Dominican Republic: The Medical Clinic

We arrived home Sunday night from our mission trip to the Dominican Republic. We were supposed to get home Saturday, but there were several delays. It was an exhausting two days of travel and we are so glad to finally be home with our boys. We missed them terribly, but we had an amazing trip and we hear they had a great time with family.

I am still processing everything we experienced and all God taught me last week. I am sure I won't be able to get everything in to just one post, so I wanted to start by sharing some pictures and a couple of videos from the first few days of our trip.

We arrived in Santa Domingo around 9:00 on Thursday night. We ate a quick dinner at the hotel and then went to bed. The next day we drove to Barahona, which is where we spent the remainder of our trip.
We were able to visit the beautiful beach near our hotel. We enjoyed our day as we waited for the rest of our group to arrive.

We awoke early the next morning to assist doctors at a medical clinic. When we arrived at the school to set up the "clinic" we were met by many people who were waiting for us. The precious baby below was the first of many babies I was able to hold. This sweet girl fell asleep in my arms and I would have held her all day, but her mom had to take her to see the pediatrician.
I went to see if any of the doctors needed any help. The first one I talked to was the pediatrician who I assisted for the rest of the day. I spent most of the day holding and entertaining little children as their moms talked to the doctor.
Justin was busy taking video of everyone, so I didn't see him much. He said he kept asking people if they had seen me and they would say, "last time I saw her she was holding a baby." That pretty much summed up my day and I loved every minute of it.
This precious girl was so beautiful. She sat quietly in my lap and when it was time for her to go with her mother, she turned and planted a kiss on my cheek. Melt my heart!

The picture below shows just some of the people who were waiting to see the doctor I was working with. These sweet mothers waited for hours outside in the heat, without tv or magazines to entertain them, so the doctor could spend a couple of minutes examining their children. Sadly, one of our ministry bags filled with medicine did not make it in time for the clinic, so many of these families had to be turned away. I felt so awful for them. I will think twice before I ever complain about waiting for a doctor again.
The last baby the doctor examined was cutie pie Edwin who took a nap in my arms.
I enjoyed spending time with Edwin and his adorable big sister.
I was even nice enough to let my hubby hold him for a minute. Oh, melt my heart, again!!!
I really have to say that the time we spent at the medical clinic were some of the best moments of our entire trip. It was a long, hot day, but I was so blessed by the people we met. It was a perfect way to start our week in Barahona.

Here is a little video Justin made from our day at the clinic.

Dominican Republic :: day dos from North Monroe on Vimeo.