New Button and New Toys!!

Notice the new button to the right!! That's right, you can now make a monetary donation. Keep in mind that any amount will help!!-even $10 :)

You can still purchase items off the wishlist. I have added more as the donations have continued to come in.

Thank you to the following people who have donated over the past week!!!

Marcy Dodge

Angela Grisham

Amy and Craig Dunlap

Christen and Mary Kaye Quinters

Tawny and Stephen Cooper

I appreciate you so much!

The toys are continuing to arrive and take over our guest room!!

Meet Angel and Wish list update

WISHLIST UPDATE!!!!

Almost all of the items that can be purchased and shipped online are bought!! Great job everybody! Thanks to the following people who I received their donations yesterday: 

Lindsey and Drew Childers

Kristen Sebastian

Carole and Tom Kelley again!

Matt Avery

Because there aren't many items left that can be shipped from online ordering, if you would still like to contribute, please do one of the following:

1. Send a Target GIFT CARD, wishlist item or in-store item -make sure you put who it is from!

2. Donate funds to help cover the cost of the team's trip expenses (without a plane ticket, this is close to $900).

3. Donate airline miles to help cover the cost of the team's travel (Tickets are between 35,000-70,000 miles)

You can e-mail me at annaharper@gmail.com with any questions about donations other than target items!!

Meet Angel.....

This is Angel. He is 7 years old and has cerebral palsy. He doesn't walk, talk, sit or roll over but he has a precious smile that is almost constant!! I worked with him when I was on summer staff in 2006. He hasn't changed much which, for his diagnosis, is actually a good thing. He still has great range of motion and no deformities!  In this picture is his father on the right and the therapist, Aquilino, is on his left. 

 

Aquilino works in the mission clinic 3 days a week and often goes to the children's houses that are unable to get transportation to the clinic.

Angel was one of the children that received a pair of the donated braces.  They are to keep his ankles stretched out and prevent deformities.  

This is a sweet picture of Angel the first time I met him in 2006.

And another one of us together...

Gracious Giving! And....meet Justin

Hello all.  Thank you so much for those of you who are continuing to give support!  The items from the wish-list are continuing to come in but there are still lots of things that need to be bought.  

I have had a couple questions about where to send them, but please send all items to my house.  The address is on the target website (if you are shipping directly from them).  If you get something in the store and would like to send it, contact me and I will get you my address.

Thanks to the following for giving so generously:

Carole and Tom Kelley

Tawny and Stephen Cooper

Brandie and Jason Means

Ryan Boughan

Carolyn and Randy Allen

Laura Caldwell-again!

Yanira Brown

Leanne and Hunter Deweese

Here is one of the families who will benefit from your sweet giving!:

This is Justin (Americanized pronunciation) :) 

His mother is Rosa.  He has cerebral palsy and has difficulty sitting by himself and is unable to walk.  His mom is a single mother and has unstable work because of her commitment to caring for him.  She is wonderful and was so eager to learn new things to help her son make progress.  

I look forward to working with her more in the future.  I know he will love the toys that light up and sing!

Mystery Item

I received another item today-the red, yellow and blue basketball BUT it did not come with a packing slip.  So, if this was you, I would love to thank you!! If it was meant to be anonymous, then no worries-thank you so much!  It looks like things are continuing to be bought so keep it up!  

 

Here are a few pictures of typical Dominican scenes:

Rainy Day in Cielo (the town where we spend most of our time):

 

Just hanging out:

Andrew goofing around with Jesus:

The first item has arrived!!!.....

It was so exciting to get home from work with a box waiting for me at the front door!! Thanks Laura Caldwell for the Baby Walker :)  There have currently been 19 items purchased...Sorry I can't see who they are from until they arrive.  Happy Tuesday!

Thank you!

Thank you so much to Whitney Warfield, Craig and Corrie Inman and Brandie Means (and more that I won't be able to see until the Target packages arrive) who have already contributed!! 

Wish List

You can help buy things for the Dominican clinic through this target wishlist: 

https://www.target.com/lists/38K5DTKNEWE34. 

I am really excited because I just discovered Target wish lists-they are just like wedding/baby registries but this will benefit the therapy gym!! I  have set-up a wishlist through Target that has all the "extras" that will really make the clinic whole.   It ranges from baby rattles to basketball hoops and also includes the necessities like disinfectant wipes and ziploc storage pieces.  This clinic will have most of the up-to-date equipment that a typical US pediatric clinic will have.  What we are missing are the things that bring it to life and allow the children to enjoy their therapy.  Thank you so much to those of you who have offered loyal support in the past and welcome to those of you who are just starting the rewarding involvement in changing the lives of special children in the Dominican Republic :) If you would like to contribute, please visit the wish list and order some items. https://www.target.com/lists/38K5DTKNEWE34.  The items range from $1.99 to $55.99. I will be updating the blog with toys/other donations as they come in.  

Quick Updates

Exciting things are happening in the continued development of the pediatric physical therapy gym!!  

-Air conditioning is installed

-1,000 pounds of equipment will be arriving in about a month
-3 new kids have been added to the program since my last trip in January
-There will be 2 additional team members on the next trip.  The first is an orthotist who will be using old braces and, with his equipment, adapting them to make them custom fit for the children.  These braces typically fit 8 months to a year so this will be a great project with a lasting impact.  There will also be an occupational therapist who owns his own pediatric clinic.  He will be helping with setting up all the equipment and consulting on different ways to make it run efficiently and serve the kids in the most effective way!  

Once the equipment arrives in the DR (it is leaving from a port in philadelphia and will be on the water for 2 weeks, then in customs for 2-4 weeks)  our team will go. 

The Latest Adventure

The latest challenge was figuring out a way to get the donated equipment down the DR.  As you may or may not know, the DR has a horrible postal service and getting oddly shaped and really heavy items on the plane is close to impossible.  The best I have done is getting a wheelchair to the DR for Joel and that required me telling the airline staff that it was my wheelchair.  One of Jack Larson's contacts (Exec. Dir. of Mission Emanuel in the US) works for MMI-www.mmint.org. This is a ministry that ships medical equipment to many different countries to help their missionaries provide better health care.  They currently have our equipment in their warehouse.  Here are some of the parts of this adventure:

In order to get this set-up correctly to weather more than a month long journey, it had to be loaded onto pallets and shrink wrapped.  Thank you to all the people who donated and discounted items!!  Thank you Callie and Garrett Griffin for letting us store over 1,000 pounds of equipment in your garage for o

ver a month :)  We couldn't have made this happen without your help!  Also, thank you to Tawny Cooper and her father, Jorge for helping us with shipping so that the price of shipping was MUCH less than what I could have found on my own.  It cost a little less than $900 for the shipping. 

For just one instance of God's humor and presence in this whole operation was that I was required to use paypal to pay for the shipping. For some reason, my paypal account would not let me use credit-I had to pay with an echeck.  BUT this takes 3-5 days to process.  So, thankfully, the shipping company was in FAYETTEVILLE!!  My mom, in her typical fashion, drove the check right over 2 hours before the pick-up in Dallas and everything was on time! Thanks Mom :) 

Brett DeVore, my boss from the clinic where I worked in Atlanta (Kiddos' Clubhouse), and his wife Nell graciously donated gym mats for the clinic.   They will be used daily and add a ton of color to the now empty room.  Thank you Nell and Brett!!  Hopefully Brett will be joining me on my next trip!

The piece I am most excited about now is the LiteGait.  It is a body-weight supported system that goes over a treadmill that allows us to help kids learn or re-learn to walk with much less effort from the therapist.  These units usually cost about $4500.  Thank you Kevin!!-who sold me one for only $800.  The final item that will arrive next week is a treadmill to complete the system.  Here is a picture of how it works: 

Hopefully, the finalized gym will look something like this:

*Thank you to the following people/places that donated equipment, their time and resources for this most recent project:

Kevin 

Jorge Guiloff-North American Trade Corp

Mike Walker-Case Stack, Inc.

Lisa Higgins and Family

Callie and Garrett Griffin

Nell and Brett Devore

Amanda Burnett-Medical City

Cara Smith-Texas Scottish Rite

Cari Copeland Dixon

Katie Peglow-Adaptivemall.com

Franck Vautrin

Anne Butt

Our history with the mission

I have to preface this with the statement that none of this has been done because of my doing.  I give all the credit to our great God who has put people in my life that have been able to support me and lead me to other people that are able to give advice, donations and contacts to make everything happen.  It has been amazing already and I feel so lucky that I am getting to be even a small part in the great story!

I became involved with Mission Emanuel-missionemanuel.org-(which is still the organization that I go through) when I was a sophomore at Wake Forest.  It was an amazing, eye-opening experience and I was hopeful that I would be able to return sometime.  The following year I was able to go through a Wake Forest scholarship and had another amazing week-long experience.  From that time until I graduated from PT school I thought about the families I had met and constantly desired to return.

In January of 2005, Andrew and I began talking about how neat it would be to go on a trip

 together during one of the 5 trips that is there through the month of June and July.  We called First Pres (our Wintson-Salem church that sends multiple groups each year) and said we were interested in going on the family trip. 

 Through prayer and discussion, we ended up committing to be on summer staff for the entire 5 weeks.  Many of you were involved in offering support for that trip-thank you so much! 

During this time, I worked in the clinic daily.  I provided therapy to the many kids with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, prematurity and other unknown syndromes.  One child I worked with specifically is named Joel.  I will tell his story in another post.  Andrew helped with the many construction projects that were in progress during that time.  It was so neat to be able to share this experience in 2 completely different roles.  

We were able to go again and 

visit friends in July of 2007 and I was able to take another short trip in January of this year.  Between July 2007 and January 2009, another building had been completed.  It is a large pediatric health care center that sits on a hillside and looks over beautiful, lush land.  In the future, it will house a pharmacy, audiology suites, a conference room for coordination of care meetings and parent education, and dental suites (I know I am leaving out more).   It also houses the completed room for the therapy gym. It is currently the only mission building that is air conditioned!! You can read about what the current status is of this in another post. 

Mission Emanuel's main activity involving Americans is sending groups on week-long short-term mission trips in which the team participates in building houses, working on community projects like building basketball courts, baseball fields, playgrounds, etc. and assisting with the multiple ongoing projects including a women's coop, a water purification plant, 2 schools, 2 churches-both Haitian and Dominican, a dental clinic and a medical clinic.  There are many families who have been visiting the DR through Mission Emanuel for more than 10 years!  Each year, the mission continues to reach out to the community to provide improved education, discipleship, medical care and overall quality of life.  You can visit the website to get more information on what Mission Emanuel does. 

Mission Emanuel is always looking for people to both serve on one of these trips and support those that do serve on one of these trips.  If you have any desire to support Mission Emanuel, please let me know and I will let you know about the many opportunities available. 

Welcome!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to my new blog for updates on Mission Emanuel.  As many of you may or may not know, Andrew and I have been involved in this mission in the Dominican Republic for the last 7 years.  I wanted to start this blog because we are working on completing the pediatric therapy center that will offer the best pediatric therapy on the island (our hopes!!).  This blog will help keep you updated! 

Enjoy!