Photos below. :) It's been a great ride so far. After the church wedding (which took place in a glorified campground), Monchy and I spent 10 days driving the Hillux all over this beautiful country, spending a few days with my folks, sibs, and friends in Juan Dolio, chilling out with international folks at a few hostels in Cabarete and Jarabacoa, and checking out some Dominican baseball games in San Pedro and Santiago. Monchy met Robinson Cano, which was a major highlight. And we learned more about Chris Columbus and his first "pueblo" here at La Isabela. I read 9 books and Monch learned how to surf. It was kinda the very best honeymoon ever.
And now we are tucked into our little apartment by the Castle in San Juan. I have basil growing outside and we have a rooster and two hens (and 4 eggs!) out back. We have a hand dug fire pit where we've roasted marshmallows and boiled up hot chocolate with our friends and neighbors. We don't always have water inside but we carry it in by buckets from the spigot outside. We don't have phone signal inside but we have chinola vines by the entrance and peas growing up our bedroom window. We have a Dominican washing machine and I hung up 4 wash lines for our laundry to dry. Monch can walk across the Avenida to the stadium to run and I walk across the street to play dominos with the old men who play everyday at 4. We've found 2 tarantulas and 2 frogs in the shower. Oh and to get INTO our shower you have to step over the toilet. We have 1 pasola and 1 scooter and that is our transport daily. We bring them into the apartment at night and I wipe the oil off the floor every morning. We are working our way through a Spanish devotion book. Sometimes I cook Dominican dinners of potatoes and yucca and onions and eggs. I start my coffee greca in the morning and have steaming hot coffee with milk before I leave for work. I delight in days off together when I can make Monchy a big breakfast. Our life is simple but I love it.
And now the busiest time of the year is upon me. We are in the midst of surgical teams. The majority of our teams are repeat customers which is always like receiving friends and family. They know me and celebrate life with us! I LOVE it! I love coming into the recovery room and watching them with our patients. I love watching them come back from the barrios with their stories. I love watching them unpack the MARVELOUS things that they bring. I love watching the docs do consults. I grieve with them when we walk into situations that we cannot fix. We had Ortho 3 weeks ago, ENT 2 weeks ago, Neuro consults on Wednesday this past week, and we will start plastic surgeries on Monday. Then we have general, ortho, and gyn on the horizon. I am learning more and more...much more than this labor and delivery nurse ever thought possible! The pharmacy is filling up and the scary room is (KINDA) under control! I spent 2 days last week calling up our referrals of the barrios teams from over the last 6 months. I am more and more excited for our Paramedic Program to begin in May and enjoying the planning stages of talking to Dr. Canario and others for its progress. Monchy is currently working at the construction site of the New Clinic (JOY!) and preparing to start his 3rd semester of college. Our schedule is insane...but the moments together are sacred. Fun normal moments for us are visiting with family and friends and watching downloaded movies on laptop. My healing moments are quiet times in our apartment on the patio with my plants or curling up with a book on our couch. Monchy's healing moments are running at the track across the street or hitting up a gym in town. We both enjoy visiting the barrios and hanging out with our neighbors and friends. Going to new places and seeing new sights is a thrill for both of us. We don't live a spectacularly exciting life but find beauty in simple moments.
As always, I covet your prayers. Your support has been immense and I can't thank you enough for the cards, the words of encouragement, the cash you slip into my pocket, and the prayers. We save all of our cards in a folder and Monch says that when times get hard, we'll pull out the cards and read about everyone who believes in us and Jesus. So thank you. THANK YOU. I'm Mrs. Rodriguez now ("Mrs. Monchy") and it's beautiful and different and hard and easy at the same time. Thank you for walking this journey with me. Thank you for caring about us but also caring about our people and our patients, our new clinic, our education programs, our babies in the Nutrition Program, for Felix in Las Charcas, and baby Nicole. Thank you for sending medicine and socks and M&Ms and beef jerky and surgical supplies and shampoo. Thank you for serving Jesus, sometimes through serving me and the patients and the Dominican people. He SUSTAINS us.
Civil ceremony...which took place at our apartment with the local judge.
Our wedding "practice" at the Christian camp here in SJ.
The big day....beautiful to have Bud and Sue at my side.
Under a mango tree.... just love that guy.
And this is how we roll.....
This was one of my favorite moments from our wedding...when folks surrounded us to pray for us and bless us. Just sacred.
Laundry day...... on the patio. Monch had to teach me how to use the Dominican washer but I've almost got it down now and can nearly be trusted to do it alone. :)
An afternoon at the Presa (the dam) with Emma and Aneury! Fried fish for the win!
Ortho surgery....great times!
Dan with the group explaining the progress of construction for the New Clinic.... so exciting to see hands at work! Seeing it happen makes it more real for me...we really are going to have a new clinic! We really are going to deliver babies one day. My obstetrical heart is just jumping for joy!
Jeff and Kamanda with the teams out to eat ice cream. We usually go out to eat at a Dominican restaurant on Wednesday evenings, followed up by ice cream at Bon Helado.
Monchy taking his Dad's blood pressure. Each one teach one! :) We believe in education!
Nutrition "charlas" (talks) in the barrios. Did I mention we believe in education? Go Euclides! And thanks teams, for participating and supplying lots of teaching aids!
Again, it's not just our incoming teams that do all the work. Here is Simon outside of the barrio clinic checking the blood pressures of some elderly patients who are still waiting to enter. Our translators are much more than translators! They sure do know how to run our show efficiently and I am so very proud of all of them. Dominicans loving Dominicans! It's beautiful!
This is one of our pharmacy boxes, filled with medicines for the barrio mobile clinics. It weighs a billion tons and takes practically a village to carry/unload (or 3 brothers plus one pharmacist)...
Machines doing "stuff" at the New Land....prepping for the new clinic! I have no idea what they are doing but I'm sure Jeff or Dan or Ken could tell you. I'll stick to medicine, thanks!
Again, it's exciting to see things happening with the new clinic- machines and dirt and shovels and stuff! Follow the progress at www.solidrockinternational.org!
