MITES!

As many of you may have heard on facebook, I've got mites and I've got them bad. Apparently the mattresses were full of 'em at the camp we stayed at last weekend, and they ITCH! I was trying to make the best of it, and I said to my host mom, "What's the worst that could happen?!?" and she was very serious and responded "Scabies!" ...So pray that doesn't happen.

On Monday we finished painting the 2nd clinic, and Ruben (our wonderful translator) and Willie and Melqui (World Servants staff members) and my host sister Mellie came out to help so it went really fast. After we came back and showered the boys went to Melqui's baseball game but Mellie and I stayed home and had some girl time. I introduced her to the concept of putting peanut butter on apples (she HATED it) and we made grilled cheese and hung out. It was so so wonderful to make some "American" food! We eat rice, chicken, and beans for literally lunch and dinner every day and it gets tiring, so this was really uplifting to me. After our American dinner we turned on the TV to just veg, and The Bachellorette was on! IN ENGLISH! This seems like such a stupid thing but it was so wonderful to eat American food and watch American TV and kind of get a reminder of home. It was also really fun to hang out with Mellie. As you know I've been craving female contact and so I love getting to see her. She is 14 and very girly and dramatic. She is horrified that I am not wearing makeup down here--I don't even think I wore any makeup when I was 14! Anyway, I can tell she really looks up to me and it has been awesome to get to be an influence in her life.

Tuesday the boys went out to the camp sites where we will stay with the American teams over the next 5 weeks and set up bunk beds. I got to go out to the Women's Co-op, Mujeres Unidas with Melanie. This was SO EXCITING for me! In the morning we went to old Santo Domingo and shopped for beads and other supplies for the crafts the women are doing. Afterwords we stopped at burger king for lunch, and it was so gross. I am definitely going to be a vegetarian again when I get back! Melanie had been telling me while shopping and eating about the co-op, and at times I got so excited that tears welled up in my eyes because I felt like this ministry is something that I am really called to get involved in. The co-op is so cool because women make crafts while doing a Bible study and getting to fellowship with each other, and then they sell the crafts and make money to support their families. It is such a neat way to do both ministry and poverty relief, and I really feel called to get more deeply involved in something like this after college. That night the boys and I just hung out, and I realized that while I complain about missing girls, I had really missed the boys that day! We are getting to know each other really well and I think we make a great team.

Wednesday I did office work all day with Melanie and my host mom Mechy (who I adore) organizing merchandise for the co-op. Around 5 Melanie and I went to her house and cooked spinach Lasagna and eggplant stew for dinner for the core summer staff--another wonderful meal without meat and rice! Over dinner the interns and translators and permanent DR staff (about 10 of us) planned out how the next 5 weeks are going to go with the teams. The interns have a lot of responsibilites and I am really excited to get started with this. Some of our jobs are:
1. Making sure the teams always have TP everywhere we go.
2. Seeing that there are first aid kits with every group.
3. Filling coolers with safe drinking water for the teams.
4. Keeping track of tools for ministry such as kids club packets and construction tools like trowels and shovels and toolboxes.
5. Doing Cross-cultural Training with the teams when they get in every Saturday night.
6. Worship and re-cap for the groups every night after dinner.
7. Devotionals for the staff every morning (at 6:30!)
8. Picking up new teams from the airport.
9. Organizing groups into who is doing kids club, constuction, home visits, and women's ministry.

The first week I am in charge of home visits, the second and third I am in charge of women's ministry and kids club, and the fourth construction. I am the only intern working with the women's ministry and I can't wait!

This morning we went into the mountains near San Cristobal to help at a clinic they run once a month. There were 200 patients and 2 doctors and we filtered everyone through before 3pm. Phew! It is hard to imagine only having access to a doctor once a month like the people in this community do. The roads are really bumpy and not paved in the mountains and on the way home it took us about 3 hours because our 3 car caravan kept getting stuck in all the huge ruts. At one point we even had to cross a river. In about an hour (they eat dinner late here) we are having hamburgers and marinated chicken off the grill--Thomas and Brent are cooking for everybody! We also got ice cream and corn. Do I talk about food too much here? :)

Tomorrow the first team comes and I will be without internet for 2 weeks. We are in La Romana for a week with the team that comes tomorrow (returning to the camp with the mites-pray!) and then we go straight to San Cristobal the next week with the 2nd team. You probably won't hear from me again until our week off in two weeks. Please pray for health, safety, and encouragement for both the staff and the groups.

Glory to God!

Amy