It’s the rainy season here in San Juan but I don’t mind. Although it’s steamy sometimes in the afternoons, everything is so GREEN. The crops in the fields were so thirsty even a month ago and now it looks like everything is sprouting and crawling up walls and reaching for the sky. The mango season is finally starting and they are so sweet, running down our mouths and sticking in our teeth. The mosquitos are swarming and the basil in my little pot is ecstatic and smells so good outside of my door on the sunny balcony.
It’s a barrio team season as well. Over the last month or so we’ve had wonderful and crazy experiences with the Blankenship team, the Rhodes team, and this week the Southern Uah and Cleveland State teams. I love the watch the first-timers gape at the scenary and gasp at the chubby babies and get teary eyed when they leave. And I love to watch those who have been here before grin when they see their Dominican friends again and roll their eyes when the power goes out as the rookies shriek until the generator kicks in. Although it was a bit scary slip-sliding in the mud, I loved climbing up the terrible road to Montecitos to see patients who were oh-so-grateful to see us. I loved watching my mom help out in the barrios with the Rhodes team, carefully preparing vitamin bags in the pharmacy to hand out to the families. I loved watching one of my oldest and dearest friends arrive about a week or so ago and take in everything here with wide eyes and open heart. I love watching 48 (more or less…..) college students unpack and listen intently and LOVE on the Dominican kiddies. 
And I had a grand visit with my mom for 3 weeks. Sue Eby is a pro here and also has the organizing gene and therefore she sorted and packed and organized and labeled and all KINDS of super helpful stuff in the kitchen and pantry and pharmacy and wow- when can we turn her loose in the Scary Room? We spent several days in the pharmacy going NUTS on the shelves and container bins. And then to have Venus here for a week was just the icing on the cake. Giggling like old times and hearing her throw out sarcasm in spanish has to be a huge highlight of the YEAR, not just the week. It’s so amazing introducing my two worlds and having them LOVE each other. We spent a day in Barahona on a vacant beach, spent time visiting and delivering meds to F in Las Charcas, spent an afternoon eating crabs and fish soup in Bastida with Baby Nicole and her family, spent evenings hanging out with my crew and friends here but mostly we just spent TIME together, which was heavenly.
And now we’ve got 5 barrio teams (kinda) in 2 weeks which means pharmacy and paperwork and watching and taking blood pressures and crowd control. I dig it. Its cool going to these neighborhoods and seeing where people LIVE and how they wrestle and keep going and are just-so-grateful that we even ARRIVE where they live. I am constantly humbled. I’m working on a presentation that I sometimes do in the barrios about parasites. It starts off talking about parasites and how they are treated and obtained and how they “eat us from the inside” and steal our nutrients from the inside,etc. But then I talk about hatred and jealousy and envy and pride and how these are spiritual parasites which ALSO eat us from the inside. And today I talked about how even though I’ve been a Christian fo a good long time now…I still struggle with these awful spiritual parasites…and how great would it be if only one little pill could cure all the ugly things inside of me. But instead we continue on, begging God to help us evict these parasites that threaten to eat us from the inside, knowing that only He can do it. And it’s a challenge for me, doing these little charlas (talks) to a bunch of folks that I don’t know, fumbling and bumbling through my spanish hoping I’m not offending anyone with elementary or wrong words. But the message never gets old for me. It reminds me that EVERY day I’ve got to watch out for parasites. Just like cooking my meat well and avoiding unwashed fruit and always washing my hands, I’ve got to be on board to avoid pride and jealousy and envy and rancor and all the rest of them. Daily struggles that will always be there but are meshed together with the beauty of the love of Jesus and the mangos and the basil and the goats that skip down our rocky roads.
I want to thank again those who pray for me…and those who support me. Of course I could never be here on my own and it’s ever clearer that God has an army of folks who stand behind me holding me up in prayer and sending me money and cards and M&Ms. Thanks guys- I feel loved.
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