Meet Creilyn....

"I want to tell my sponsor thanks! The medicines are very expensive. If I were non-sponsored it would take a lot of money for health and dental services because in my country it is very expensive. The doctors take good care of us and are very affectionate. I also want to tell my sponsor I like to play and I am a very good boy."

– Sponsored child Creilyn, from Santiago, Dominican Republic

You Asked For It!

Several of you have requested photos of children using the newly-remodeled Children International community center in Cienfuegos, Santiago, the Dominican Republic. I located a few shots sent to me by Dayanara, our communications coordinator, and thought I'd share them with you...

Measuring up (above): This child's medical records are getting ready to get an update. We carefully monitor children's height and weight in an effort to detect and prevent malnutrition and make sure development is normal.

Writing your sponsor is fun -- especially when you get to work with a friend!

Dr. Luisiana is going to make sure this young man keeps his winning smile...

One of the greatest benefits Children International provides sponsored children is free medications. Often, if poor families are even able to see a doctor, they do not have the money to fill a prescription. Children International backs up its free basic health care by making sure the children have the medicines they need to get -- and stay -- well.

As Promised…Pictures of the Grand Opening in Santiago, Dominican Republic

Well, it’s been a couple of weeks since we opened Children International’s newly remodeled Robert and Paula Larkin Center in the Cienfuegos community of Santiago, Dominican Republic. This center includes a lovely community hall named “Dan’s Place” in honor of Dan Truax. Dan is a sponsor who was critically injured in an auto accident in the Dominican Republic as part of a missionary team involved in improving the homes of a number of sponsored children. He remains hospitalized, and we wish him all the best in his recovery.

I’ll spare you the details of my delay-riddled flight back to Kansas City…but, as promised, I want to share with you a few pictures from the grand opening of the Larkin Center and Dan’s Place.

Photo 1:
I visited this center a number of times prior to it being remodeled. Had I not known the details, I would not have recognized it as the same place! The larger building in the front is the Robert and Paula Larkin Center, while the slightly smaller building in the rear is Dan’s Place.

Photo 2:
Left to right: Sponsor Bennett Scher, Sponsors Alejandra and Frank Moll, Children International Regional Director Connie Keyser and Children International Vice President of Marketing Brian Anderson rise from the head table in honor of the Dominican and American national anthems.

Photo 3:
Sponsor Frank Moll, who sponsors 27 children – 26 of whom live in the Dominican Republic – addresses the crowd. Although Frank and his wife, Alejandra, live in Los Angeles, their roots are Dominican and Cuban. They are excited about the prospect of helping bring hope to an area of the world that has long been dear to their family.

Photo 4:
A sizable audience of community residents and invited dignitaries joined CI’s local staff to celebrate the inauguration of the Larkin Center and Dan’s Place.

Photo 5:
Alejandra Moll officially inaugurates the Robert and Paula Larkin Center by cutting the ribbon, held by Santiago agency director Amparo Guerrero, as the other sponsors, Children International employees and sponsored children look on.

Photo 6:
Later, a medieval musical ensemble from a local university entertained the audience in Dan’s Place.

Day Two in the Field - Santiago, Dominican Republic

Today was pretty much what you would expect in the wake of a tropical storm. Dayanara (communications coordinator) and Rosa (field officer) took me to a community known as La Otra Banda -- "The Other Band". Our driver took us as far up the muddy hill as he could, but then we had to get out and walk. We found out a few minutes later that his efforts at gaining traction had really done nothing but gain him a flat tire.

We had two families to visit in this community, so we slogged up a hillside so steep we had to form a human chain to keep from succumbing to the call of gravity. And the mud -- gooey, stickey mud, the kind that will suck your shoes right off your feet. Good thing my wife let me know right before I left that my favorite pair of boat shoes really wasn't her favorite anymore!

I'll tell you the rest of the story in pictures.

Photo 1 (above):

The two families we visited were oddly similar -- and the similarities ran beyond just the fact that they only lived a few hundred yards apart. Both are desperately poor. Both have large families...one has four children and the other six children. Both moms are named Dilcia. And both of their oldest sons, though not out of grade school yet, have to work in the mornings selling shelled peas or fruit salad (one even works taking out the neighbors' trash) to help their families stay afloat.

Then they go to school. If they don't find a ride with someone, they have to walk. The walk is two hours each way.

One of the children has epilepsy, and the doctor won't let him start school yet even though he's six. That means mom can't work. And with the rain, the boys wouldn't be selling fruit salad today, maybe tomorrow, maybe even for several days, so things aren't looking good in the pantry.

Sponsorship can't fix all their problems, but it has given them the gift of hope. Both moms have big plans for their kids. Through the educational help they receive from Children International, they're going to break out of poverty and make better lives for themselves. One of the boys even dreams of being a college professor.

At the end of our visit, we send someone to the corner store and make sure both families have enough food to last for several days, and then we slide back down the hill to our waiting van.

Photo 2 (above):

Concerned about the welfare of our sponsored families, we set out for the river to view the flooding from the storm. On our way, we met this sponsored youth crossing a rickety wooden bridge over a flood-swollen canal. I, too, got the privilege of making the crossing several times in search of the right picture...

Photo 3 (above):

I didn't even TRY to cross this one...especially since Rosa reflected ruefully that she had already put her leg through this crosswalk some time back.

Photo 4 (above):

These houses are in the danger zone since the Yaque del Norte river is on the rise. Some residents of this area have already been evacuated by the government.

Photo 5 (above):

I took this shot from a catwalk running alongside a huge red span bridge, hanging over the Yaque del Norte. We had to weave our way on foot across four lanes of crazy traffic that didn't seem to care whether we made it or not. Notice the flooded-out house in the river in the lower right hand part of the photo. The placid city scene with the famed Monument to the Heroes of the Revolution rising behind the river seems strangely incongruous with the chaos below.

My Internet connection here is sketchy at best, but I hope to upload more photos by Friday morning. Check back!

Soggy Success in Santiago

Early Monday morning, I drove to one of Kansas City International Airport’s peculiar, round terminals and hopped on a plane....Destination? Santiago, Dominican Republic.

I guess I was shell-shocked from my last two trips, with the haunting memory of hours spent in airport terminals or stopped on the tarmac waiting for the bad weather to lift from the airports I needed to reach in order to get home.

But this time, all went incredibly smoothly. I didn’t even know a tropical storm had hit Santiago until I got off the plane and found out it was raining cats and dogs outside. And today it was evident that it won’t take much to cause some severe flooding…authorities are having to open the floodgates on the dam to relieve the incredible stress it’s under, and water is just a few feet away from some of the shacks of the hopelessly poor people who have nowhere to live but along the riverbanks. I’ll try to get pictures tomorrow if I can.


Today I spent the day with a warm and gracious couple named Frank and Alejandra Moll. The Molls are from Los Angeles, although their roots are Dominican and Cuban. They are in the Dominican Republic to visit 26 of their 27 sponsored children – 18 of these in Santiago (the rest live in Santo Domingo, while one child lives in Guatemala). Besides the Molls, the rest of the group was made up of Diomaris, chief of sponsor relations for Children International’s Santiago agency; Nurys, who works in Sponsor Relations, and world traveler, new CI development officer and all around cool guy Jeremy Parker, who speaks English, French, Spanish (he says he doesn’t!) and two African languages I won’t even try to pronounce. And of course, we couldn’t have made it without William, our patient van driver who each night swabs the mud out of his van and lovingly polishes it inside and out, only to see it turned into a mud pit by the end of the day.


We took the Molls to the Children International community center in El Flumen. This community center is modern and airy, and is generally packed with families who show up to receive sponsorship benefits, see the doctor or dentist or attend a workshop. Then, after a quick visit with the staff and a tour of the facilities, we braved the rain back to the van and headed out to visit two of the Moll’s sponsored children. Warm welcomes awaited us in the cramped and humble structures these families call home (odd—they were both bright yellow), and some of the kids couldn’t resist hamming it up for the camera.


But the most exciting part came next. We drove to a popular pizza place, where the Moll’s 18 sponsored kids from the Santiago area met us, along with their families. Talk about a crowd – we OWNED the place! Smiles, laughter, a few tears, songs, speeches, gifts…I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that not one of those children will ever forget the day their sponsors came to town.


We were accompanied on this part of the trip by Pedro, the Santiago agency’s photographer, who came along to film the event. Pedro is a neat guy…He started working for Children International about a year ago, after working 10 years as a professional photographer. Pedro’s older brother was sponsored by Children International in the early 90s, but Pedro didn’t realize we were the same organization – since at that time our agency was known by a local name – until he was in the final parts of the interview process.


As he speaks about the work Children International does in Santiago, his eyes burn with the fervor of a true believer. Like others, he has discovered parts of his own city he never dreamed existed until he began to work for CI – areas where poverty lies over the communities like a deathly pall. But he has seen what sponsorship will do, and he feels working for Children International is his calling.

“Sometimes I just want to brag [about sponsorship],” smiles Pedro. “I am so proud to work for Children International!”

P.S. Frank Moll asked me to pass along a challenge…he’d like someone to outdo him and sponsor 28 children. But, says Frank, if you have just one sponsored child, sponsor another; you’ll be twice as rewarded!

I’ll be blogging more in the next couple of days about the time I spend in the communities and the grand opening of our newly remodeled community center in Cienfuegos, so please check back.

Great News on Awilda!

For those of you who have been following Awilda's story, I want to share a heart-warming report. A few days go, we received the following information from our agency in Santiago:

Thanks to the wide-spectrum antibiotics from our clinic that our doctors prescribed, the culture on Awilda came back negative. No pathogenic microorganisms were found. It only showed that she once had an infection, and that she once had osteomyelitis.

"Few children reach this stage -- most have to undergo amputation... We hope she will continue like this," said Dr. Vargas as she excitedly gave us the good news.

At this time, Awilda will take other medications for 5 days. They are treating her foot daily, and will do so over the period of one month. Afterwards, she will undergo an evaluation by an orthopedic doctor to determine what next steps should be taken. They will buy her some special inserts for her shoe to minimize irritation to the foot (they are getting estimates for them now).

Awilda is very close to the hearts of the Children International team that visited her in May, to the Santiago agency and to others here at the home office in Kansas City -- and of course to her sponsor. And, as evidenced by the generous donations and expressions of concern we have received, it's also clear she's gotten close to the hearts of our readers!

This is a remarkable case where saving Awilda's foot and eradicating her osteomyelitis (something doctors were saying was virtually impossible when we were there) is, I believe, directly attributable to the scrutiny and attention this case received from Children International and all of you, our friends on the blog.

So...KUDOS!!!

A New Perspective on Life

Posted on behalf of Dayanara Reyes

Last Friday I was on my way home from work – in the rain – thinking about all I had experienced during the week. I was reflecting on the people here in the Dominican Republic who have jobs that are hard but pay little. I thought about the sicknesses, malnutrition, lack of basic and personal necessities…and how, in spite of all this, these people remain optimistic, with a desire to better themselves and a hope for change.

All of this came to mind after my bosses asked me to talk about my childhood and how my life has changed since I began my duties, as part of a possible feature for Children International, the organization I work for. Hmmmm…that question demanded an answer, but it was not a simple answer. It was a deep reflection…. God has given me the opportunity to have and experience great things; I’m fortunate to have food, clothing, a good education, a good salary for the work I do and – even better – the ability to help and create in others a consciousness of those who have not been as fortunate as I have.

I’ve often received emails with pictures of people doing special types of work and children who live in extreme poverty; these are intended to cause people to appreciate the things they have in life. Allow me to show you a few pictures that I took myself, and let me share with you the experiences I had the privilege of having last week – experiences that cause you to ask yourself some tough questions.

You’ve probably heard on a number of occasions (as I had) about the “divers” (people who work in garbage dumps); they have no other way to make a living…no other choice. They work without gloves, under terrible conditions and exposed to diseases. I show you these pictures as just a few examples of the many people I saw when we visited the city dump last week. These people scrounge around in the trash for materials they can sell to recyclers – and sometimes they search for food for their families.






I’ve learned a lot since coming to work for Children International. I’ve visited areas of my own city that I never even knew existed. I’ve seen the raw ugliness of poverty, walked down parasite-infested streets where little children run barefoot, listened to crippled children talk about their dreams…and this has created in me a determination to do everything within my power to bring about change.

Dayanara is the communications coordinator for our agency in Santiago. She accompanied the Children International team that was in the Dominican Republic last week. These pictures were taken on the visit to the dump that Sarah wrote about in her post last Wednesday, Down in the Dump.