Welcome to the World!

Little Isileidy came into this world on Saturday, January 14th, weighing in at 7 lbs 8 ounces. Although she was healthy, her Mama wasn't. I hadn't realized how serious it was until after the fact, but apparently we almost lost Yuleidy. Due to severe anemia and not being able to stop her bleeding, lots of fluid and four pints of blood later they were able to bring her around.

When I went to the hospital to see her, they wouldn't let us in. She wasn't out of the woods yet and she was in intensive care. Intensive care, not in the sense that you and I think of. It didn't look sterile at all and there wasn't very much care involved. I kept praying, "Lord, just let me see her even if for a minute." And just after I finished praying, a nurse saw me standing at the door and waved to me to enter. She said all I could do was peek my head in and I told her that's all I needed.

When I rounded the corner to her room, i had to fight back tears as not to scare her. It looked like she was in a storage room that they just threw a hospital bed into. There were literally randomly placed filing cabinets surrounding her bed with just a small passage-way to reach her. This small child, laying all alone in a storage room with blood and fluids filling her veins. She looked like she was on death's door but as she turned to see me, a little smile. I smiled back and started to step in the room. The nurse stopped me and said, "You told me you just wanted to look." "But can't I just go hug her really quickly?" I asked. "No." The head doctor noticed me standing there and began shouting. By this time three of her friends had huddled behind me without my knowledge and the doctor pointed her crazy finger at them. I quickly told her that I loved her and that I was praying for her, and that was it.

She apparently improved through the night and I called her sister-in-law, Carolina, to see what the news was. She was back home in The Hole. I hopped in the jeep and drove there, to enter into a house completely filled with people. If it were me, I would have been completely overwhelmed.

Yuleidy looked exhausted but a hundred times better than the day before. Isileidy was already a pro at breastfeeding and it was so rewarding to see her Mama relishing in her new role.

Keep praying for this one. When the newness wears off and she's overwhelmed with exhaustion and the baby wakes up for the fourth time to feed; pray for perseverance and joy. Pray for her relationship with her "husband" who is only 21 himself. Pray for God to reign over them and raise up a new generation of parents. Pray that God touch their hearts in a big way, through this little blessing.

Photo of the Week-1/3-1/10

grismeily is shy, reserved and pierces your heart with a single stare. she is the youngest of four and the only girl. when i found out her mom was pregnant and that she was a girl, i don't know why, but i was so excited. maybe, if nothing else, just for her mom who was surrounded by boys. maybe because i knew she would be one loved little girl. and maybe because i thought, just maybe, her mom may warm up to me a little bit given that i had a little girl too.

you see, up until grismeily was about one month old, her shy, reserved mother was very weary of me. i had loved her boys for almost four years and said hello to her and hugged her whenever i could, but still she was very stand-offish. never rude or blatant, just weary.

when grismeily was one month old, i had been making headbands as a fundraiser for our ministry. i saw one that i had made and thought of her immediately. the next week i brought it to her mom. elisabeth's eyes lit up. she was so excited. something as small as a headband with a flower became my window of opportunity to love her as much as i loved her children.

even at age 22, elisabeth is one of the most caring, loving mothers i have ever known. even me, at 30, i don't know how she does it; caring for three boys and a baby girl. and although our friendship isn't where i would love it to be, i know for some, trusting doesn't come quickly.

grismeily and her headband, about 6 months old when she could finally wear it!

The Perez Family

I had another opportunity to photograph one of the missionary families. If you've spent time on our blog before, you would have seen there faces many times!

It's been fun to know them through their engagement, wedding and then with children. And what a unique opportunity I've had to photograph all those special milestones here and here and here. (I also photographed their wedding but can't seem to find that post!) Enjoy their most recent pictures and their awesomely, energetic toddlers! Woo...have they got their hands full!

my favorite from the day

sweet Stella, we became fast friends this day! i loved finally having some time with these girls!

the adorably rambunctious, Amelia!

can you tell which one's which? they are much easier to keep straight in person (amelia-left; stella-right)

The Leach Family + Colton turns One

i never knew being a missionary was in my cards. i always wanted to have my own studio. take pictures of families and kids and engagements. i thought when god called me to the mission field i'd have to give up all that. little did i know god would bless me with opportunities beyond what i could ever dream up myself.

i work (and i use that term loosely because we actually do life together) with a group of amazing people. couples, families, singles...we are a tightly knit group of friends, a family really. so when sunshine and eric asked if i could take some pictures for them, i was so excited.

i have done some other missionaries' pictures before. i love doing it. i love being able to balance my job and my love of photographing people, right where they are in life. sunshine and eric's son, colton, turned one in september. so we did a little combined one-year shoot and a family shoot. it was so much fun and sunshine and eric are incredible parents. i loved watching their little family through my lens. enjoy!

can you say, baby model?

this was a total accident, and i totally love it!

Photo of the Week-10/15-10/22

we drive through busy streets and bushels of plantains. we pass by a public hospital and a run-down baseball field. we enter the barrio on a dirt road that was made more for a four-wheeler than a fifteen passenger van. the terrain is completely different. what once was a vacant lot now has tin and wood shacks everywhere. naked children chasing homemade kites. goats grazing on small mounds of trash.

Santa Lucia.

i've never liked its unofficial name. la mosca, the fly. i mean, i get it. the name makes sense. its just that the name is almost a stamp of doom for the people living there. it doesn't boast of education and prosperity and hopefulness. it screams of desperation and poverty and despair.

the trash was burning again. the dump must have a new owner. it was so nice when there wasn't a mountain-size pile of trash burning and blowing smoke and stench into the streets. the smoke meant one thing. flies. flies everywhere. i was afraid to breathe with my mouth open and walk too briskly for fear that one might enter in.

the kids weren't healthy because of it. they were being fed by the nutrition center so they were a healthy weight but their skin had sores and infections. those pesky flies. can't they just leave the kids alone?

it caught me. right in the middle of feeling like i was in my groove. like i was right where God wanted me. like i was making a difference. right when i felt like hope was being restored in The Hole and i was doing something tangible. it caught me. there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of places just like The Hole. and a lot of them are worse. places like Santa Lucia.

i wasn't prepared for this flood of emotion. and just when i thought it couldn't get any worse, a little boy about landon's age walked by with a limp. nothing more than a limp. for all i knew, he could have stubbed his toe and didn't want to put his weight on it. but in my mind his twelve year old mother contracted a virus from the flies during her pregnancy and it caused a malformation in his hip joint causing it to develop unnaturally. this four year old boy doomed to life with a limp and ridicule and laughing and unemployment and loneliness. i cried.

when my own despair sank in the Soft Whisper, whispered, "one day at a time. we win in the end." that's all it took. i wiped the now streaming tears from my eyes and remembered He gets the victory. even in places like La Mosca. especially in places like La Mosca.

Photo of the Week-10/11-10/18

i used to think he was too strict with the kids. he needed to love them more and hug them more. he needed to greet them with a smile and a "Jesus loves you," as they entered the nutrition center.

i was naive.

felix loves these kids more than any of us could ever imagine. he loves them better than any of us ever could. yes, these kids need love and hugs and "Jesus loves you's" but more than any of that they need to learn respect and responsibility and discipline from someone who spends day-in and day-out with them. he shows them love, not just by offering them a passing hug or twenty minutes of holding their hand; but being in the trenches with them. going to hospital visits with them and sympathetically patting them on their head when their father was, yet again, dragged out of their home and arrested for drug possession.

the more time that i spend in The Hole the more i realize what kind of "job" Felix has. he told a group this week that out of the 600 or so families that live in The Hole about 90% of them are, in some way, involved in the drug business. whether it be selling or using or storing or guarding money or being the "debt collector." he is not just trying to win souls for christ. strangely, that could be the easy part. but what happens if they do want to accept christ and change their lives? the next step is saying to these already starving families that they need to leave their only source of income as well. do you want to tell them that?

eleven years of working in the trenches. eleven years of offering hope to people who's only hope lies in white powder and their next fix. eleven years of loving children born unjustly into households enslaved by darkness.

i think twice before i say to myself, "come on, felix, it's ok if he doesn't wear his sandals into the nutrition center." because if felix doesn't expect more from these kids, who will?

The Rogers Family

still catching up on posts from our crazy, awesome summer. and one of the families i got to photograph was the rogers family. i've taken their photos several times before and it has been so fun watching their kids grow up. jeff and vicki are missionaries that mike and i work with. they are currently stateside and come down several times a year to encourage their supporting church's on their mission trips and do ministry in the country they love.

i had a quick opportunity while they were here in the dominican to photograph them and their kids. and let me tell you, this family is one of the easiest families to photograph. the kids are always chill, they smile, the smirk, they grin...they make my job easy! enjoy!

hey there, sweet ella!

sophi and raena