Wednesday night
January 9, 2007
It's so hard for me to write
without a lot of planning. I'd like to put the events of the day into a
nice, linear package for you. But I can't. I'm tired and it's very
late. And I'm still in culture shock. Shocked by the poverty, shocked
by the crowds of people, shocked by the lack of privacy, shocked by the
loss of control.
Other people feed us. I
don't even have any Dominican money on me. I just eat what our hosts
provide. It's sort of nice to let go of the job of getting food, but I
don't think I realized how much the simple freedom to eat whenever you
want is something I take for granted.
Tonight I put together a
rather extensive Flickr collection of photos, all with descriptions.
You can follow along the day by viewing them.
The collection is here. Or you can view it as a slideshow here.
Today we learned about what
Edge calls, "fluidity." You have to stay fluid when you are overseas.
It would be easy to let today become frustrating, but it didn't. We had
hoped to get started with the two installations, but we had troubles
getting materials in both places. The details are unimportant - it just
turned out to take the entire day to gather the tanks and make some
rather complex plans for the hospital. The hospital was supposed to
have gotten supplies ahead of time but didn't because an engineer
wanted to talk about it first. Apparently it didn't occur to him that
we were going to be on a tight schedule. We ended up buying exactly the
things we asked them to pick up for us. We lost a day. No big deal.
Kurtis is sure we'll make it up.
We did get to see the
hospital, and I was once again touched and surprised. Touched by the
good that they do and surprised by the primitive nature of the
facility. It is a Care
Hospital; there are a number of
them around the world. Their water system is horrible, but
it's not their fault. The entire city of Santo Domingo has a water
problem. You can't get clean water from the tap. You just can't.
Everyone uses bottled water. This is extremely expensive for the
hospital. They use a fair amount of water, as you can imagine.
Their specialty is pediatric
surgery for children with birth defects.
Half our team worked with
Kurtis and an engineer from the hospital to plan our rather complex
system. Our three tanks of purified water will tie right into the
plumbing of the hospital. Usually our water systems are suited to
people coming up to the tanks and drawing water off of them. While some
of us went out into town to buy supplies, the other half of our team
folded bandages.
That's right. They don't buy
pre-packaged bandages here. They buy bulk bandage material and fold
them by hand.
Care Hospital Santo Domingo is a 6-story building
The Cistern at Care Hospital. The water is clear, but not
safe. Full of bacteria.
Typical traffic in Santo Domingo. One of the reasons it
took all day to gather supplies.
We
were also able to get the supplies we will need for the YWAM
headquarters install, the one you guys payed for.
Let me
mention YWAM. I didn't know anything about Youth With A Mission, and I
still don't know much. It seems to be a movement started by American
Christians that spread this way and has become an indigenous expression
of faith. This facility is run by Domincans for Dominicans. I
can tell that they are a very conservative group of Christians. Much
more conservative than I, certainly. And yet, here they are working
amongst the poorest people. And we are in their country. I'm called to
be as respectful as if I was dealing with Muslims in Iran or Buddhists
in China. Their Christianity is now an indigenous movement among these
people. They tend toward charismatic expression and are absolutely
passionate about their faith.
Tomorrow
night we might go to a worship service. I hear we might have two hours
of singing BEFORE the sermon. I'll let you know how that goes.
And
there is this. These guys take trips to Africa to help people
less fortunate than themselves. They who don't even have clean water in
their own facility. That seals the deal for me. So you guys are going
to make it possible for them to drink their tap water instead of buying
water, which they do for the hundreds of volunteer teams of all
denominations who stay here from time to time. Not too many Americans,
I wouldn't think. We're too spoiled and the accomodations are too
rough. But I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad I've experienced it.
Whether
you are a Christian or not, I can testify that you who donated money
would be happy to be giving clean water to these people. Absolutely.
On a
personal note: The food was very good today. There was something for
breakfast that I never did identify. Some kind of pasty, grits-ish,
puddingesque thing. Sort of sweet and sort of like Oatmeal. Whatever, I
ate every bite. Lunch at the hospital was fun and delicious.
Traditional Dominican food. (Pictures of both meals at the Flickr
site) We put in a full day, and I'm ready for bed. Check out
the flickr photos I mentioned. They tell the story.
Tomorrow
we begin the installation work in both places. One of our teams is also
going to spend some time taking care of children in a local orphanage.
We feel the YWAM install will be so easy that we can spare the time.
And the hospital has a solar water heating system that was installed
incorrectly. Kurtis the magic man feels we might be able to fix that
for them while we're there.
These Edge folks
are INTENSE. I kid you not. Do not try to stop them or get in their
way. They will find a way to get things done. And if something prevents
them from doing one thing, they'll find some other acts of goodness to
fill the day.
Tomorrow
I'll show you the work we do and introduce you to the team in more
detail. I can't wait to show you a picture of Kurtis.
peace,
rlp
