Hello from the Dominican Republic! My entire squad of 43 left Ft. Lauderdale on Friday and made our way by bus, train, airplane, then another bus to finally arrive here just after midnight. We got a lot of stares as we all trecked our way through Miami with our crazy huge luggage. It was a long travel day… the first of many. Since we have to do our own grocery shopping, 3 others and myself from my team made our first trip to the grocery store and bought what we thought would be enough groceries to last us for 2 weeks as we are up in the mountain village of Arroyo Cano, about 40 minutes from the nearest town, San Juan. Bread, rice, beans, a few cans of vegetables, chips and salsa, pasta, cookies, tortillas, eggs, cheese, and ham, as well as cereal (yum) were a few of the staple items that we used our newly converted USD to pesos to purchase. We are finding out that our team's credit card does not always work here in the DR. But good thing for my team, I have Matt, one of the logistics guys whose responsible for a lot of the preparation work for each team when they arrive to the country and he has his own Adventures in Missions (AIM) credit card so we were able to use his as a back up.
This month in the DR, my team and I are staying at a church… cement building w/ plastic chairs. We fold out our sleeping pads to sleep on wooden benches, not too comfortable since my back is absolutely killing me. Since arriving here on Saturday, we have attended 3 church services here… of which I understand very little. Thank God for Rachel who is fluent in Spanish and fills the rest of us in on the meat of the message. Gregorio (nickname Noki) is the pastor of the church here. He and his family have been very kind. They’ve had us over for lunch, taught us how to make our own fried plantains, make us coffee mixed with ginger in the afternoons, and are even letting us use their washing machine to do some laundry! I finally took my first shower today… translated; dumping cold water from buckets.
There is a festival taking place about 150 yards down the road of which we are requested not to attend due to the alcohol and subject matter of the music, since here in the city we are staying Christians are not supposed to partake in such things. It is loud all day and throughout the entire night with the music and motorcycles and scooters driving up and down the street. No quiet. It is supposed to continue until the 27th! We are doing our best to respect the culture and what is requested of us… wearing nothing short or revealing in any way (pretty easy for the guys:) Today was our first pretty restful day.
Yesterday, we had the amazing honor of being taken to the forest fields… where we got to pick our own oranges, avocados, and lemons… all are different than the types I am used to and they are absolutely delicious! The idea that I am in the middle of the DR, in a beautiful forest, picking my own fruit to eat is exciting and never thought that’s something that would happen in my life. But this is the World Race… and it’s my amazing reality.
Our ministry this month is a little informal…
– Kids… lots and lots of kids. Even as I write this, there are two young boys looking over my shoulder watching what I am doing.
– Work with the kids at two of the centers for Compassion International in the DR. One is next to our church while the other is about 15 min. away.
– Teach English twice a week to a class of about 20 students.
– Run church a few times this month. And Noki asked me to play my guitar and do worship! They're going to translate the songs I play into Spanish for the people. I am so nervous, but I'm going to do it.
– Visit the home of each of the family members who attends the church.
– Encourage and come alongside Noki as he is an incredibly busy man. While we are only here for one month, he is here in this community every day so we are here to spend time encouraging him, refreshing him, and taking some of his responsibilities off of his shoulders as best we can so he can be rested for the season of ministry after we leave. We did a bible study with him and his right hand man Enger last night. Enger also likes my guitar playing and asked that I'd play a worship song before we began.
As of today…
– I have A LOT of bug bites.
– I’ve taken 2 showers… the first was baby wipes, the second was with a bucket of cold water. I’ve washed my hair once. The girls on my team help each other wash our hair as we’ve done it in the sink and it’s hard to get all the soap out ourselves.
– I have been laying out my clothes that I wear each day at night so they air our and last longer.
– Our outside kitchen crawls with cockroaches, especially at night.
– I am tired and cannot believe that this is only the beginning. This is going to be a looooong 11 months, but good.
Although I don’t know when I’ll have access to the internet again, I hope to hear from you all and how you are doing. I know that life continues there in the states and would love to know what going on in your lives as you also read about mine. I’ll do my best to get a few pictures that my teammates took as well on here very soon. Until then, you can check out my teammates blogs as they've posted some 🙂 You can even watch a video on Facebook that my teammate Reagan Taylor took of our accomodations. I'll try not to write so much in the future, but wanted you all to know what we are doing and what life here is like for us. Until next time…
