The Happenings

Our third team is coming quickly to a close and we are getting excited for our weekend beach excursion with our summer interns. Summer has kicked in with a bang of heat and shortage of loud wet storms these past few days.

Lucy Update…
The vet removed her cast on Tuesdays (about 5 days earlier than he originally told us) which was good because the cast had been rubbing on her leg and developing some really nasty sores. At times however I think it may have been a little early because she is such a high energy puppy who isn’t the smartest at times and has pulled some silly stunts which have resulted in hurting her leg a little. The bone is completely healed, praise God, but her leg seems to still be a bit tender.

Besides Lucy…
This past week I personally felt a little worn out, partly because of Lucy, and partly because we’re halfway through the summer. The task of befriending a new group of people every two weeks is wearing. I knew to expect it because it’s what we did last summer, however, it’s one thing to know it and another to experience it… again.

The group we are wrapping up has been largely a group of high schoolers and I always find that high schoolers change the dynamic greatly. They ask a completely different set of questions, many times I find that they “know it all” (which I find hysterical), and they love to hear themselves talk, which is great because I only have to ask one question and they carry the conversation for the rest of time.

Tomorrow we leave for a weekend at the beach with our summer interns. We are very excited. We went to this same resort last summer and LOVED it. It’s an all inclusive hotel with a private beach. We can’t wait for the rest, relaxation and total pampering that we will get there. We are going to Puerta Plata and staying at the Lifestyles Hacienda resort for 2 days and 2 nights. YEAH!!!

Prayer Request:
Josh and I have been praying, and ask your aid in this prayer as well, that we would have guidance in whether or not to ask Raul and Mairyn to move once their baby comes. Mairyn just went to the doctor a few days ago and found that she is 15 ½ weeks along with a baby boy. She is due to deliver in mid-December. She however will go back to the states in late August where she will wait to have the baby, and then return in January sometime.

We want to follow God’s direction in this process… so please be praying for wisdom. Raul has a long way to go on his house before it is finished. So unless we ask them to move, they could be with us the lifetime of our lease… 2 years.

(The photo below is of Josh with the interns on a weekend excursion he did with them 2 weeks ago)

God speaks

I have desired to share this with you all but haven’t had the time to put onto paper… so here it is now. (Better late than never, right?)

We received Lucy on Monday morning, only to find she had a limp in her front left leg. Tuesday morning we took her to into the vet to find out she had a broken leg… like, the bone was completely broken in half. He took her for the morning and put her bones back in place and put on a cast which we were told had to stay on for 20-25 days. We brought her back to the base with us and she was just whimpering and crying all afternoon… she was in such agony and completely frustrated that she couldn’t walk… she kept falling over. I was so frustrated and overwhelmed that this could potentially be what the next 3 weeks would look like. We had to help support her to walk, eat, drink, and get situated to sleep.

That night I was leading the “Foot-washing” activity that we have here (based off of Jesus washing the disciple’s feet in John 13:1-17). The night is an evening of praise and worship through singing, followed by a significant time of prayer (with music playing in the background) and then each person gets together with a partner and they wash each other’s feet. It is an amazing night. So leading up to this event I was a mess, I was so frustrated over Lucy’s situation, and felt so unprepared, and fake… my heart was not into singing praises to God when I was so sad over Lucy. I also didn’t want to leave her, I felt like I needed to be there for her.

During the prayer time I just cried out to God. I said to him that I wished we would have just put her down from the beginning, and how I still wanted to do it because it would be easier. I felt like I was going to be looking after a handicapped child for 3 weeks and didn’t think that I could, or wanted, to do it. I said to God that it hurt me so bad to see her in so much pain, and it made me want to cry every time I had to help her walk around because she would just cry the whole time.

After sharing my frustrations and pain with God I waited in silence for him. He told me a little while later, “Vicki, there are so many times when you are just like Lucy; pathetic, hurting, in pain, and in need of constant help, but I never think of “putting you down”. And though it hurts me to watch you walk through the painful situations and see you struggle and cry, I know that when you come out on the other side, you are going to be so much stronger, better, and you are going to know me better.”

I was in awe. To hear God so clearly, and have him use Lucy’s situation as the example to show me what I am sometimes… or most of the time… it was so powerful. God has been teaching me so much, but it is a completely different experience when God speaks to me. It was an amazing night. And not only that, the time that I had spent doing the activity with the team, Josh had been watching Lucy, and she began walking on her own! It was such a great night. After Josh told me that about Lucy, I felt like God has given me a little gift… a little something to say, “Don’t worry, you’re going to make it! I love you!”

God is amazing... and I just wanted to encourage you all through this... God knows what He's doing even though we can't see it the majority of the time.

Lucy's Cast

Here she is!!! Our precious little hopping puppy!

Lucy

Lucy is our latest concern and takes up A LOT of time... particularly at night :)
When we received Lucy, she had been found by a friend who discovered her on the side of the road. We adopted her not knowing she had a really bad limp in her front left leg. We took her to the vet and he examined it looking to see if it was just out of place. Lucy had a lot pain when he was "feeling around" her leg, so he suggested we get an x-ray. The x-ray showed that her leg, closer up toward her shoulder, was completely broken in half. She he took her and performed "minor" surgery on her. He knew she couldn't survive a surgery where they opened her up and inserted a pin into her leg, so he knocked her out and put the bones into place by feeling around. He then wrapped her leg up in a cast, which also wraps around her chest for support. Yesterday she was in a lot of pain, and didn't know how to walk with the heaviness of the cast... she just kept falling over. However today she is much better. She is walking around and learning how to get comfortable when she sits and lays down. The cast prevents her front leg from bending, so it is extended all the time, which really presents a disadvantage when she wants to sit or curl into a cute little ball.

The vet has been really helpful and didn't even charge us for our visit today. He said that he wanted to help people, "us", who are helping a puppy who should be dead now.

It's been a whole new kind of culture shock as we went about this business trying to help this little puppy. We had to help take the x-ray, which was taken at a "human" clinic; then we had to drive the x-ray back to the vet who examined it and then said, "okay, I'll take her now and fix her up". I have to say I wasn't prepared to leave her... it was really strange, I didn't even really know Lucy yet. We had only had her for 24 hours! We went back at 2pm and picked her up. Josh and I were discussing how fast and different the process was here and how something like this would take forever to get done in the States (mostly to liability issues we think). Anyway, it was a shocking experience.

A huge blessing is that she really prefers to go potty outside. So she'll whimper when she needs to go, or we'll notice her heading to the corner which means potty time! The only downside to this is that at night, she cries when she needs to go, which means I have to get up, get her, and take her out. This might not sound like a big deal, but when I'm exhausted, getting her and having to unlock a million locks to get out, it's a big deal! But I know in a month or so when she can hold it through the night, I will be SO grateful.

I have a picture of Lucy in her cast, but I forgot to bring my camera, so I'll post it tomorrow.
Good Night!

Addition to our family

Hello fans! Sorry we have had such a huge gap between our last post and now. Having summer teams has really occupied our time. Everything is going very well. We are halfway through our 2nd team of the summer and we have been enjoying every minute of what we do.

I had a revelation the other day (a couple weeks ago) when I was talking with my mom. She was asking me some questions about what we do and if it was what we expected or not. As I was talking (and processing out loud) I realized that we are basically doing youth and college ministry abroad. I was an interesting revelation because when I was 16 years old I told my dad that I wanted to be a youth pastor. I had been enjoying everything that I had been doing with Rick and the youth group that I was certain being a youth pastor was my calling. That desire slowly faded away and new ideas filled my head. But during that time I had been learning so much about what youth ministry was about. Now, here we are, doing ministry with Dominican natives and Americans; bringing them together for the kingdom of God. It's amazing how God works!

Last night Arlene, one of the staff here, found a box on the side of the road with 3 puppies in it. She brought them to the base to show Josh because he had expressed interest in taking one. One look at them sealed the deal for Josh. So now we are the proud parents of two dogs. Both are very different in size, shape, color, and hair type. Snickers, also known as "Snicky", "Sneaky", and "Bubba", is very big, short haired, and brown. Lucy, our new addition, is teeny-tiny, black, has a little longer hair, but it's still a little too early to tell what she will look like for sure. We don't think she is even 2 months old yet. So we are learning how to take care of a prematurely separated puppy. She is so sweet. Snickers doesn't really know what to think about her yet. He ignores her for the most part and doesn't really like to be too close to her. But we're hoping in a few months that they will be BEST friends!