

We were ready to head home, but there was still one more stop on our agenda. We stopped at Pasitos de Jesus. This was a girls' home that was a SCORE ministry. As with most of their ministries it was started with a Dominican whose house was already a place of ministry. SCORE came alongside and now they are able to help a lot more girls. Some girls are orphans and others are victims of abuse. They told a story of one girl who was rescued by her uncle from her abusers only to be abused by him in unspeakable ways. She was able to be rescued now has a safe home in the house. We started touring the place and saw houses for various age groups. The rooms were neat and brightly colored. I could only see so many rooms and then I wandered outside and found some girls hitting a volleyball and I joined in.  Some older girls joined in and then they started dancing and trying to teach me salsa dancing. Thankfully there is no video proof of this! There's always something fun about giggling with a group of girls! I noticed the young girls had gone back to playing with the ball so slipped away from dancing and joined back to playing ball.

The girls playing at Pasitos de Jesus

While there Roy gave away the last of our children's coloring books and candy stash. We also met up with Pastor Craig, the missionary from San Juan, our first village. He gave good reports on how his rabbits were improving with their mite treatments, and how other animals were recovering well from their surgeries. Unfortunately a couple cattle that we treated had been stolen--very disheartening and sad news to hear.

Finally, we headed home for supper. Then Jeff did a great job debriefing us to be ready to head back home. I really enjoyed hearing what impacted everyone the most. For me it was being able to serve together with my husband and getting the opportunity to hear stories of others on the team. Roy's highlight was getting to use some of his practical skills to serve and pairing them together with ministry. He'd never had the chance to do that before on his previous mission opportunities.

We said goodbye to teammates as we would leave on a bus the next day, confirmed that we were booked on a bus made sure we had a ride to Haiti for the next leg of our journey. At 10:30 pm we finally got back to our rooms to pack our bags.

Dominican Republic Day 8 - Thursday

On Thursday we didn't go far to get to our work. Our days in DR were coming towards an end and our leaders had wisely scheduled our farm animal work earlier in our trip. (This is part of a strategy to prevent passing unwanted sicknesses to our livestock back home.) Today we went two blocks down the street to Juan Dolio church. This was essentially right next door to the SCORE compound. The past Sunday it had been announced in the church that we would be there and available to treat animals and other neighbors had been notified also.

We ended up having two main clients this day. Thomas brought his horses for foot and teeth work. Thomas owned about 15 horses. He makes money by selling rides to tourists. (We even rode his horses later that afternoon!) The most interesting part of his business was that he had no land or barn to keep his horses. He would tie them out in open spaces such as in roundabouts or on the sides of roadways so that they could eat grass. This type of management was quite intriguing to all of us! They were in pretty good shape also.

Some of Thomas' horses

The second client was the lady across the street who had 4 dogs (1 to neuter and 3 to spay). A few other clients came in for exams for their pets also. I did the first spay surgery. My back was starting to get sore from standing doing surgery with the table not being quite at the right height, so rather than pushing it too much, Bill finished the last surgeries. (He's much quicker than I, too!)

Roy helping Peggy get a dog ready for surgery.

Roy waiting with the dogs while they recover from surgery.

While we were there, Dr. Karen, a vet that the Killewalds had met earlier in the week. She came with her husband and a cooler with 2 vials of rabies vaccine that was produced in the DR. I had told Bill earlier how it would be great to do rabies vaccination out in the villages, but he was nervous to start since it was a government program. I picked her brain all about the rabies vaccinations. She had already done a campaign in this town for the year, but wanted to do another one to pick up the animals she had missed. She knew the process to get the vaccines and was willing to do the legwork to get it for us for the next trip...she just needed to know when and how much. I was ecstatic! What an answer to prayer.

Dr. Karen talking to the owner of the dogs

Dominican rabies vaccine can save lives!

We finished the vet work and later that night we debriefed. There was disappointment amongst our teammates. Those with the horses were frustrated that Thomas seemed to be more concerned about seeing if we would be paying customers than about learning how to better care for his horses (although he did appreciate the free vet care). We also didn't see a lot of neighbors bringing in their pets--we seemed to be help mostly one lady, and she herself was a foreigner (I think she was from Italy). They also didn't seem interested in spiritual things. Did our work today really make a difference? Jeff, our SCORE representative then shared that these two individuals are SCORE's neighbors and that in helping them we are helping to be a light in this neighborhood. Building relationships in this community was important in being a good neighbor and being a good testimony.  (Apparently, when SCORE first moved next door the neighbor wasn't very happy because it meant extra traffic and dust on their road, and subsequently the husband built really big speed bumps into the dirt road so big that small cars would bottom out. That road is now paved without speed bumps and the neighbor is on better terms with SCORE.) Serving these neighbors really showed that SCORE cared for them. Also, even though Thomas wasn't very receptive, Kike our translator was. He picked up the hoof trimming tools and was a natural. He had grown up with horses and it was obvious that he had been listening to things all week! I shared with the group how important the conversation I had with Dr. Karen was. With all this long term perspective we realized how important this clinic day was and we thanked the Lord for it.

This was the last day of clinics and so after lunch we sorted through the medicines, took inventory and put extra equipment into storage for the next trip. Then several of us went for a horseback ride on Thomas' horses. 

Ready for a horse ride. In the background is Thomas (owner) and Kike (translator in blue cap)

McNelly (translator) on the first horse ride of her life. I think her horse trotted the whole way.

Juan Dolio is a resort town, and so we got to see several gated compounds of nice homes as we rode through the back streets.

Riding through the back streets of Juan Dolio town.

Myself and Bonnelyn trying to look tough with the SCORE compound guard.

After our horse ride we all drove to one of SCORE's other ministries, Emanuel House. Emanuel House is a school for needy children who are unable to attend the public school. Education will help them break the cycle of poverty. Many of the kids come from a slum area. SCORE partnered with a lady who was already doing this ministry and they have equipped her to enlarge her vision. The school now has sponsorships for all of the children who attend.

Entrance to the school Emanuel House

Roy & I with their tree already decorated for Christmas!

doing schoolwork

This wall showed all of the kids in the school and if they were sponsored. No more children can be added to the school until every child is fully sponsored.

Roy and Jeff greeting the kids. The director of the school is in the center.

 

The boys nearly ran Wayne into the ground running and carrying the boys.

 As you can tell we had fun meeting the children!

We had hoped to go see a professional baseball game this evening. Unfortunately a big storm came up and flooded some of the streets and
caused the game to be canceled. Instead we had devotions together with all of the guests on the SCORE compound to wrap up our full day.

We also said good-bye to two of our teammates, Jim and Dan. They had just  decided to go home the next morning and skip out on our last day. We had finished our vet work and they were less interested in going us for visiting another vet school tomorrow. Jim was especially anxious to get home to his family since he and his wife had received a foster infant just before he left on the trip.

Dominican Republic Day 7-Wednesday

It was hard to believe that we had been in Dominican Republic soaking up the sun or rather sweating in the warmth for a whole week. (It was often in the 90's--pretty warm for us in November!) Our time in country was really on the downhill side now.

On Wednesday morning we headed out to the village of Monte Cristi. It was closer to town then the other villages that we had visited. On this day, I chose to help with the small animals (dogs and cats) and I did mostly surgeries, spays and neuters.

First a little about the community. We set up at a church again and this time it had an old folks' home attached. Many of them had worked in sugar cane fields all of their lives. Pastor Geraldo was taking care of them at the church when SCORE discovered him years previously. We heard that at the time, the pastor was doing the best that he could but sometimes cows would wander through the building and the patients got bathed outside with a garden hose. SCORE helped them to plant gardens and to provide more help so that they could have better living conditions. (And the conditions when we saw them were simple yet clean with caretakers onsite to care for them.)

Part of the garden for the nursing home

Craig and I played a game of dominoes with a couple old men. (I won!)

I along with Peggy, Sandy (the vet techs) and Roy, my assistant (and expert flashlight holder and fan position-er), neutered 1 male dog and spayed 1 female cat and 1 female dog.

I am neutering a dog and Peggy is looking on.

Doing physical exam on the cat

I'm distracting the kitty while Peggy & Sandy give it sleepy meds.

Roy holding the recovering kitty.

Roy, Peggy and the dog posing!

Roy hadn't seen me do surgeries before. And he mentioned how he enjoyed seeing me in my surgeon role.

Bill & I

In between surgeries and after I finished with surgery I went outside to see what else was going on.

Bill and Craig looking at dogs outside while I was doing surgery.

This truck drove by & was selling chickens door to door. They were likely for cock fights.

Bonnelyn is preg-checking a horse.

Wayne is doing surgery--cleaning up an old draining wound on the other side. Jim and Jeff are assisting.

I love this picture of Jim and Wayne concentrating on the surgery.

The wound looks great after being sutured up.

 The vets and the team who went out to into the villages to see the large animals reported that they started by going to one cow enclosure where the cows were practically swimming in manure, but the rest were in pretty good condition. Then the word got out and animals (especially horses started coming with various ailments).

As we wrapped up the day, I realized that I enjoyed doing the small animal surgeries, but in doing so, I had stayed at the church compound all day. I really missed being able to go through the village and see it and interact with more people. 

Dan playing baseball with the kids. The impromptu ball was made of exam gloves.

Finally we finished up all the cases for the day and headed back to the SCORE compound. This was a special night for Roy and I. Before we came on our trip, Roy learned that Chad and Crystal Reynolds, IMB missionaries who Roy served with in Senegal are now serving in Santo Domingo, DR. They came to visit us tonight along with their 2 boys, Chase and Caleb. It was neat for me to meet Roy's friends and for them to hear our story. After they left, we realized that we forgot to take a picture with them.

Then we had another special treat --- Pizza! One of the SCORE missionaries makes pizza to order to supplement his support. We had ordered one for tonight and had been anticipating it all day. (It didn't arrive until 9 PM so we were really hungry for it!) Somehow, we did remember to take a photo of it.

Ham and Pineapple pizza--What a Treat!