This entry was meant to be posted Sunday, but Internet outages made that impossible.

As usual, I have pictures with captions posted from Saturday afternoon and evening at Flickr. Pictures here, slideshow here.

One of the most important things Edge Outreach does is sanitation education and training. It’s well and good to setup some kind of purification system, but if people don’t know how to use it or if something goes wrong with it, they can be worse off than they were before. They could be trusting water that isn’t clean.

Saturday afternoon half of us went to the home of a man that everyone here calls pastor Antonio. He lives in a very poor part of town, and though he is confined to a wheelchair, he works and ministers in this little community. 80 to 100 people come to his house to get clean water from an Edge system that was put in a few months ago.

Pastor Antonio's house. This room and two small bedrooms.

The system is on his tiny back porch. One tank for purifying, two on the roof for storage. He purifies three or four tanks of water, two days a week for the community.

On this day pastor Antonio found a group of children from the area to come and learn about water cleanliness and general sanitation issues. There were a number of adults that showed up as well, though the presentation was definitely geared toward children.

Edge has a set education program for children in other countries, based on pictures. All you need is children, the pictures, and a translator.

This was about as poor a neighborhood as I’ve seen here in Santo Domingo. There is a vacant lot next to the pastor’s home where they meet for church services if it is not raining. That vacant lot is also, apparently, the local trash dump. There was a smoldering stump no more than 5 yards from the stage.

And yet the children were spotless and dressed in their finest clothes. Truly, these families take great pride in their children.

I suppose the teaching would seem rather obvious and simple to many, but the fact is, great numbers of people in poorer areas do not know that bacteria in water cannot be seen. Just because water is clear does not mean it is safe.

In one part of the training, the team uses a little wooden doll, jokingly referred to privately as Diarrhea Debbie. Her stomach is a clear baggie of clean water. Something dark is introduced, clouding the water and making Debbie sick. The bag is punctured and she loses her water. At this point the team talks about the necessity of hydration if you have diarrhea.

Well, Debbie’s bag got punctured in the wrong place on this day, and she sprayed water sideways on Amber and all over the stage.

The children were delighted. Howls of laughter!

But apart from that, things went very well. We broke out some balloons at the end and got mobbed by the children. I made as many balloon sombreros as I could before we had to get on the bus.

At this point, all of our work was done. Both purification systems were in place, and we had visited this previous installation to check on it and do further education.

Saturday evening, we went out to eat at a Dominican restaurant, treating ourselves, our driver, and our interpreters to a fine meal. Not wanting to miss out on the experience of Dominican food, I ordered a lot and then shared it with anyone who wanted to try things. I had boiled Yuca (pronounced “Jooka” here), fried plantains, rice and beans Dominican Republic style, and skewered chicken. It was all delicious. The plantains were not sweet at all, more like fried potatoes.

Click for larger view

Sunday morning, the women from Murray State fly out. The rest of us will attend church with our hosts and do a couple of final things. Monday morning I'll try to post some final pictures and thoughts from the trip. As always, internet access is irregular. I'll post when I can.

Yesterday half of our team came very close to completing the purification installation at Cure Hospital in Santo Domingo. If you'd like to see the hospital using Google Earth, plug the following coordinate string into the search box that says "fly to."

18°28'30.14"N 69°54'26.27"W

I have pictures from yesterday's work at the hospital online at Flickr here. Slideshow here. There are a fair number of pictures with captions and explanations of the work that was done.

Today we're at the hospital finishing up some electrical work and preparing to train the hospital engineer in the use of the system. The system is easy, but constant testing of the chlorine levels is essential. You have to carefully test each batch of purified water. Obviously, if you do not, you're worse off than you were before. You're trusting the water from the tap and it isn't clean. But the engineer is clearly an intelligent and educated man, so it will be no problem for him.

The original pump house

Working on the pump house

The new pump house

Our team in the tank enclosure

Later today half of our team is going to an previous installation to continue health training. I'll be with that group and will report on that tonight or tomorrow morning.

Mustard Seed Thoughts

This whole situation reminds me of something Jesus once said. We'll leave soon, and the hospital will have a continuous supply of clean water. Someone from Edge will return in time to see how things are going. Edge is committed to following up all of its installations. This one is unusual because there is an engineer here who is capable of fixing the system. They will probably be fine. In any case, most of us will never come back. Children will come and go in this place. Some lives will be saved because of the clean water. Other lives will be enriched. Suffering from infections, etc. will be lessened. None of us can look into the future to see what will come.

Jesus once said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed. It is the smallest of seeds, but when it is planted, it grows into a large tree and the birds of the air nest in its branches." So it is with goodness and with evil. Seeds are planted, either in selfishness or in goodness and service. What grows from those seeds is only known to those who are there. The ones who planted the seeds often never know what good or evil comes of their actions. Further, the idea of sin suggests that all of us have planted seeds of evil from time to time. I know that I have. Grace is being forgiven for the evil I have begun in this world. Redemption involves the changing of my heart and life, so that I can be a part of goodness.

Pretty simple deal really. I don't know why we Christians have made it so complex.

rlp

Our team was split for the entire day today. One part went back to the hospital. They didn't get back until late, so I'll not be able to tell you about their work until tomorrow. The other team was the five women from Murray State University who were in charge of the YWAM installation, which is the one we paid for here at rlp.

Hooray for us!

I was hanging out with the young women, helping some and taking pictures too. It was a basic installation. Two tanks in a pumphouse, chlorinating the water and providing access at a spigot. It's not fancy, but instead of buying 5-gallon bottles of water, they can fill them up themselves at their pumphouse.

This installation was done almost entirely by these young women, lead by Courtney. We were all so proud of them. And I thought you'd like to see some pictures of the water purifier you made possible with your gifts. I have a lot of pictures up at Flickr, but I'll include a few here as well.

Courtney working on a water line.

Amanda working on the external spigot.

Putting together the Purifier

The finished system!

The team that put in YOUR purifier!

The hospital team ran into some...issues. So we're a little behind there, but I'm sure we'll catch up tomorrow. The whole team is going to the hospital, then the Murray State women and I are going to a previous installation to do some continued water health training.

Please do check out the Flickr photos. They show you more detail about the YWAM installation. Pictures here. Slideshow here.

I've got a couple of free minutes here, so how about some personal stuff?

1. Dominican Driving - Driving here in the Dominican Republic is unlike anything I've ever seen. At first I was terrified. People pull in front of each other with the smallest amount of space. Motorcycles weave in and out of cars. Two cars will merge into the same lane, barely missing each other, horns blaring. And yet, we saw no accidents. My theory is that there are several elements going on.

First, all traffic boils down to official rules and unofficial morays. In the Dominican Republic, it's more morays than rules. Everyone understands that if a person can pull in front of you, they will. And it's your responsibility to watch out for that. Everyone knows there will be motorcycles weaving around and people walking in the street selling things. The whole thing forces you into a constant state of defensive driving. You can't eat a sandwich or talk on the phone and drive here. You have to be watching because on every trip, at least 5 or 6 people are going to cut you off and pull in front of you or edge you over in your lane.

In the United States, we drive according to strict rules and expect others to follow them. This leads to us being on auto-pilot. Then when someone makes a mistake and pulls in front of us, we might not notice it because we aren't expecting such a thing. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that there are less accidents in the D.R. than in the U.S., though I have no figures to support that.

2. Cold Showers - There is no hot water where we are staying. None. At first this seemed like a terrible inconvenience. "How in the world am I supposed to take a cold shower?" I wondered. Well, guess what - If you are dirty and tired, you'll take any shower you can get. That's the first thing to remember.

I don't have much experience with this, but there seems to be two theories to surviving the cold shower. The first involves sticking your head under the water and getting it wet, the pulling away, shampooing, and sticking it back under to rinse. You basically do this with your whole body. Quick wetting, soap without the cold water hitting you, then grit your teeth for the rinse.

The other option is to suck-it-up and stand under the cold water until you get somewhat used to it. Then shower as usual. It never feels comfortable, but you do get so that it doesn't bother you as much. I recommend the second method, but then I've only been at this for 4 days.

rlp

Pictures of our day along with captions and explanations can be found at Flickr. Read this but don't miss the pictures. They give more details about the work we are doing.

Click here for a complete list of pictures and captions. Click here to view them as a slideshow. (Note: clicking a picture in the slideshow displays the captions. Clicking again hides them.)

We actually began work on the hospital filtration system today. We placed three large, 400-liter tanks on a platform right above the existing pump for the hospital cistern. We’ve dropped a pipe into the cistern that will pump the water through our chlorination system and into the tanks. Then a pipe will go from the tanks back into the main hospital pump, allowing clean water to be pumped throughout the building. In a short time, even the pipes will be cleaned by the chlorinated water.

There were several little glitches here and there, nothing that Kurtis couldn’t figure out. We had to drill a hole for new pipes into the back of the concrete housing for the existing pumping system. Most of the morning was spent getting the tanks positioned and busting a whole through 6 inches of concrete into the pump housing. During a slow time, some of the team folded bandages and helped sort medical hardware in the pharmacy.

At 2 pm, our team split in two. Half of us continued working on the water system at the hospital. By the end of the day they had run pipes from all three tanks to a central location where the purification unit will be housed in a box of its own.

The other half (me and the 5 women from Murray State University) went to visit an orphanage in a very poor area of town. The place was spotless on the inside, but very simple and poor. There didn’t seem to be any area for the children to play outside, as far as I could see. When we arrived they were lined up waiting for us. A fair number of these children have disabilities of one kind or another.

The street outside the orphanage

They sang us a couple of prepared songs, which made me really uncomfortable. I don’t think children like this should be made into a dog-and-pony show. But this is their world and their country, and I wasn't the one making those calls. So I listened to their sweet voices and clapped appropriately.

We brought balloons and candy and crayons and coloring paper. You’d have thought Santa arrived in person and gave them the whole world. We sang and played and hugged and made balloon hats and flowers and swords. I took pictures of the kids with my digital camera, then turned it around and showed them their pictures. They were delighted by this and crowded around, wanting me to take more pictures. Courtney got attached to a young child and held her in her arms most of the time. We connected with this crowd of children in a whirlwind hour of delightful chaos.

We just visited them and played. No big deal, right?

Well, it was obviously a big deal to them. And yet, I couldn’t help thinking, “Yeah, but what are we doing for these kids, really?” And one answer to that is - not much. They need money and food and clothing and parents. And we came with our resources and time dedicated toward our two water projects. This was a quick side-trip that we put together because we had some spare time and we were asked to go. I mean, what can you do? Not go because you’re not going to make a full commitment?

So for this day, there was nothing we could do except love them and play with them. And trust that when you love and play with a child, it is a goodness that requires no explanation and no justification. You don’t have to explain yourself to anyone.

Two sisters caught my eye, both in wheelchairs, both terribly small for their ages. Stephanie is 11, the same age as my youngest daughter Lillian. But she has the body of a two-year-old. Her older sister Clara is not much bigger, though she is 15. That’s the age of Shelby, my practically grown and healthy middle child. In very crude Spanish I tried to tell them that my own children were the same age.

“Uh...Me Nina es (I tried to think of the word for 11 but couldn't) eleven... tambien?"  I’m really embarrassed that I live in Texas and don’t know Spanish well enough to get out such a simple sentence. That’s not correct, but maybe the idea got across.

Stephanie and Clara and Pauline each colored a picture of Jesus, signed their names on them in crayon, and gave them to me to keep.

Gave them to me to keep. Gave them to me to keep. For a moment, it seemed like the whole world narrowed to that instant in time. Gave them to me to keep.

Okay, just stop for moment. Stop your busy life and think about this with me. What did it matter that we visited an orphanage today? And what will it mean, ultimately, in the lives of these children? What will this hour of fun mean to them? And what am I to do with these cheap, coloring book pictures of Jesus? What value would you place upon them? Or what would you give me in return for them? Wouldn’t you agree that in the eyes of God, these pictures are worth more than the Mona Lisa?

Do I really believe that? Yes, I think so. What am I to do with the pictures? I don’t know. It’s quite a dilemma, isn’t it? I can’t treat them like ordinary pieces of paper, right? I can’t throw them away - God forbid. And if I take them home and tack them to the wall of my office at our church, what does that mean? Does that mean I’ve committed something to these little girls? Will I look at these drawings sometimes and tell people, “Oh, those are from two little girls in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic that I visited once upon a time." Will people who see these pictures think I'm a nice guy because I spent an hour in an orphanage one afternoon?

See, there’s no good answer to this. I ask you, what am I going to do with these pictures?

Hurting children have a way of doing this to you. Their presence demands some kind of response. I wish I could give them enough to care for them for the rest of their lives. But I’m pretty used up these days. Long on ideas and feelings but short on time and strength and money. And my oldest daughter is talking about a trip to Moldova this December that will likely end with our family making a commitment to a child or two for the next decade or so. That’s the problem with the depth of the need in the world. It is endless.

But listen to me now. You just CANNOT let that get you down. Or at least you cannot let is stop you from giving yourself to every small act of goodness that you can. Don’t worry about the big picture. Just find something good to do for someone, and DO IT.

If enough of us commit ourselves to small acts of goodness, the world really does begin to be a better place.

And if not, well, then the hell with the world. Live in your small moments of goodness. Just live there and let that be your highest reality.

Okay back to those pictures. I truly do not know what to do with them. I've placed them carefully in my backpack with my computer, in a place where they cannot be harmed. I'm going to carry them back to San Antonio. And then, I'm going to figure out what to do with them. Something about these pictures is bothering me. I can't figure out a decent response to their obvious value and meaning. Maybe you'll have some suggestions. Think about it, will you?

Oh, and I finally figured out what this day of play with these children means.

It means everything.

rlp

It's so hard for me to write without a lot of planning. I'd like to put the events of the day into a nice, linear package for you. But I can't. I'm tired and it's very late. And I'm still in culture shock. Shocked by the poverty, shocked by the crowds of people, shocked by the lack of privacy, shocked by the loss of control.

Other people feed us. I don't even have any Dominican money on me. I just eat what our hosts provide. It's sort of nice to let go of the job of getting food, but I don't think I realized how much the simple freedom to eat whenever you want is something I take for granted.

Tonight I put together a rather extensive Flickr collection of photos, all with descriptions. You can follow along the day by viewing them.

The collection is here. Or you can view it as a slideshow here.

Today we learned about what Edge calls, "fluidity." You have to stay fluid when you are overseas. It would be easy to let today become frustrating, but it didn't. We had hoped to get started with the two installations, but we had troubles getting materials in both places. The details are unimportant - it just turned out to take the entire day to gather the tanks and make some rather complex plans for the hospital. The hospital was supposed to have gotten supplies ahead of time but didn't because an engineer wanted to talk about it first. Apparently it didn't occur to him that we were going to be on a tight schedule. We ended up buying exactly the things we asked them to pick up for us. We lost a day. No big deal. Kurtis is sure we'll make it up.

We did get to see the hospital, and I was once again touched and surprised. Touched by the good that they do and surprised by the primitive nature of the facility. It is a Care Hospital; there are a number of them around the world. Their water system is horrible, but it's not their fault. The entire city of Santo Domingo has a water problem. You can't get clean water from the tap. You just can't. Everyone uses bottled water. This is extremely expensive for the hospital. They use a fair amount of water, as you can imagine.

Their specialty is pediatric surgery for children with birth defects. 

Half our team worked with Kurtis and an engineer from the hospital to plan our rather complex system. Our three tanks of purified water will tie right into the plumbing of the hospital. Usually our water systems are suited to people coming up to the tanks and drawing water off of them. While some of us went out into town to buy supplies, the other half of our team folded bandages.

That's right. They don't buy pre-packaged bandages here. They buy bulk bandage material and fold them by hand.

Care Hospital Santo Domingo is a 6-story building

The Cistern at Care Hospital. The water is clear, but not safe. Full of bacteria.

Typical traffic in Santo Domingo. One of the reasons it took all day to gather supplies.

We were also able to get the supplies we will need for the YWAM headquarters install, the one you guys payed for.

Let me mention YWAM. I didn't know anything about Youth With A Mission, and I still don't know much. It seems to be a movement started by American Christians that spread this way and has become an indigenous expression of faith. This facility is run by Domincans for Dominicans. I can tell that they are a very conservative group of Christians. Much more conservative than I, certainly. And yet, here they are working amongst the poorest people. And we are in their country. I'm called to be as respectful as if I was dealing with Muslims in Iran or Buddhists in China. Their Christianity is now an indigenous movement among these people. They tend toward charismatic expression and are absolutely passionate about their faith.

Tomorrow night we might go to a worship service. I hear we might have two hours of singing BEFORE the sermon. I'll let you know how that goes.

And there is this. These guys take trips to Africa to help people less fortunate than themselves. They who don't even have clean water in their own facility. That seals the deal for me. So you guys are going to make it possible for them to drink their tap water instead of buying water, which they do for the hundreds of volunteer teams of all denominations who stay here from time to time. Not too many Americans, I wouldn't think. We're too spoiled and the accomodations are too rough. But I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad I've experienced it.

Whether you are a Christian or not, I can testify that you who donated money would be happy to be giving clean water to these people. Absolutely.

On a personal note: The food was very good today. There was something for breakfast that I never did identify. Some kind of pasty, grits-ish, puddingesque thing. Sort of sweet and sort of like Oatmeal. Whatever, I ate every bite. Lunch at the hospital was fun and delicious. Traditional Dominican food. (Pictures of both meals at the Flickr site) We put in a full day, and I'm ready for bed. Check out the flickr photos I mentioned. They tell the story.

Tomorrow we begin the installation work in both places. One of our teams is also going to spend some time taking care of children in a local orphanage. We feel the YWAM install will be so easy that we can spare the time. And the hospital has a solar water heating system that was installed incorrectly. Kurtis the magic man feels we might be able to fix that for them while we're there.

These Edge folks are INTENSE. I kid you not. Do not try to stop them or get in their way. They will find a way to get things done. And if something prevents them from doing one thing, they'll find some other acts of goodness to fill the day.

Tomorrow I'll show you the work we do and introduce you to the team in more detail. I can't wait to show you a picture of Kurtis.

peace,

rlp

Note: I'm likely not going to have a lot of time for editing on this trip, so you're going to get this stuff pretty much right out of my head. I'll have to grab whatever time I can to write.

They say it is always disorienting when you enter a new culture. I know this in my head but have had few occasions to experience it at the level I did today. Santo Domingo left me speechless.

Our team flew into the airport during the afternoon at different times. There are 5 young women from Murray State. One of them - Courtney - is a highly trained Edge intern. She's 19 and fully capable of installing complex water systems in primitive settings and doing water education. The other four are friends of hers who have recently undergone the same training that I did back in October.

Curtis is our team leader. He and Stuart are experienced Edge trainers. Which is good because we'd be lost without them. Then there is Marcia and Rick and I.

Courtney and I

Most of us had arrived by about 5:30. We loaded the equipment in a small bus and left for the YWAM (Youth with a Mission) headquarters here in Santo Domingo. More on YWAM tomorrow. This is a Christian organization that has no connection with Edge Outreach but is allowing us to stay in their headquarters.

Purification Equipment

Curtis

There is no way I can describe the hour and a half journey through the heart of Santo Domingo. This is the stuff you don't see in the tourist areas. The streets were packed with vehicles and bicycles of every kind. The entire center of the city looks poverty stricken, from my point of view. But my point of view is meaningless here. There were so many people. There seem to be almost no traffic laws; cars and buses and bikes and pedestrians weave in and out following some set of rules that they understand but I do not. I wish I could have taken pictures, but it was already dark.

The YWAM headquarters is an abandoned hotel in a very poor neighborhood. I wondered why an official organization with a name and everything would need fresh water, but that just shows how little I understand this world. We are staying in the nicest accomodations available here. There's no hot water and no one can drink from the tap. Everyone drinks bottled water purchased nearby.

Our bedroom

Dinner - unidentifiable hot dogs and huge buns.
Hey, you eat what they give you here.

We are staying with some amazing people. Alberto just got back from the Sahara where he worked with "the poor and underpriviledged." I tried to imagine what kind of people Alberto would consider poor. Again I am having to come to grips with how out of touch with reality my views of comfort and poverty are.

The money you gave is going to install a purification system here at YWAM. Curtis and Courtney scouted the facility looking for the best place to install one. These pictures will give you some idea of the kind of place we are staying at. It's probably the best place in the neighborhood.

Alberto shows us a lower room, one possible location.

We settled on a corner of the kitchen, always a nice place for fresh water.

Tomorrow we have to go to a local hardware store and buy materials for the YWAM install and the larger system we will install at a local hospital. Curtis told me that the hospital's water situation is more primitive than they have here. (Note: The Edge purifiers come with us, but the tanks and pipes and everything else is bought "in country.")

Confession time: 

Okay, I'm not proud of what follows, but it is the truth. It's important for me to admit it because, well, it's the truth. I don't really know how I'm going to sleep here tonight. I have a top bunk with one sheet and no covers. I won't get to shower until tomorrow, maybe. Tonight I'll brush my teeth with a cup of bottled water. Windows are open to the outside, so I don't know what kind of bugs I'll encounter during the night. And to be honest, I had a hard time eating that hot dog. I could only finish about half of it. I have no idea where it was purchased and how long it was on that table. So I'm hungry, and I really don't know when I'll eat next. I hear they are serving us breakfast in the morning, and I'm afraid to see what it will be.

And I'm ashamed of myself because this is as good as it gets here. Our hosts welcomed us and were so delighted that we have come. They've given us their best.

And to think when I arrived at the airport I took this picture because I thought it was going to be a struggle dealing with the fact that you can't get real Diet Coke here. You get Coke Light, which tastes like straight Coke. At the airport, that actually seemed like an issue to me.

What a difference a couple of hours can make.

I'll write more tomorrow. Tomorrow we actually get started.

rlp