the past week I have gone through so much transition. On January 5th I left home and as I waved goodbye to my family and left the city I have called home for the past 6 years I felt the emotions of letting go. As I got closer to Denver I had a realization that I had nothing more than what I could put on my back. I realized that I had no permanent home for the next 11 months. The next morning we flew to Miami and I had my first struggle. The fear of flying started to get a hold of me and I really struggled with the realization that my life this next year will include the one thing that scares me; flying. When we got to the airport in Miami we got a shuttle to our hotel for the night and as I talked with the driver of the shuttle he shared that he was from Nicaragua (one of the countries we are going to). As soon as we got of the shuttle we met up with a few others we were staying at the hotel that night. When I checked in I asked the man at the desk where he was from and he said Peru (another country we are going to), and then we all (10 of us) walked several blocks to a hole in the wall diner for dinner and our waitress was from Ecuador (another country we are going to)! The next morning we met up with our entire squad at the airport and after a few hours of waiting our plane began to board. I felt the fear of flying flare up again but I worked through it the entire flight. The flight was beautiful we saw the ocean everywhere we looked and sometimes we flew over beautiful islands surrounded by light blue water; it was so beautiful. Then we saw the Dominican Republic! As we flew in I saw baseball fields and mountains and palm trees and the ocean all around us! After we got all our backpacks, and got our travelers visas we went to a school bus that would drive us to Colonial City (just outside of Santo Domingo). The drive was wonderful as we drove next to the ocean and the breeze was so heavenly! On the last day in Colonial City we went to the beach and had a day of fun. I got to drink fresh coconut! Monday morning we loaded up a few buses and drove about 4 hours to San Juan, Dominican Republic. The drive was nice because I got to listen to music and look at the land. There is such beauty here and also such poverty. There were cities of slums in places and people selling things on the streets. On Tuesday we met the pastor we are working with this month her name is Solanda and we have a translator named Jose Frank, but we just call him Frank. Frank also has two other friends Alondo and Daniel who are working with us. Today (Wednesday) was our first day working at the church. When we arrived at 9:30 the children were already waiting for us and came running to us as we came. A few of the girls ran and held my hand and barely let go of me the entire day we were there. We sang fun christian songs in Spanish and had a short lesson about the lost sheep in Spanish as well, then we played games with them in the street. We are working in a small neighborhood. At first there were only about 10 children and by the time we were done playing in the street we had about 30 children with us. We then we went into the church and prayed. The girls were fascinated by my hair. I had about 4 little girls (about 7-9 years of age) playing with my hair. One of the girls said “tu pello es bonita” which means you have pretty hair. Then I put the hair over my head and said “no tengo ojos” I have no eyes; the kids all laughed, one girl told me in Spanish that I was silly. The kids are all so sweet. I am slowly learning Spanish. We will also be teaching English for a few hours each day. I wish I could tell you more about my trip in much more detail but I will do my best to continue sharing my journey with you. I am also learning internet in other countries is much harder to get a good connection so sorry this was so late. I can skype so if you have skype you can add me it’s hope_worldracer11 and if you don’t then I am also finding a way to send a letter to my mother so she can upload it to this blog so that you can keep up to date. will upload a few pictures I have but I am not taking any right now at our ministry sight because we are trying to build up our relationships with the people there and cameras might be distracting. Also pray for health not only for us but for the people in the Dominican Republic as cholera is starting to spread here from Haiti. We have bottled water and only drink that because it is not safe to drink the water here. I will write another blog soon.
Love, Esperanza (Oh and my name for the next 5 months here is Esperanza which means Hope in Spanish. That is what they call me here.)
