Update on Kristina

 Here is another update from Bro. Jon Zwingle on his daughters condition in Russia:


Today Kristina and mama are coming home. Not that Kristina is doing to much better, but because since it is New Years Eve, the doctors don't work and the staff that do stay on to "help out" drink on the job. So near almost the whole floor that Larysa is staying on, is getting empty because everyone is leaving to go home, rather stay and have no to very little help at all. It's taking a chance but this is what you get here. One father told us that he brought his daughter her exactly one year ago by ambulance and that the doctor was so drunk that you could smell the booze on him and then he prescribed the wrong medication. And so, this is well known here to happened, and thus, people just go home, as we will.
Last night Kristina had one slice of bread and half of a banana, then vomited it up two hours later. As I spoke with Larysa this morning, Kristina ate again, bread, banana and warn cereal w/water. So far so good she hasn't vomited yet. And we also bought some herbal type stuff for the stomach to help line it. The Antibiotics are reaching havoc on her stomach so hopefully this herbal stomach lining remedy will help.
I am borrowing a car to go get them and bring them home. If you would please continue to prayer for her. They are giving her some final meds again before she leaves and we hope and pray we will not have to return by ambulance. I would love to keep her home but if she stops eating and drinking, she will need the IV again. Pray for her stomach and ears please. She has lost a lot of weight and is very weak still.
I praise God for all of you that have prayed for us. I have been humbled by the great care of you all. We can feel alone here sometimes but knowing that there is an army of Gods people praying for us has done nothing but blessed and encouraged us. I having been praying for you as well, and asking the good Lord to have His hand upon you. Please know this!
I will postpone any more updates on her for now, unless something else needs to be mentioned. Lord willing she will be healed soon. I will send out a letter or two later on, depending on the situation. I have had a few people ask what our mailing address is. I will prove it below:

Jon Zwingel

Prospect Veteranov 87 Apt. 545

St. Petersburg 198260

Russia

Thank you again for your prayers and love. God bless you all!

Jon

Update on Kristina

Here is another update on Kristina.  Thank you for praying for her!  Bro. Chris



Dear friends,
A tiring night for both baby and mom. The ear doctor has told us the infection has gone down some but is still there. The good news is that her temperature had finally come down, and seems to be stable. The doctor told us she believes the kidney may be ok now because they found no more infection signs in her urine. So we are very happy to hear that. Sadly though, he stomach is still having problems. She is having diarrhea all the time and her stomach is hard. She has been complaining all night, keeping Larysa up as well. The doctor doesn't want to treat the stomach yet with anything other than anti-gas med. She is still waiting for the ear infection to go away so they can then concentrate on the stomach. Also, please keep Larysa in your prayer as she is now getting sick. Yesterday she started vomiting and diarrhea. So this virus is really working hard to get everyone. I am not sick...yet!

We asked to have the baby moved into a "paid" room for more privacy and "luxuries". Meaning we are going to a room with 5 patients with one sink and bed side stool, to a room for two patients with a TV, small fridge, microwave, sink and tea pot. We are paying for this room rather than for the socialized free room. The cost is not much and we gladly accept it, though still primitive.
More news on the baby is that she was able to walk yesterday after they took out her IV. It's now six days since she ate anything and she is losing weight. She is far from out of the woods with this and we are very concerned.
I would like to say THANK YOU for praying. It is touching our lives. We have heard from so many people from all around the world. Thank you for passing our letters on to others so that we would be lifted up to our Lord in prayer. I thank God for all of you! 
Please find attached some pictures I took yesterday in the hospital. Larysa mom and dad are here now and wanting to help. 
Till next report, may the Lord richly bless you!
Jon Zwingel
Russia

Maybe we have a Vehicle?

Today we might just have found a vehicle.  We were testing driving one vehicle (Bro. Darren and I) when Timothy (Bro. Darren's son) was standing by the van and saw a another vehicle drive by that was for sale.  We were test driving a Mitsubishi 4x4 diesel automatic, when another one drove by Timothy.  Timothy flagged them down and they stopped and said that it was for sale.  It was about $600.00 cheaper and had a manual transmission which is what I wanted from the beginning.  We took it for a test drive and it drove even better than the previous one.  We were even able to take it down a steep hill and crossed over a small stream with it in 4 wheel drive.  Tomorrow morning we will go try and buy it and work out all of the paperwork.  Please keep all of this in prayer.  It is amazing how the Lord works things out!  Thank Him for all of His goodness towards us.  I'll keep you all updated as things progress, Lord willing!

Kristina

This is the email from Bro. Jon:





Dear friends,
Yesterday, the 28th came with no more improved results. The doctors have installed an IV into her arm and also added antibiotics to it as well. So the shots have stopped for now, but they still take blood now and then for tests. She is not eating hardly at all. In fact, its been 5 days since she ate anything of worth. She wants to eat, but can't. She is hasn't vomited in a couple days since I wrote last, but still suffers from diarrhea. I spoke with Larysa on the phone this morning and she said her temperature has gone down to normal, but it seems to fluctuate most of the time. Yesterday we took her to the ear doctor and he could easily see the infection in her right ear. At this time and moment, the antibiotics they are giving her are for the ears and not for the kidney or stomach. They do not want to mix medications and are trying to tackle the head problem first. Once they see the infection in the ears come down, I assume they will then give medications for the organs. 
I spent most of the day in the hospital with the two girls and a trying to help out. Kristina enjoys when I carry her around and sing to her. She has become so weak that she is not able to walk. She lays in our arms or on the bed and will sleep. She hates the IV and we are having to hold her arm down so she wont pull on it. Larysa is absolutely worn out, but she keeps on! She told me on the phone today that she was up all night just holding her arm for the IV. Tomorrow we hope to see the ear doctor again and hopefully hear some good news on it.
I have been moved to tears by your very warm concerns towards our little one. As a father, I have never gone through anything like this before and to see my only child suffering so has been most difficult. If you all would be so kind, to please still keep baby Kristina in your prayers I would be forever grateful. I am sorry for not sending out our latest news and prayer letter for I have not been on the computer much for near a week now. Only to update you all on the baby. I will try to get a good letter out to you soon. The Lord has really opened some doors for us to minister in and we look forward to see Him save souls. But for now, we must attend to family matters.
May God richly bless you!
Jon Zwingel
Russia
slavicmissions@aol.com

Prayer for Kristina

Hello all,
We are back in Santiago looking for a vehicle.  Please pray that the Lord will lead us to the one that he wants us to have.  We need a very good 4x4 truck with an extended cab (for my family to sit in).  This will help to go up into the villages that in the mountains.  Bro. Darren and I went to La Lanza on Saturday night to show a film to a Haitian church that he started back in the late 90's.  Pastor Nathan gave all of the children and members a gift of some crackers and lolly pops and they were very grateful for this.  My heart goes out to the Haitians in the mountains.
Please also pray for little Kristina!  She is the daughter of Jon Zwingle (a missionary to Russia).  He came through our church a couple of years ago.

Well I have to be going for now, was able to write this now because the hotel has internet.

Love you all!
Bro. Chris

Electric....

Good morning or should I say Good Afternoon from the Dominican Republic!  We have had electricity for 1 1/2 days now!  I believe that they (the Dominican Government) are leaving the electric on  because of Christmas!  We are very thankful for this, it is allowing us to get some laundry done.  I was able to buy a washing machine for Melanie this past week, so I got it just in time.  The washing machines down here work as following:
1.  Manually fill the one side up with water
2.  Put clothes in and wash
3.  Then pull clothes out and put into the ringer, which is right next to the washer
4.  Ring the clothes out for 5 minutes
5.  Then put the clothes back into the washer side to be rinsed
6.  Once the clothes are rinsed, put them back into the ringer
7.  Then hang clothes outside to dry and pray that it is going to be a sunny day.

It is a very tropical climate down here, so you pray that you have a sunny day to dry your clothes.  Lately, it has been very overcast with a lot of humidity.  It's so humid down here some days, that if you have a pack of gum it will get all wet and slimey inside.

We are very thankful that the Lord has given us 2 days in a row of sunshine.  Right now it is about 70 degrees outside with a nice breeze.  I know that some of you up there in the states are freezing right now, so I guess you will have to make a trip down here to warm up (LOL).

Bro. Truel has allowed us to borrow his motorcycle, till we are able to find a vehicle.  Yesterday, I took Ben and Ellie for a ride.  When Bro. Truel dropped the motorcycle off, he told me that he was running it off of the reserve tank because he forgot to put some more gas in it.  So off we went to try and find some gasoline from a cammado ( a little Dominican "Mom and Pop" store).  They sell gasoline in beer bottles, because they don't have gas stations up here in the mountains and most Dominicans can't afford to buy 3 gallons at a time.  Well the first commado we came to didn't have any gas and when I went to start the motorcycle up again it didn't start (it was completely out of gas).  So I had a chose to either push the motorcycle back to the house, or to coast down the mountain that leads into Polo.  I chose to coast into Polo and try to find some gasoline there.  This was about 1 1/2 to 2 miles away.  When we got into Polo I decided to try and go to Bro. Moises house to see if he could help me find some gas.  As we were pushing the bike, we came across Timothy Truel.  Timothy decided to come in from the states for Christmas and suprise his parents.  This was a blessing from the Lord that we ran across him and  he was able to go get us some gas for the motorcycle.  We then came across a man who was selling some roasted chickens on the side of the road.  They smelt so good, that I couldn't pass them by.  Melanie had been wanting some chicken and so I bought one for our dinner that night.  A chicken done like this down here cost around $8 to $9 dollars.  We had not had chicken for a while so I bought it and it tasted real good.  Thank the Lord for all of his benefits to us!

Well I must be going for now, hope and pray you all have a wonderful day.  We love and miss you all very much!

Mom or Dad, could you please send me your email address (chrisweltin@yahoo.com).  Thanks! Love you all!

At home...

Hello everyone,
Hope and Pray that everyone is doing well back at home.  Today we are trying out a new item at our house to see if we can get internet.  Being in the mountains makes it difficult to get a good signal.  So far it looks like it might work.  With this internet we should be able to send and check emails, plus do some chatting on Skype.  I'll try to keep everyone updated with all that is going on. 
Also, please pray that the Lord will lead us to the right vehicle for these mountains!  Well gotta go for now!!

Howdy From El Rancho Lembert...

Howdy everyone!  Chris is outside playing baseball with our boys and three Dominican boys that came up the mountain.  I thought I'd take a minute to say hello while we still have this borrowed modem dongle and it still has a few hours of time left on it.

Word has gotten out that "Americanos" are living in Senor Franci's house and Dominican boys have been traveling up everyday to visit.  It's a good way to both learn the language and also develop a relationship with some of the children in the community. 

We are getting more adjusted everyday and the Lord has definitely given grace when needed.

Many have asked what we need, and right now we really have no "needs".  Wants are another story, but it's hard to be too picky when you are living in the midst of people who have nothing and think you are rich.  Truthfully, they are right.  I am rich.  Blessed with "things" for sure, but most importantly an heir to the riches of Christ Jesus. 

If anyone does have a desire to help with physical items, Sister Truel and I would like to try to work with some of the Haitians that live near us in Polo.  They basically have 1 running faucet between 8 families, go to the bathroom in the woods, have a dirt floor and own nothing but maybe a set of worn clothing.  Little dollar toys like rag dolls, jump ropes, flip flops, markers, notebooks and anything like that would be great for the children.  I thought towels, blankets of any kind, and washrags would be a nice gesture for the women.  They sleep on cardboard boxes and will often beg for them.

Chris would like to start going with Bro. Darren into the mountains to work with the Haitians and a gift of any kind helps to soften their hearts.  Most of them cannot read, so building a relationship with them to be able to preach the word of God is on our hearts. 

Chris was able to go into the capital and bring back bread, eggs, small garbage bags and some other household items.  I have never been happier to see sliced, American bread before in my life!  I literally hugged the box of garbage bags.   I know it sounds funny, but if as an American I can be so happy to get a box of garbage bags, imagine how grateful these Haitians who have nothing would be to get ANYTHING at all.  Sister Jennifer said they will sometimes come out to the road and just ask them for anything, just something.  One little boy just wanted a soda, never having had one. 

I'm not writing any of this to try to make anyone back home feel guilty for being American.  On the contrary, I think the Lord can use those who have to be a blessing to those who don't have.

Ideas for cheap things are Dollar Tree and I also thought of Oriental Trading Co.  I tried to shop online myself, but the internet connection is too weak for me to load pages.  One page can take 5-15 minutes to load. It's very hard to get anything not text based done here. 

For the Domincan children, they LOVE baseballs and gloves.  If anyone wants to keep an eye out at thrift stores for those things, they would be of great use.  Just while I was typing this one of the little boys was asking if we could give them a glove.  We allowed them to have 2 of ours to play at with at school.  Baseball is a huge thing here.

Thank you to our home church for the box of food!  Until we get a vehicle, boxed and canned food is what we are subsisting on.  Thank you everyone for your prayers and support.  We'll try to keep you posted as much as possible on everything here. 

At this time, for us to be able to receive any shipments, everything must be weighed and $1.50 per pound must be paid to Missionary Flights International.  This is due to the fact that we are using another missionary's mailing address and his mailing account.  If the senders of the package do not pay for the box, the fees will get charged directly to them and not us.  We realize this is asking a lot, but until we are established, there's no other way to get mail to us. 

We are in the process of getting our own address, and will let everyone know when this is accomplished.

 Instructions are as follows:

1.  Get box ready and weigh it.  Take poundage x's $1.50.  For example, if you box weighs 50 pounds, a check would need to be made out to Missionary Flights International for the amount of $75 to cover the cost of MFI delivering the box to us in the Dominican.

2. Send a check for the $1.50 a pound fee to Missionary Flights International.   Be very sure to mark that the check is for Darren Truel in the notes section.  Address is as follows:

MFI
3170 Airmans Drive
Ft. Pierce, Florida 34946

3.  Send box through your choice of carrier to the following address:

Darren Truel
3170 Airmans Drive
Unit # 4019 - CMBH
Ft. Pierce, Florida 34946

* Fed Ex Ground is probably the cheapest way to send heavy boxes.  From SC, a 50 lb. box costs approx. $28 to send to Florida.   The USPS also has flat rate boxes for around $14 that may work for smaller things. 

**  To make things a bit easier to tell whose mail is whose, you may write "Weltin" on the bottom or sides of the box.  Thank you!

Anyway, I better be going.  We have Dominican services this evening.  Pray we would learn the language quickly.

PS - El Rancho Lembert is the name of the house we live in.  Franci Lembert is the name of the gentlemen who rents this house to us.  He is in the Dominican military and does security detail for the ambassador to Spain.  He and his wife Galena (Jay-Lane-uh) have been very good to us and we thank the Lord for their willingness to let us live in their house.

Wheels for the Truels

 Thank the Lord of all of his goodness.  Bro. Truel was able to get a vehicle yesterday after much work and running around.  We spent the last 2 1/2 days traveling around in the capital trying to get it all worked out, and Praise the Lord, it all worked out!
We now are going to work on trying to get a vehicle for us.  Please pray that the Lord will lead us to the one and that we will also be able to find a good motorcycle to take up further into the mountains.  There are many Haitians in the mountains that have no church or gospel witness.  My heart right now is to try and work up in the mountains.  The border of Haiti is closed due to the Cholera outbreak and some civil uprisings that are happening.  Missionary Flights has been flying out missionaries from Haiti due to the danger.  Please keep all of this in your prayers as there is a lot of work that can be done right here in Polo.  We are only about 1 hour from the border and there are many Haitians here in the Dominican Republic that have fled their country.  I'll try to write more about this in the near future.

Looking for a Vehicle

We spent last night in Santiago.  The process of looking for a vehicle down here is difficult, things are not like they are in the US.  Usually something is wrong with the paperwork or the vehicle.  Thank the Lord for how he allowed the US to be set up. 
Sorry that I haven't been able to post much, but we don't have internet yet in the mountains.  I have been relying on Bro. Truel to get around and he also has the problem of no vehicle, so that is why we are out again.  Please pray that we will be able to work out the paperwork with the one that he has found in the capital.  Also, pray that we will get the equipment we need to use the internet in the mountains.
Praise the Lord for he is good.  The Lord has also provided the funds for us to get a vehicle.  Please pray that we will find the one that he would have for us and that we don't have to do much traveling to find it.  Also, please keep Melanie in your prayer as last night was her first night alone in the mountains.  The kids and Melanie are doing good.  If you would like to call us just find a phone card to the Dominican Republic.  Our phone number is 809-634-8035, this will go directly to our house.  If you call and we don't answer try again, as the phone is up stairs and we may be down stairs and it takes a few seconds to get to it.  Hope and pray you all are doing well.  Must be going we are getting ready to leave the room.

"That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments"

Psalms 78:7

In Santo Domingo

Just wanted to write a quick post to let you all know that we have made it to the Dominican Republic.  We arrived on Dec 4 at around 8:30pm and then drove to Polo, Barahona and arrived their around 1:00am.  It was a long day but the Lord protected us all the way.  We met the Truel's at the Airport and the Lord provided transportation for us all. 
I'm typing this post from a hotel in Santo Domingo.  Bro. Darren Truel is looking for a vehicle and I'm trying to price out how much things are here in the DR.  Please pray that we continue to do the Lord's will and that we will get our phones and hopefully an Internet connection in the mountains where we are now staying. The Lord is good and we are thankful for all the He has provided.
We love you all and thank you for your prayers!

Bro. Chris and family!

Flying Out

Please keep us in your prayers as we are flying out today.   I just looked at the Jet Blue website and our flight is delayed an hour.  This is better than last night, when it was delayed 2 hours.  Also, pray that Bro. Darren Truel and family have a safe trip into the capital of Santo Domingo, DR.  They will be picking us up and transporting us back to Polo, DR.  We love all of our brethren and hope you all have a wonderful day in the Lord!