I’d say it’s time to start my first blog…considering I’m in the Dominican Republic and all. In the Dominican Republic…what?!! I can’t believe I get to say that.
So let me just give you a little run down of what I’ve been doing during the past week…
- Said bye to my friends and family (sad, sad day.)
- Went to launch in Chicago, which my mama attended (glorious), said hello to my family for the next 11 months and said goodbye to the most wonderful woman in my life for 11 months. Bittersweet.
- Stayed up all night Friday because our flight was at 3am Saturday morning and made up a dance with Hannah Wofford. No worries, a video debut will be coming soon.
- Flew to Santo Domingo in the Dominican and waited SEVEN HOURS in the airport for the other half of our squad’s flight to land. Those seven hours included a very large dance party with hair brushes and security guards circling us. It was fabulous to say the least.
- Drove to San Juan for the night and slept outside on my sleeping pad with my sweatshirt as my mosquito net.
- Then we got picked up in a pick up truck and all seven members of my team pilled in the truck bed with alllllll of our stuff and drove an hour and a half to our destination for the next month-El Cercado!
Now here we are in El Cercado, doing door to door ministry (which is so stinking hard and eye opening and scary and humbling all at once-I’m sure you’ll hear muuuuuch more about it later). We have the most amazing translator
and host family with probably the most beautiful baby (chi-chi) I’ve ever seen and it’s going to take quite a large amount of self control not to put her in my backpack and take her with me at the end of September…
I’ve cooked my first Dominican meal…now I use the term “cook” extremely loosely because Patri (our translator’s wife who is stinking precious) let me help her but all I pretty much did was stir the pot ahhaha. Pretty sure she didn’t really trust me with the whole edible part of a meal…how does she know me so well already?
I came to the Dominican thinking that I am going to bless this community and teach them so many new things but what I’m finding out is that I have it all backwards-they are the ones that are blessing me and teaching me every single day. Their joy and love for life is the most humbling thing I’ve ever experienced. Half of these people live in run down homes and barely have enough food to feed themselves, yet they’re always smiling and more than willing to welcome you into their home and make you some coffee. They may not be wealthy in the material sense but they are the richest people I have ever met.
