INVINCIBLE SPIRIT

INVINCIBLE SPIRIT

Occasionally we encounter examples of the Indomitable Spirit of Man.  This man had a terrible accident at work in which a machine cut off his left leg, his hip, his genitals, his anus, and a lot of his intestines.  How he is alive is a miracle in and of itself.  Not only did he survive but Innovacion Orthopedica figured out how to give him a prosthetics that allows him to walk on his own.  The weight of the left side of his body is transferred to his rib cage and his left arm pit which makes it possible for him to walk.  You can see the tube for urine and the bag for colonoscopy.  He is very happy to walk again.  He was married with one child before his accident and his wife remains true and faithful to him.  Don’t complain about your problems!

CUEVAS MARAVILLAS

We finally managed to tour the famous Cuevas Maravillas, natural limestone caves.  It was a fun trip with James and Joy Crismon, the missionaries who live in the apartment next door in the Bishop’s Storehouse. Taking pictures was prohibited inside the caves, but we were able to take some at our entrance and exit.   The path was completely lit with movement sensitive lights.  It was beautiful inside and well worth the effort we made to view this marvel.  We had our own private tour guide, which made it possible to enforce strict adherence to the rule to not touch any of the formations.

 

VISIION PROJECT

We traveled to Higüey to help with the Vision Project.  The doctor was late so Wallace challenged the students to learn how to add faster.  It really caught their attention when Wallace would add up the numbers even before they were written down.  The student would write one 5-digit number on the board, Wallace would write the answer to the summation problem, then Wallace and the student would write down 4 more 5-digit numbers and the sum always came up to the answer Wallace had previously written.  They were impressed and learned how to add fast!

 

Dra Evelyn Diaz is the champion of our vision project.  She is conducting six trainings with the goal of teaching 300 people to be Vision Health Promoters, who go out into the community and find those that may have vision problems and urge them to be seen by a doctor.  Blindness caused by cataracts is the number one cause of blindness in the DR.  May times people do not know that there is anything that can be done to avoid going blind.

 

 

SAN JOSE DE OCOA

It was so good to see our friend Walincon Mateo again.  He has started a large garden that is feeding his relatives that live in a community on the hill called “Parra”.   We went to check on the status of the garden project and urge people to continue building their gardens.  Everyone got excited when Wallace started passing out free seeds.

 

While in Ocoa we held a Closing Ceremony to celebrate the delivery of some physical therapy equipment that was donated by the Church.

This picture of the water truck doesn’t give the full effect of the experience, but it represents what happens when you are waiting for construction.  The water truck with its sprayers at full blast came by and gave all the stopped vehicles a shower while they were waiting.    I suppose it was to keep us all cool!

JAGUA

We discovered Jagua this week.  This fruit certainly has a taste all of its own and is different from anything we have tasted before.