Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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I had the amazing opportunity to spend a week with a group from my church in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic serving with a ministry called Students International (SI).  SI has full time missionaries serving in their careers in the Dominican Republic, Fiji, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.  When groups come down, they serve with a missionary in their field for a week.  


I got to work with the Occupational Therapist down there named Amy Green. Amy works at Genesis – a school started by SI for children with special needs.  She does therapy on most of the students there.  The students there have cerebal palsy, down syndrome, learning disabilites, plus other more rare disorders.  We got to help them work on their writing, speaking, walking, balancing, and fine motor skills.  It was such a blessing getting to work with Amy.  She has such a heart for these kids and seeing them succeed as well as a huge heart for Jesus and the Gospel.  Even though there was a language barrier – I was able to communicate with the kids and help them do their therapy.  Everyday from about 11:30-1:30, the kids would have free time and lunch.  It was so great to spend quality time with the students during this play time even if we couldn’t sit and have a full conversation.  The kids touched my heart – and I quickly came to love all of them.  As well as serving at the school, Amy does house visits for people confined to wheelchairs.  Each of them has such a special story and it would take way to long to describe all of them.  But it was great to get to spend quality time with them and see the joy on their faces just because they have a visitor.

Some other fun things we did: We got to visit a beautiful waterfall and spend time just relaxing and enjoying God’s beauty.  We got to go to church on Sunday – where the worship was all in Spanish but the speaker had a translator.  I love listening to worship and watching worship in different languages and cultures – it’s so amazing to me that God can hear it all and understand it all.  It was soo beautiful!  We also had a culture night where we learned to merengue (which was AWESOME), we tasted cocunut juice and some delicious coconut candy, we learned a really fun cup game, and we got to taste some of their coffee.  We got to eat dinner out one night in the city with just our team – such great fellowship time!  We got to eat dinner out one night in the community – we ate at Vladimir’s (a student of Amy’s) house.  The food there was wonderful and the hospitality of the Dominican culture never stopped amazing me.  We had a banquet the last night to eat together and enjoy some more fellowship with our site leaders before leaving.  Let me say something about the DR – they have the most amazing food!  Everything I tried – besides 2 things – were absolutely delicious!  Seriously some of the best food I’ve ever had.

When the end of the week came, I had a really hard time leaving.  I wanted to stay in the DR and continue serving alongside Amy and all the kids at Genesis.  I didn’t want to leave the community I had lived in with my team.  I didn’t want to come back to every day life in America – feeling like I’m not really making any difference at all in anyone’s life.  I just wanted to stay – I wanted to move there – I wanted to learn Spanish and actually be able to talk with the locals.  It definitely was a great experience for me as I prepare to leave for the Race.  The Lord definitely worked a lot on my heart to continue to prepare me – especially since I got lots of time everyday to just be still and with the Lord.  He’s definitely preparing me mentally, spiritually, and physically for what’s to be coming in January – the DR was part of this preparation journey for me.  I am so thankful I got to go and I cannot wait to go back one day!