Palliative Care With Karen and Maria

It’s been two and a half long years since we have traveled to the Dominican Republic on the North Shore. Even though our team has been unable to travel there, thank God for the team we have that live in the Dominican. This local team was able to complete three major housing projects over the last two years.

I want to give a special thank you to Mike and Laura from Rio Vista Guesthouse. Mike was the project manager over the projects and without him, none of our projects would have been completed.

Les and I made a commitment to get back to the Dominican in May of 2022 to engage with the families that were served these last two years, make new contacts and look over some future projects.

Visiting these three amazing families was like a homecoming experience. These lives are forever changed due to the kindness of our partners and donations. I can honestly say I have never seen bigger smiles or more gratitude displayed by these families in a long, long time.

We laughed and even cried over the hardships these folks have endured but through it all they are pushing forward with their lives and we were able to be a small part of that journey with them.

While we were visiting the North Shore our friends Mike and Laura introduced us to an amazing lady who has been working in the Dominican Republic in the Sosua, Puerto Plata area for over 33 years. She is not a Dominican but she is very much a part of the community.

What stood out the most to me was her focus on care. Karen had found a niche of care that is almost completely forgotten in this area. It’s the area of Palliative Care or end-of-life care. There are dozens of families with loved ones who are diagnosed with terminal conditions living out their last days at home with their loved ones.

These families are in desperate need of nutrition, medicine, and someone who just cares. Someone to hug them, someone to listen to them, someone to pray with them.

Karen has been providing this kind of care for many years. Depending on her weekly donations, Karen puts together a food bag with basic medicines and visits these families once or twice a week.

What Color Is Hope donated enough to create 25 food bags consisting of sardines, pasta, oil, butter, beans, and rice. We then traveled with Karen for a day and watched how she loved these families. Over the course of the last 24 hours, 3 families had lost loved ones.

She did the only thing she could do and she hugged the family that remained and gave them food. Because of her consistency in traveling to these neighborhoods, she has built relationships with families she has now known for over 20 years.

One of Karen’s favorite companions and co-laborer is a woman named, Maria. Now what makes these ladies even more special is they are 75 and 84 years young… Yes, you heard me correctly. These amazing ladies are fit for the task in both wisdom and in good health.

The compassion and care these ladies show for others was a humbling experience. Neither of these ladies is affluent. There are no big NGO’s or mission organizations funding their work. They live by faith and on a meager existence, yet they share everything they have to bring comfort to others.

After meeting Karen and Maria, we have decided to try and find a way we can help these ladies fulfill their calling. They are in need of about $2500 a month for food, medicine, and fuel costs, We are also looking for someone to mentor and pass the baton onto.

Our prayer is to find someone fluent in Spanish and English who feels called to this kind of service. It’s a hard task. Serving families dealing with a terminal illness and end-of-life challenges requires a special kind of person. If you know of anyone who wants to serve in this area please contact us.

In this geographical area, there are no hospice centers and no governmental help for these families. These families live in the lowest income areas and the need is huge.

Can I ask something of you? Would you consider helping us.

We are looking for sponsors and donations. We are trying to raise $2500 a month to send to Karen for the purchase of food, medicines, and fuel charges for transportation. A donation of $25 or even $50 a month will provide for the basics of nutrition and just as important is someone these families can talk with about the challenges they are facing.

There is a donation tab on our website. We want to thank you in advance for your generous partnership in caring for those who are in need of end-of-life care.

I thank God for Karen and Maria. These are the modern-day heroes I want to support, don’t you?

Again, thank you for partnering with us, and thank you for your generous donations that make these acts of kindness possible.