Sweet Baby James

I'm sure that you have all already heard and seen the pictures....but our beautiful little boy, James Warren Holloway was born on January 28 at 9:53 pm. He weighed 8 pounds, was 20 inches long, and is completely healthy.

My water broke at about 2:30 am on Friday January 28. After getting our things together, we headed straight to the hospital. I was 2 cm dialated when we arrived but hadn't felt any contractions, so we knew it would probably still be several hours before we saw our little boy. So we passed the time watching The Office and The Big Bang Theory episodes. The doctor continued to check me periodically but I stayed at 2 cm for hours. Sometime in the afternoon (I think around 4, I don't really remember) we decided to give me Oxitocin to induce because at that point it had been around 12 hours since my water broke. Once your water breaks you have about 24 hours before the baby must come out or else the risk of infection increases dramatically. So I got the meds, dialted 1 more cm right away, had irregular contractions for a couple hours but didn't dialate any more. Sometime around 7 the doctor suggested that since I wasn't making any more progress and that the risk of infection was now so much greater, we should do a c-section. We decided to wait it out a couple more hours, but at 9:00 when nothing had changed, we decided to go for the c-section. Then very soon after, at 9:53 pm, James was born. It turns out that his head was pushing toward my hip instead of down the birth canal, which was why we weren't making any progress. All in all, the delivery wasn't exactly what I imagined, but what delivery is?? We are just so thankful that we both came out 100% healthy.

James is already almost 2 weeks old, and we can already see changes in his appearance and development. He is a pretty easy baby- sleeps and eats a lot and rarely cries for something other than food, sleep, or a diaper change. He is such a little miracle and I love that I can spend each day with him.

Caroline and her large belly patiently waiting

Prepped for surgery

Mommy and James meet for the first time

A couple days later...sleeping on Grammie

Skyping with Daddy

MBRD 2010 earnings

When MiBanco goes public next year the plan is to make MBRD our stock ticker. MiBanco Republica Dominicana. In order to satisfy the NASDAQ requirements we have to meet GAAP requirements.

So, I had my intern, Neil Silveus, who is a certified international accounting system professional create our 2010 financial report.

Since many of our readers are, or could be, investors in MBRD, I encourage you to watch the report.



Lastly, James Warren Holloway will be born any day now, keep us in your prayers.

Mi Baby Shower!

I think a really funny thing about Spanish is the occasional very clearly English word or phrase that is used as though it were Spanish. An example of this is the term "baby shower." There is no direct translation for the term (at least in this country), so the first time I heard someone say "Vamos a tener un baby shower" I laughed a lot.

The reason I say all of this is that two of my dear friends, Natalie and Melisa, threw me a baby shower on Tuesday. It was such a blast and a blessing for me. They decorated the room super cute and everyone brought lots of yummy snacks. We played several fun little games. Everyone chipped in to buy me a really nice stroller/car seat. Natalie took a risk checking it on her flight back from the States. And I'm so glad she did because it is super nice!! The car seat connects to the stroller for James when he is really little, but the stroller also has another seat so that we can still use it when he is bigger! It is so great and hopefully something we can use for any other little ones we have.

At the end of the shower everyone prayed for me, Ryan, and James. I was so blessed by that and encouraged to know that I have many friends that will be praying for me in this whole process. It fills me with peace and joy! Everyone is also going to rotate bringing us meals for a while after James is born, which is another HUGE blessing. I realize I've used some form of the word "bless" like 100 times in this post already...which is really cool because Natalie wrote a blog post the other day about the shower and how her desire was simply that I would be blessed. Well Natalie...I am blessed, thanks to all of you!

Thank you to everyone who came to my shower and for all of my friends and family here and in the States that have been sooooo generous with your gifts. James is going to be one loved little boy :)


Everyone had to cut a piece of ribbon guessing the circumference of my belly. Almost everyone cut their ribbon too big. I'm not sure what to think about that??


There were 8 jars of baby food with the label taken off and we had to guess the flavor by smelling them. I only got 1 correct, but the winner (Maggie) got 7!! Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she has 5 kids :)


Vicki and Katie had to "chug" apple juice from a baby bottle. It was really difficult but Katie managed to win!


The Laniers got my some adorable little outfits for James.


Cutting the layer of saran wrap off of the stroller/car seat.


All of the pregnant women. From left to right (approximately): me (38 weeks), Laura (30 weeks), Karen (20 weeks), and Vanesa (15 weeks).


me and Natalie (one of the hosts)


me and Melisa (the other host)

Struggling Against a Culture

Neither Ryan and I are fans of "downer" blog posts. We usually like to write about the successes of our ministries. However, the reality is that not everything we do is a success. As you all know, my co-worker and I have been working on encouraging the couples in El Callejon to legalize their marriages. The past several weeks have been focused on just this...helping them through the legal process and planning for a celebration ceremony. This has not been easy. The intention was to marry off 3 couples. There have been complications with each of the couples, but I'll share with you the details of one...

Censio and Tona have lived together 18 years and have 4 children together. In order to get married in this country you need 3 things: an identification card (cedula), a birth certificate, and your children's birth certificates. Both Censio and Tona had their cedulas....check. They also have all of their children's birth certificates...check. However neither of them had their birth certificates. Tona's problem was relatively easy to solve. Her birth certificate was expired (didn't know that could happen!), so we had to go to Santiago (about 1 hour away), fill out some paperwork, and done. But Censio has been much more of an issue. He did not have any form of his birth certificate, and on his cedula there were only zeros in the area where it usually tells you his identification number. So we were told that we must go down to La Vega, where he was born, (1/2 hour away) to get his birth certificate. We went once, with no success. They told us that we had to go to the hospital where he was born. At this point it was already late so we went back to Jarabacoa. The next day, we decided we had done enough traveling, so we gave Censio the money and information and told him to take care of it. Later that day he told us that he had given everything to a friend and told him to get the birth certificate for him. However, we found out that this was a lie and that he had used the money to pay a bill he had. So we realized we needed to take care of the problem ourselves. We went to La Vega to the hospital he was supposedly born, they sent us to another government building, then another, then another. At the last building they told us that we needed to go to the capitol (2.5 hours away). At this point we were ready to give up, but my co-worker, Daisy, has family in the capitol that could help her out so she decided to give it one last shot. Failure. It turns out that Censio's cedula number is just completely wrong. My best guess is that he got it during elections at some point and they just gave him a random number so that he could vote.

By this point we were exhausted, frustrated, and ready to give up. It seemed as though we were trying to do the right thing...get this couple married, but everything was going wrong. We went to our site director, Nate, for some advice. He shared with us that Satan has had a grasp on the community of El Callejon for years and years....especially in the area of marriages, and that he is not going to give it up without a fight. That is why we were being attacked by the government, the lawyer, and the couples themselves. Satan wants us to be exhausted and give up. But then he would win. We must be wise on how we spend our energy and time, but if we continue with the legalization of these marriages....we are going to see a great change in the community. We already have! We have seen and heard about (from people in the community) how the men that got married last year have changed. They no longer drink too much, or sleep around, and they even sometimes help with the dishes!

We don't know what the next step should be with Censio and Tona. A fellow staff member said we should get a lawyer involved (i.e. lots of extra expenses). It's just shocking to me how so many people in this country live this way, without any valid paperwork on themselves. How do we handle a problem like this??

Please pray for wisdom in what to do. It seems as though we have had many failures in this part of our work, but the reality is, we are fighting against something that has been engrained in this culture for who knows how many years. Therefore, the fact that 4 couples have been married (and many more are interested) since we started this project is a huge step forward! I'll leave you with Ephesians 6:12 that has been an encouragement to me...

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."