Month 1 was spent in the small mountain town of Lajas. We stayed at the home of Victoria & Reuben Dominguez who run H.O.P.E. 4 the DR which is a ministry that exists to help the people in Lajas and the nearby city of Santiago learn about the Gospel, be empowered and encouraged to make good choices and live a live above the influences around them. Many people they work with have experienced abuse, severe poverty, domestic violence, lack of education and other difficult circumstances that are understandably hard to experience.
So this month, we had the opportunity to participate in 3 different ministries with H.O.P.E. 4 the DR; below are brief overviews of what my team and I did!
WOMEN’S DISCIPLESHIP CURRICULUM
We we given the task of creating a curriculum to help disciple young girls and help them grow in their walk of faith and to help them find their identity in Christ. This was a daunting task because we had to come up with the outline for the entire 52 week program, BUT it was super rewarding and exciting to work on! I know that the young girls who will ultimately participate in the program will be blessed by it. I fell honored to have been able to lay the foundation for such an awesome program for young girls.
PRAYER WALKING
This was exactly what it sounds like haha! We walked through the streets of Lajas, praying for anything & everything, anyone & everyone. There’s lots of generational problems in the community and the country as a whole and so we often prayed for chains to be broken and for new, young men and women to rise up and lead a generation out of the poverty, pain and lack of identity that has riddle the country with issues since the days of Trujillo. It was great to be focused on praying and worshiping for hours at a time. I was also EXTREMELY impacted by the history lessons we got about the country that helped give context to its current-day issues. Specifically, the Mirabal sisters impacted me greatly and I’ll carry their legacy with me for the rest of my life.
CONSTRUCTION
This was my absolute FAVORITE ministry of the week! I went in to it not knowing what to expect because I was intimidated by the idea of doing physical labor all day, but it was great. I loved our ministry leader for that week and I just loved being able to do something physical. After two weeks of brainstorming, writing, praying, etc., it felt good to dig holes, paint wood, haul gravel and see the result of the labor of my hands. God taught me a couple lessons through our dirty muddy work that you can check out in my post titled “Attitude is Everything”!
Total amount of donations received this month: $10.
I’m still in need of $606 to meet my next deadline of $11,000. Please prayerfully consider partnering with me in this journey and donate today!
