Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Busy day in Polo!

Hello Everyone,

    Today we had a very busy day.  We are trying to get together a feeding for the children up in La Lanza.  Originally, we had planned on going down to Barahona today, to pick up some throw away bowls, spoons, cookies, and some other small items for the meal we are going to cook.  We had some rice and beans donated and some one is loaning us some big pots to cook the rice in.  Sister Jennifer and my wife are planning on cooking the beans at home and we will transport all of the food up on Thursday.  The meal was going to be tomorrow afternoon, but everything changed today.  My family and I went over to the Truels to get ready to head down to Barahona, when Pastor Nathan showed up with a woman on the back of his bike.  The woman had been in a motorcycle accident a few weeks ago and it appears that she broke her wrist and maybe her collar bone.  She went to the “hospital” in Barahona and they set her wrist (no cast, just some gauze around her arm) and didn’t even give her a sling.  Well today she came by Bro. Darren’s house and her hand is still badly swollen and her she has a lot of pain in her shoulder.  We were able to make contact with a medical clinic in San Juan (which is about 1 ½ hours away), that is run my some Mennonites.  They have some orthopedic doctors coming in on Monday, so they maybe able to help this woman out.  So we will be traveling with her tomorrow up to San Juan to get some X-rays taken and also to see what they can do for her in the meantime.  There is also a man in La Lanza that may be going with us also, he has worms in his stomach and the medication is not working to get rid of them.
    So while we are trying to get this all set up, Brother Darren goes to try and start his van and it won’t start.  The battery was completely dead, so we put another battery in and that one went completely dead after trying to crank the engine one time.  He has been having some trouble with the alternator lately and just had it rebuilt.  After sometime trying to figure out what was going on, Brother Darren looked underneath to make sure all of the wires were connected correctly and noticed that the last mechanic did not clip the wire to the alternator on securely.  Praise the Lord, that fixed the problem and the van is now running again.
    We thought that we were now ready to head to Barahona (the time is now around 4:15pm) and we notice that my truck is overheating.  There was a small leak on a plastic tube that went into the reservoir.  We added some more water to the radiator and also put some epoxy on the plastic tube.  This seemed to fix the problem.  We took the truck and van down to Barahona and returned with out any problems with our vehicles, Praise to the Lord!
    So, Lord willing, we will have the feeding for the children on Thursday, and tomorrow Brother Darren, Pastor Nathan and I will be heading to San Juan with that woman and the man from La Lanza.  Please pray that they will be able to help her out and that we would have a witnessing opportunity with her.

One more thing before I head to bed, some one asked me a few question pertaining to visiting down here.  I will try to answer them below:

How to get in touch with us?
Here is my cell phone and home phone numbers-
Cell (809) 632-8048
Home (809) 634-8035
Please remember that we live up in the mountains and the phone connections are not very good.  You can usually purchase a Dominican Republic phone card from any Mexican store and try to give us a call.  It would help if you send us an email and we can set up a time to talk.  I can then take my cell phone into Polo and park next to the small cell tower.  I get great reception there!  Also, if you can't find a phone card just let me know and I will give you a call. One more thing, my email address is chrisweltin@yahoo.com.

What not to bring?
Don't bring anything that the Transportation Security Administration will not allow you to bring on a plane.  Besides this you can bring anything you want.  The climate up in the mountains is cool at night so keep this in mind.  Other than that we look forward to anyone who wants to come visit.  If you have any items that you are not sure about, just send me an email and I will get back with you as soon as possible.

How much cash?
If you visit we would take care of the meals at our home and we have two spare rooms for anyone to sleep in.  As of right now we have 2 spare full size beds and 3 bunk beds that can be used.  The amount of money that you would want to bring also depends on how long you will be here and what we may plan to do while you are here.  When I came by myself last August, I brought around $200.00 cash and I stayed for about 10 days.  I ended up not using all of that money, so it all depends on you.  If you can afford the plane tickets, we will try to take care of everything else, as the Lord provides.  We can also pick up anyone from the airport and transport them back to our home in Polo.

How long is the drive from the airport in Santo Domingo to our home in Polo?
It takes about 3 hours to get from Santo Domingo to our home in Polo.  A lot depends on the time of day when you arrive and what the traffic is like in the capital.  Thanks to Brother Darren, I can now get to the Airport and back to Polo, with hopefully no problems.

I hope this helps out some.  We are now settled in and if anyone would like to visit sometime this year just let us know, we would be glad to have you spend some time with us down here in the Dominican Republic.

Thanks again for all of your love and support!
Brother Chris and Family

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