It’s crazy to think that my first month of the race ends in a couple days! That’s one whole country done! Honestly I can picture stepping off the plane in Punta Cana, rushing through customs, and sweating profusely while sitting on my big pack while the squad and I waited for our bus to take us to Hope Mountain like it was yesterday.
This month has helped me adjust to living as a missionary, living in community, and becoming more intimate with the Lord. But I know there is so much more growth to be made. Since this ministry month is closing up, I would love to share with all of you what my daily life has looked like!
6:15/6:30: This is when I start my day! (Sometimes I really love sleeping in an extra 15 minutes, so the time varies everyday.) I then grab my bible, journal, pens, and worship music and head to the rooftop treehouse overlooking the mountains. I love starting my day with the Lord in silence, it helps me focus on dependence on him throughout the day. This month I started really digging deep into the Gospel, the works of Jesus have amazed me every morning.
7:30: Squad devotions. The whole squad gathers together on the rooftop to devote time to the Lord together before ministry. This looks different everyday, some days we have worshiped, shared testimonies, read scripture, and so on.
8:30/9:00: Breakfast time! Breakfast in the Dominican Republic is usually a light meal. Thankfully we had coffee with breakfast everyday.(Major praise hands!!) Meals usually looked like cornmeal, oatmeal, hard boiled eggs, or bread and bananas.
10:00: This is when morning ministry started! I had a special ministry job this month. Vicki and Rueben, my ministry hosts have two daughters Starr and Soli. They are both homeschooled and when they get teams in they ask for members to help tutor them. My squad leaders asked me if I wanted to do this task, I gladly accepted. I worked with Starr, who is 12 years old, throughout this month. I mainly helped her with math, we typically did 1 or 2 lessons a day. Although I wasn’t working directly with the ministry management, it helped Vicki and Rueben be able to stay fully engaged while knowing their daughters got the help they needed.
12:30: Lunch time! Lunch is the largest meal of the day here. Almost everyday is consisted of rice and beans(thankfully there was different flavors almost everyday as well.) The food here is so delicious though, Elva is the name of our cook, she works so hard everyday to make sure we are nourished well.
2:00: Afternoon ministry! Often times I went back to tutoring, but some days looked a little different. If there was an event that needed planning for the upcoming weekend we would prepare for that, or sometimes do outreach. We would go into the community and do house visits, or go to the basketball court and play with the local children.
5:00: From 5:00 to 6:00 we would have a personal hour, sometimes I would shower or read, but mainly I would just take this hour to rest.
6:00/6:30: Dinner time! Dinner is also a lighter meal, and for us sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn’t. Some nights we got spoiled with spaghetti, or ramen noodles, but other nights we ate cornmeal, rice, bread, so many different meals! Some night Elva even spoiled us by making us fresh squeezed juice, or hot chocolate.
7:15: Team time! Since this month was all squad month, team time was really great quality time with my team. Team time looked different every night, we worshiped, gathered together for journey markers, gave feedback, free for all night, and debriefed our week.
8:30: When team time ended, most people called family and friends. We were so blessed to have internet all month this month. This won’t be the case in most places we go, so it was a treat! During this time we also got to just have fun and bound with squadmates.
9:30/10:00: Bed time! “Quiet time,” was 10 and that’s when most people rolled into our dorms. I was usually asleep before most people, I am definitely a morning person.
Overall this month was packed full of memories. Our squad was blessed with great ministry hosts. Onto Haiti!
-Alina
