Siahna Turns 3!

This year we celebrated Siahna's 3rd birthday with a rainbow/painting party.  Everything was rainbow from the spaghetti pasta to the rainbow jello to the birthday cake.

Rainbow Fudge - I won't say it tasted good, but it sure looked pretty!

My sister-in-laws sister made this rainbow tutu for the party.

Everyone painted a small canvas to take home.

Case Turns 6

Normally, I start planning the kids' birthday parties after Christmas (and I have until June).  This year we were going to be in the DR for Case's birthday so we decided to do something extra special for him.  We had his party at My Gym (where the kids have a gym class) and I didn't have to do a thing, except show up.  It was quite nice.

Dragon birthday cake

Case's best friend - they've known each other since they were 1!

The grandparents, aunt and soon to be uncle!

Preschool friends

All the kids

Julius leaned over and gave Siahna a big kiss on the lips.  She did not like that!

Cake time.

Nothing ends a party like a zip line ride.

Father's Day 2013

There will be more DR posts, so please check back.  But, in the meantime, I have some catching up to do.

For Father's Day this year, I took the kids to a pottery place and we made a pretty cute platter for daddy.

Dominican Republic Thoughts #3

Two Christmas' ago, Jeff and I donated all of the money we would have spent and would have received on gifts to a water well fund.  It's important that people have clean water.  Yet, I don't think I truly understood that importance until I lived in it for a week. 

The community we visited in the DR is built on sand dredged up from the ocean floor.  Years ago, the city wanted to allow cruise boats and other boats to be able to dock in this inlet that the community backs up to, so they had to make the ocean floor deeper.  They dug and dumped the sand in what is now this community.  It become new "land" and many people came and squatted here and eventually built their "home." 

Until about the last year, the government did not acknowledge this area as part of the city - and only then did they acknowledge this area because there was a political election and it would look good for whoever was running to have done something for this community.  The government refused to have electrical lines run to these homes so the people put up illegal lines connecting with power lines further in the city.  The government refused to pave their streets - until election time and then some of the streets were paved.  They refused to provide them the rights of trash pick-up.

In the community we visited, the people don't have clean water running from their faucets.  They can't drink from their sink.  They shouldn't brush their teeth using the water running from their faucets.  Their 3 year olds can't drink the bath water (I hate when Siahna does this, but I only have to worry about soap in the water). 

And on top of this, there is little running water inside their home to begin with.  The back of the toilet has to be filled with a bucket of water before you can flush and then you're lucky if you can even get it to flush.  So, you can imagine what the bathroom looked and smelled like.

The water situation affected us every day in the things we take for granted.

The houses in Puerto Plata are built very close together.  Therefore, trash trucks can't reach a large part of this community.  So, what do you do if you don't have trash pick-up?  You don't walk your garbage a mile to where there is trash pick-up.  You throw it in the river that's right out your back door.  Or you throw it on the beach because it's an open area with lots of room for trash.

After years of this lifestyle, the water is deeply contaminated and even filtering it or boiling it does not make it good enough to drink.  And it has affected the entire city.

This is the river that runs behind the community.  Houses are built right up to the river and each year more and more of the land erodes and homes are falling into the river leaving families without a home.  Sandra, the woman we worked with is slowly relocating these families but there is little room to build and hard to leave the community with no money.

Power lines haphazardly placed.

Just some of the trash in the river and if you look close enough, you'll see some chickens walking around on top of it.

A home to the left and behind this trash pile.

The "beach".  Five years ago when our church first started visiting this community, the trash on this beach covered the entire beach and was 2-3 feet deep.  Many people have come over the years just to do trash clean-up.  However, the people still dump their trash in the streets and on the beach because habits die hard.  The beach is no longer usable and the kids can't swim in the ocean because of all the garbage in this area.

Trash on the beach. 

 All of their drinking water has to be bought - which actually leads to more trash.  Jeff and I did the math just to compare it to what we spend on water each month.  A 5 gallon jug of water in the DR costs about $1.  That's .20/gallon.  This last month we used 3,000 gallons of water.  Our water bill was $67.  In the DR, it would have been $600.  Granted, they don't take 10 minute showers (they don't even have hot water) and they don't have lawns to water so there's no way they would use this amount of water.  But, it put our water usage and our clean water at the tip of our fingers into perspective.

Dominican Republic Thoughts #2

Our first day, Saturday, in the DR we spent exploring the city and getting familiar with our surroundings.  We did not go into the community that we would be spending the next week in.  Instead, we saw the city from up above (about 2,500 ft above sea level - which is nothing when you're from Denver!).

Looking up the mountain we were about to go up.

This is the group from Denver.

Our gondola is here and don't worry, they don't care how many people pile in.  There are no weight restrictions!

Looking down on the city of Puerto Plata.  The community we worked in is towards the center where the ocean comes in (right side)

Going on a hike.  It was about 10-15 degrees cooler up here than down in the city.  It was refreshing.

We found a cave to explore in.  This is Case (left), Tony (middle) - he was our translator who spoke 5 languages and is only 23, and Emmy (right) - she is from Denver.

The city with the ocean in the background.

It was also Case's birthday so Jeff made Dominican brownies that night and we used pipe cleaners for candles. 

Dominican Republic Thoughts #1 Part A

These are the pictures that go with my previous post.

These girls grabbed ahold of Case's hands and didn't let go for the next hour or two!  He was well taken care of.

One of these girls asked if I "painted" the kids' hair.  I said it was natural and they couldn't believe it!

Janelly loved Siahna.

Dominican Republic Thoughts #1

In all my travels, I have never experienced anything like what we experienced in the DR.  I have never seen such poverty and people with so little and yet they are filled with so much love and acceptance that I think I came home with more blessings than what I gave to them. 

Typically, when I go on vacation or on a trip, I am ready to come home at the end of it.  This time, I wasn't ready and could have stayed a lot longer.  We cried when we left our friends and this was just after a week.  There was so much love and friendship that despite the language barrier, I feel like I made friends for life.

Here's one example (and unfortunately, our pictures are on a camera that we don't have a chord for to get our pictures off of so pics will come later).  Our first day in this community, we took a walking tour of the area (which I'll describe later).  As we walked, the kids just poured out and walked with us.  Two little girls grabbed a hold of Case and held his hands for probably 2 hours - one girl on each side.  The poor kid was too nice to say he was done holding hands. 

But, one girl in particular was drawn to Siahna.  She literally grabbed her out of my arms (she was probably 8 or 9) and carried her for the next hour.  Siahna wasn't too sure of this, but let the girl hold her and didn't fuss.

We didn't see this girl again until 4 days later and she asked me where Sisi was.  We had left Siahna at the house that morning with someone else from our group.  She was truly disappointed that Siahna wasn't there and disappeared. 

The last morning we were there we went into the community briefly to deliver some final gifts.  I had one picture of this girl holding Siahna that I wanted to deliver but she wasn't around.  I found another little girl and asked if she knew the girl in the picture and if she would deliver the picture for me.  She said yes, took the picture, and ran off.

We all loaded on our bus and were waiting for the rest of our crew.  I just happened to look out the front window of the bus as we were ready to leave and saw three little girls running down the street - one of them was Janelly, the little girl who attached to Siahna.

I burst into tears, grabbed Siahna and jumped off the bus.  This girl had come running just to say good-bye and had just barely caught us.  She grabbed Siahna from me, gave her a big hug and we took some pictures.  I don't think she understood why I was crying.

But what kept going through my mind was this:  Because of Siahna's delays and the way she interacts with people, she really doesn't have any friends or other kids who love on her like this girl did (besides Case, of course).  The language barrier was actually a blessing in this case, because the girls couldn't communicate so there wasn't any indication that Siahna couldn't talk or was different from other kids her age.  Janelly just loved her and wanted to be with her.  All she could offer were open arms and to me, it was everything.

The picture of these three little girls running down the street just to say good-bye to a three year old is something I hope I never forget.  How our Father must love when we come running to Him and the little we have to offer Him means everything to Him.