Hello everyone! I am alive and well in the Dominican Republic and I have been BUSY. Here is a recap:
We flew from Atlanta to New York City to Santo Domingo, DR on the morning of the 10th. Trying to get through the customs at the Santiago airport was a wee bit frustrating, but we got through (eventually). All 58 of us had to fit into two buses in two 15-20 seater busses with all of our packs. To say it was a tight squeeze is a bit of an understatement. We set off towards the mountains as soon as we could cram everyone into the buses. I expected to maybe get some sleep (did I mention we had to go to the Atlanta airport at midnight on the 10th and sleep, or try to, on the floor until our flight at 8 AM that morning) but once we actually got in traffic, I realized sleeping was not going to happen. The DR may have roads and highways that look like American roads and highways but what they lack here are the road rules and traffic laws that make highways work efficiently. If I did not place my trust in the Lord, our God, then I very may well have been hyperventilating the entire ride up to the mountain. People do not pay attention to the road lines here. They are suggestions, not rules. The traffic isn’t going fast enough? Feel free to make your own lane on the shoulder and drive on that as long as needed. Running out of space on the shoulder? Just cut into traffic wherever possible! Honking is not just for telling people to get out of the way, but it is also used to tell people, “Hey! Watch out! I’m coming over whether you are in the lane or not!” So yeah. I’m not gonna lie. I had some anxiety. There were some moments where I just had to not look. But everyone drives this way here, so they kinda just make it work.
We rode in that bus for at least 5 hours, stopping once to get dinner from a little store and twice to let two of the other teams off. It was quite the adventure. We made it to H.O.P.E. around 11:15 PM, met our hosts, Reuben and Vicky, and were sent to bed after a dinner of spaghetti. I slept the first week in a girls dorm built by previous World Racers. It was just a concrete building with windows, two bunk beds, three box springs on cinder blocks, and several mats on the floor for sleeping. The girls dorm is located down a steep staircase and up the staircase by the house is the girls bathroom, which consists of three curtained showers (the water is chilly, but refreshing) and two toilets with no doors or curtains and just concrete dividers. The girls on our squad have had to get pretty darn comfortable with each other in this first week….but I guess it would have happened eventually. Might as well get it out of the way sooner rather than later.
Sunday morning we had worship and devotion, which was AWESOME. Our worship just consists of some musically talented people on our squad singing on the veranda facing the mountains and everyone else singing along in worship. It is absolutely beautiful and my favorite time of the day. We have worship and devotion every day, and worship and sermon on Sundays. We had orientation and then we found out the different ministries we would potentially be working in this month: missionary kid ministry, English teaching and curriculum, door-to-door evangelism, women’s ministry, and construction. Team Intentional Love (my team) got to work with the missionary kids this week. This basically looked like hanging out with Reuben and Vicky’s kids as well as the kids of another missionary couple who work at H.O.P.E. All together we had eight kids from age 4-14: Jojo, Starr, Soleil, Alec, Marcus, Ella, Maddy, and Isaac. We scheduled morning devotionals for them and showed love to them by participating in whatever they wanted to do, which included activities such as hiking the river (H.O.P.E.is on 10 beautiful acres), playing Capture the Flag (approx. 6 times), playing restaurant at the waterfall (did I mention there was a waterfall?), playing card games (SPOONS, y’all), watching movies, playing on the trampoline, and just playing with these kids. With their parents uprooting them and bringing them to the DR so they can work in ministry, it sometimes feels like they aren’t getting as much attention as they would like, so we wanted to just be able to love on them and show the love of Christ to them while their parents were working in the ministry.
It was definitely a fun and exhausting week. I have climbed a small waterfall, bathed in a waterfall (with a bathing suit on, just to clarify), had more physical activity than I have ever had before, made some awesome relationships with these kids. I’ve eaten things such as a thick oatmeal-like food with brown sugar and salt (delicious), rice pudding (also delicious), scrambled eggs (SO delicious), plantains (not a fan), mashed plantains (not a fan), boiled yucca (delicious), some kind of white sweet potato (mama, you know what this is; also delicious), fried cheese (OH MY GOSH WHY DON’T WE HAVE THIS AT HOME), fried eggplant (mmmm), chicken and turkey (I saw the chickens and the turkey before they were killed….I could have seen them be butchered and prepared, but I decided I couldn’t handle it), lots of rice, lots of beans, a mango punch which was awesome, some kind of pasta dish I did not like much…. So far my favorites have been: fried cheese (this needs to be a thing at home), fried eggs, and the rice pudding. AND the coffee here is simply so awesome. There is also a chocolate drink that has oats in it….apparently previous racers called it “That Chocolate Drank”….it’s okay. It’s too sweet. Food here is very starchy and carby and we have yet to have any fruit… But it’s good! I’ve enjoyed it.
God is working here at H.O.P.E. Just being in his beautiful creation, you can feel his presence. There was one morning where I got up at 6:30 so that I can sit on the veranda and have just some personal worship time on the mountain before the sun comes up behind the mountains in the distance. It is so beautiful. Anyways, I was worshipping and I had set my bible open faced on the railing. The wind began to blow and flip the pages and when the wind stopped completely, God had given me a psalm for my squad, a message for my team, and a message for my teammate, J. I am so in awe of the ways the Lord speaks to me. God has been teaching me so much just through my team, my squad, and my ministry. I thought I was a patient person, but I’ve learned that I need to exercise my patience. I’ve learned that, despite what I thought back in the States, I actually DO have an issue with entitlement. When we were getting on the buses that brought us to H.O.P.E. the driver asked the people in the back (which included me) to move to the front, then once we got settled, he asked us to move back to our original places, my first reaction was, “REALLY?” A girl in the back of the bus said, “Hey guys, let’s not complain. It’s not that big of a deal.” The scary thing about my reaction was that it was knee-jerk. It was habitual. How often do we react to things in a negative way just because we are inconvenienced even in the smallest of ways. In that moment, I felt entitled to convenience. I’m not entitled to it though. And in the end, moving was not a big deal. I’m working on being more intentional about my responses to people and circumstances.
This coming week my team will be working in door-to-door evangelism, which I am super pumped about. I cannot wait to see how the Lord is moving in the village of Lajas. I will only be purchasing a wifi card once a week which will allow me one or two days of wifi while I’m here in the DR, which gives me the opportunity to blog once a week and possibly video chat my family. ALSO. Our first route change has occured! Instead of going to Nicaragua in month four, we will be heading to HONDURAS! Super excited for that! Anyway, that is all for now! If you have any questions or comments about anything, please feel free to either comment on this blog or send me an email at [email protected].
Right now, for my off-day, I’m chilling on the beach in the D.R. Went snorkeling, but it was kinda overrated and two people from my squad stepped on sea urchins and and had to go to the hospital to get them out. I think I’m gonna zone out now. Love y’all! Peace out.
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I was not able to post that post yesterday, but I have wifi now! Today we went to a Dominican church in Santiago and I got to give my testimony, which will be on my blog eventually. Other than that, today has been kinda chill. It’s been nice. At the end of church here, you hug EVERYONE and say “Dios te bendiga”, which means “God bless you.” So…. DIOS TE BENDIGA! Love you all <3
