We're Back!!

I am so pumped.

If I had known 2 years ago all the avenues God would open within our Community Health Site, I just would not have believed it.

Fernando and I have spent this week preparing for this year.  And as I have previously shared, it will be an eventful one.  Especially this next month!

Next week, we welcome Helena Duran (our previous intern and volunteer) and April Ether (a previous student) to our site.  That means our medical site literally doubles.  Fernando keeps insisting we are going to be more like a medical gang than anything else.  Watch out communities.  Ha.

Helena and I, during her
volunteer year

Helena just graduated from Boston University with a degree in Public Health!  She will spend 9 months as a long term volunteer with us.  Finally we will have someone who can focus on identifying and preventing community health problems!  We can't wait to see how God uses her fluency in Spanish, strong faith, love of Dominicans and education to impact our communities.

April when she came on an outreach
as a student in March 2012

April is a nurse from Michigan who will spend two months with us as a volunteer and then move to Jarabacoa as staff full time in January 2016!  We cannot wait to have a nurse with us that can increase patient relationships, do house visits, teaching sessions and preventative care.  We know God will use her passion for the Lord and His people to further His kingdom.

As we increase in size, it only seems natural that we should also increase our clinics.  And so, shortly I will leave for a meeting with a pastor in a new community, La Hoya.  And, next week we will have another meeting with a pastor in Majaguita (yes, the 276 steps down the side of a mountain community).

TWO NEW COMMUNITIES!!!

So please, join with me in prayer.  Prayers for Helena and April as Jarabacoa becomes their temporary home and they are trying to use the skills God has given them to help others.  Prayers for La Hoya and Majaguita.  That we may serve them well and develop deep relationships as we have been so blessed to do in other communities.

2015....here we come!!

Praying with patients in Mata Gorda