Dominican Republic

Here is a picture of the neighborhood where we served all week. It is a poor squatters village called Hererra in the capital city of Santo Domingo. Three million people live in this city and it is very crowded. I took this photo from the roof of the school where we worked. It's an area with tile floor that is open to the air with a roof covering it. It's open and breezy and a great place to set up our clinic because we can all be in one place.

Here is a picture of what it looked like as we were setting up. ( A church meets here when we're not using it)

We arrived in the DR on Saturday and it was really raining. We spent the rest of the day in meetings and relaxing since we'd gotten to the airport at 4:30AM. Then on Sunday we went to church in the morning (it was a 2 and 1/2 hour service) but they interpreted it for us so that was helpful. Then we went up to the roof and started setting up our clinic. The equipment we use is all portable equipment that we have purchased over the years. The units the dentists use were designed by the military so they can use them in the field. Our chairs are purchased from the Christian dental society and fit in to a box. Our suction is using a shop vac and having PVC pipes designed to bring it down to a straw type suction tip that you have used in dental offices. It's loud but effective. Unfortunately, our shop vacs died on Thursday so we went back to using spit buckets. Not as contained and much grosser but it works.

This is where I worked all week.

We used the garden sprayer as the water source for our ultrasonic cleaner.

 

We saw patients Monday through Thursday from 8 or 9AM to 5 or 6PM and then in the morning on Friday. The hygienists saw 270 patients in the week. We had two hygienists and one assistant working in the hygiene area. It was pretty non stop patients. As soon as I finished one patient I didn't even get up from my chair. I just wiped down things, they brought me a new tray of instruments and a new patient and I was back at it. God gave me all the energy I needed and my body held up just fine. We had great helpers with sterilization (very sub-par sterilization) and getting patients for me to see. The team of people (there was 15 of us) was amazing and a great group to spend a week with. The doctors saw 125 patients. They did extractions, fillings,  and sealants.

It's really encouraging to see how much of a difference our past dental work is making in the kid's teeth. I guess I should tell you that we go to a school that is run by a Christian organization out of Colorado Springs called Vision Trust, Int. There are about 430 students in the school. These kids are the poorest of the poor in the community.  We concentrate our effort on the older kids with permanent teeth unless they have pain with their baby teeth. When I see a student who has had sealants  and fillings by us in the past I can almost guarantee their teeth will be without decay. But if we see a student who has come in to the school since we were last there I can almost guarantee they will have decayed teeth and maybe to the point of having to have it extracted.

I got to meet my new friend, Maite that I am sponsoring now.

I have sponsored a girl in the school for the past 8 to 10 years and she recently moved out of the neighborhood. So they asked me if I wanted to take on another student and I said yes. This was the first time I have met her. She was shy at first. We communicate through an interpreter. As the week went on she came to see me every day at the end of her school day. She got more talkative and it was really a treat for me to see her so many times. I brought her a little gift bag with markers, a drawing book,stamps, hair ribbons and headband, socks and stamps. It was fun to bless her with that because she doesn't get much of anything special.

This kind of shows how it is open to the outside with bars up to the roof.

Here is a picture of the mission house where we had home cooked Domincan food. The two dentists from our practice are standing. Brent is on the left and Caleb on the right.

Here are some of my coworkers. Yolanda in in the green and is an assistant. Jan is standing and is a new front desk helper and came to work there as a result of being in my Bible study at church. Sally on the right is my fellow hygienist and my roommate for the week. These are all great friends!

The week was great but I am really glad to be home. I slept, went to church and watched TV all day yesterday. I was really tired. Early in the week God brought to my attention the verse Ephesians 2:10, "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God has prepared for us to do." That's what I kept my mind on this week and could see that God gave me all I needed to do this "good work". He gets all the credit. Thanks to many of you that helped support me financially. You get eternal reward for that too!

I love you all!