"The Rains Came Down and the Floods Came Up"

I now understand.

As of today I understand what it means to say that we are in the "rainy season" here in the DR. I understand why tropical storms can actually be a big deal and I understand why it is that we are making plans to build a new clinic. Holy new appreciation for nature.

I understand all of this because it rained last night. It was that angry kind of rain, where the sky growls and flashes and just opens wide up and dumps rain drops heavy and fast. The kind that in less than an hour had filled our street, flowed into our courtyard and rose into the guest rooms. Less than an hour!
Anyone who has seen Top Gear will appreciate my want for a "Toybota" rather than our Hilux as we came driving down our street, watching the water break up over the front of the hood. Crazy! Thank goodness that we have an awesome group from Roanoke here this week, that not only had great attitudes about it, but were an incredible help in our clean up efforts late last night.

So, I had been talking with our good friend, Kristin the other week about how unexpected, unplanned and uncontrolled life is here. I was telling her how I basically feel like a schizo on a daily basis- the group is doing well, so I'm happy, then our workers don't show so I'm frustrated, then our truck won't start and I'm stressed, but then it turns out to be an easy fix so I'm happy again, but then I hear about some sad news from a friend and I'm sad, then the group calls again with a need and now I'm sad and stressed together. I think you are getting the idea, and it's ridiculous! When I told all this to Kristin, she nodded, because she understood (she's been a missionary here for 6 years) and then handed me a great book because she is wiser than me and was kind enough to share some of that wisdom.
The book is all about thanksgiving, and I'm not going to lie, I did not really understand what it had to do with my situation when she first handed it to me. But that's Kristin's wisdom in action, because this book has really been rockin me. At one point she actually equates thanksgiving to salvation. Crazy, right?! The author talks about how any moment in our lives that we do not accept as a gift from God and give thanks for, is a moment that we basically are telling him "you aren't Lord over this situation/moment, you are not big enough or good enough for me in this". Wow.

All that to say, this week has been a crazy one for a lot of reasons, but I'm working on practicing my thankfulness in all things and I really do see it slowly beginning to change my heart and my perspective. I have had more peace and joy this week than I've had in a long time. I feel more blessed than I have in a long time too, mostly because I have stopped to name and recognize all those little blessings that have been there all along... even rain.

BIRTHDAY!!

It's all because of my mother...

Both the fact that I was born and the fact that I am convinced that every birthday should be the most wonderful day of the year (with only the possible exception of Christmas Eve). It is also a well known fact, in the Stark household, that the magic of a true birthday begins several days before the actual day of birth and can last for up to a solid week after. Everyone wants a reason to celebrate, right?? 

And this, my first birthday in the Dominican Republic, was no exception. The day would have been a typical friday morning: helping an exhausted group muster up their last amount of energy to clean out their rooms and pack up the bus for their trip back to Santo Domingo, except for all the friends and family who either stopped by, called, or left me yummy treats filled with birthday wishes. What a wonderful start to the day! Eventually after a birthday chat with my mom, Dan and I hopped in the car for my birthday drive to the capitol. 

This sign was at the entrance to the resort... I have no idea if it was actually for me, but the top line says, "Welcome Birthday Girl"! Woot! Now the only thing they are missing is the marching band and parade in my honor. haha ;)

After dropping our bags off at in our room, we wandered a block or two down the road and had a birthday lunch at a fancy deli/wine bar. Delicious! -and a fun change from regular resort buffet. After lunch was a great birthday nap that we woke up for just in time to get ready for a great birthday dinner. The resort had gifted us a dinner for two at their fine dining restaurant. After they had spoiled and stuffed us with great food and wine, the chef and waiter brought out a huge birthday cake, singing the most adorably pathetic version of "Happy Birthday" I've heard yet. haha, it made me smile. 

But of course Dan doted on me most of all, with lots of laughes, great conversations and love the whole day...awww :)

And I got to continue the celebration all weekend long! The son of our friend and bus driver, Monchy, had a birthday on Sunday, so they invited us to celebrate along with them for a double birthday party on Sunday evening.

And the birthday weekend kept rockin as we got to celebrate ANOTHER SIX birthdays when Lassie (Monchy's dog) gave birth just a few hours earlier to some very cute and healthy puppies. So stinkin adorable.

Birthday Wishes!!

DR birthday #1= big success

Relearning how to do life... San Juan style

So living here in San Juan for the last 4 months has taught me a lot of things.  Mostly things that I had already learned but apparently I there are other ways to do them.  For instance communication, no longer done in English and unfortunately Spanish is not easy for me. So I would like to take this time to share some important lessons.

1) The only thing that really matters when talking about road safety is one question: "did you get in an accident?".  If the answer is "no" then you did a good job driving.  Along with that, it is also it is your responsibility to do everything you can to avoid hitting someone or getting hit. Your horn tends to be insanely useful and isn't intended to communicate anger but caution.  

2) Children are very durable.  I was lead to believe that they are actually quite fragile and if they fall down you should take them to the hospital and have an MRI done.  I have seen kids here wipe out from hanging onto a truck while riding a bike, get nailed by a baseball, and play with whips in such ways that they make Indiana Jones look like a giant noob (and sometimes things go poorly).  These kids bite it hard and then get up and do it again, no fuss or anything.

3) It's ok to shake everyone's hand.   In San Juan when you meet someone or to say hi, physical touch seems to be not only an expectation but a requirement.  At first I was a little freaked out, but after awhile I see that it actually makes the "get to know you" process much faster and more pleasant.  You can also get creative when your hands are dirty with things like elbow bumps, which is always fun.

We'll unfortunately that;s all I have time for right now.  There are many more examples but each one reinforces a very important lesson that there are other ways to do life and it's not too late to learn a new one.  

On a somewhat related note, I wonder what is was like for Jesus to learn how to do things all over when he became man.  Really annoying I bet.  But the effort I think was worth it.

-Daniel

Summer Craziness has Begun!

I've heard people say, "If only there were more hours in a day".
I think that those people are crazy.

Days here are never-ending! It might have something to do with waking up to the crow of a rooster at the crack of dawn, but days at the guesthouse are so filled! There comes a moment in the day when you stop and realize that you've faced and conquered 3 days worth of tasks, averted several major crisis, dealt with a half dozen schedule changes... and it's only noon.

So you can imagine what a blessing it has been to us to have Jeff and Kamanda Bucher down here with us for the summer! They are an awesome couple from Peoria, IL who have volunteered to spend 9 weeks down here with us during the busiest part of our summer groups, just to help us out and live life with us! It has only been a few days, but I can already tell that it's gonna be a great summer :)

The group down here with us now is a youth team from Northwoods church in Peoria, IL. They are a fantastic group and have been working so hard. It is exciting to see their passion for Jesus and the people of the DR. They have made me smile everyday. A member of their team, Kirk Moser, has been leading worship seminars at Central Mennonite Church in the evenings and the response has been incredible. Each night he has had well over 200 people coming to the seminars. They are young people who are asking questions and really getting excited about worshiping God. How cool is that? To close out the week we have rented a large stadium outside of town where we will be hosting a worship concert that will be open for the public on Thursday evening. Worship bands from several churches in San Juan, as well as the youth worship band from Northwoods will be playing together and leading us in worship. I can't wait, it is going to be fabulous :)

Updates 2

An update that I forgot to give in the last post- here's the progression of the front room to final(ish) product:

Our attempt to "clean out" was mostly disasterous

Eventually we managed to get through everything and find homes for it all- Whew!



ANDDDDD.... (drum roll please).....

 Here's it is now!

Yay! We are so happy with it- feels like home!

Updates

Last entry I mentioned the Cholera outbreak and I wanted to leave you with an update. First of all, a HUGE thanks to any and all of you who have ever bought coffee or vanilla from the Guest House Store! We save that money to use for community needs and there is no one is more need right now than the people of Cercado. With the money from that fund we were able to send 180 IV bags, 400 diapers, 80 yards of fabric and plastic for covering hospital beds, and over a thousand bags of bleach for water purification- as well as gowns, uniforms for the nurses, hand sanitizers, and other various supplies.

I accompanied Dr. Perdomo on Tuesday morning to drop the supplies off at the hospital and it was a hard sight. Even without entering the building you could hear the babies inside crying, watching people being carried back and forth to the bathroom and just feel the exhaustion of the staff. They have been working day and night in some pretty terrible conditions (they were all wearing knee-high rain boots and large yellow cleaning gloves because of the un-imaginable conditions that this disease causes). The doctor told me that the director of the hospital had tears in her eyes when she saw the supplies that had been given. She thanks you all for your generosity and prayers! There is a lot of suffering, but praise God that because of their efforts and because people are now aware of the disease and recognizing its symptoms, they are getting to the hospital and they are getting healed.

Dr. Perdomo unloading the supplies at El Cercado Hospital 

Numbers continue to fluctuate, last week there were 60 some new patients a day, then only about 25, yesterday it went back up to 43, but today was back down to 28. Overall the trend seems to be going down. Praise God and keep praying!

Other, much less important updates are that we are finally tying up the loose ends of the many projects that we began here at the Guesthouse over the last month or so. Margo has been cleaning like crazy, Dan has been working hard fixing broken pipes and tearing up old floors... and then there is me adding the girly touches. haha, I talked a couple of our dear friends (Andres the painter and Herman the tailor) into helping me with making some curtains and putting some paintings in the rooms to make them a bit cozier. Here's how they look now:

Fantastic, right?? And this is just one room! But I'm not gonna spoil the rest- you'll just have to come and see for yourself ;)

Projects

This week is a week of projects. During those weeks of break (that somehow just FLEW by), we might have bitten off more than we were ready to chew in projects and now we are in a mad scramble to finish them all before the onslaught of this summer's groups.
Dan's off painting 2 rooms that we are in the process of tearing out and laying completely new flooring in, we've got 4 bathrooms with toilet problems, 1 blue truck that needs 4 new tires, 16 rooms with brand new curtains installed, 3 screens that need to be patched and about 8 loads of laundry I've been putting off because of the rain. And that's just day one! :) But we really are so excited to get back into the swing of things and get to know the groups that we have coming down this summer.

On a little more somber note, I'm heading out with Dr. Perdomo tomorrow to pick up some more supplies for the hospital in El Cercado. If you hadn't heard, El Cercado has been hit pretty hard with Cholera over the last couple of weeks. The clinic and hospital staff have been working around the clock. As of today the report was better than it's been in awhile and we are going to do all we can to ensure that things continue to improve. Be praying for energy and love for the doctors as I am sure they are exhausted. Also, pray for us as we continue to work to educate and equip people to purify their water and sanitize their foods. It is so sad to see people suffering and dying from such a preventable disease. Pray pray pray!

I'll keep you updated on it all...