Hey everyone!! This blog is just to tell you all what I have been doing this month in the DR. We have another week here then we are headed to Haiti. (In Haiti I will be going to my original month one ministry of supply and multiply: see old blog posts for details on that)
So here in the DR we have been working at Hope Mountain in Lajas de Yaroa. It is all squad month meaning all 5 teams of my squad are here together. So we do ministry with our teams and rotate between a few ministry types. So for each ministry type I will tell you a few of the things we have done.
Property: This is usually manual labor based. We are helping the host family and the host ministry with improving their property. For my team this has looked like; digging at trench for new water pipes, digging many many steps out of mud on the side of the hill (to make a safer path out to the cow pastures), creating a flower garden for the host mom, weeding, cleaning out a river bed to help the water flow, and I’m sure more I can’t remember right now!
Housekeeping: This is a wide range of cleaning tasks that we do to help the hosts as well as the squad live well. This includes; doing our laundry, cleaning the host family house, cleaning the pool, cleaning all the bathrooms, doing the dishes for the day, trash pick up, cleaning the floors of the dorms…. and whatever else needs to be picked up/done!
Admin: This is where we help the host ministry, Hope Mountain, with their online and social media presence. This has looked like; updating their webpage, translating information from Spanish to English, creating/posting to the Instagram page, advertising the property as an airbnb, advertising the property as a wedding venue, planning the host dad’s birthday party, and making lesson plans for the local school!
Community: This ministry looks different every day. This is where we do something that takes us out into the community! Some of the things my team has done include: playing basketball with local kids, leading a local mother’s club, going to local houses and just talking, babysitting three small crazy kids (this was just me not my whole team but felt so natural), working to help a local man, Nani, build a new home, and teaching English at the school!
Property/admin: This ministry is like the floater team. On this day you help with any of the things that need helping with! I included these tasks in the above categories that they fall into!
Those are the five different ministry positions that the squad and my team have rotated between!
Additionally myself and my teammate Mantha who have horse knowledge have been working with and training the horse on the property named Dominguez! He is so sweet and just a big baby who is super attached to humans. He spoons easy but would never hurt a fly! He is so adorable. This has been my favorite ministry because the host dad, Ruben, has told us that this is an answer to an ongoing prayer he has had!
Overall I am so blessed by my experiences here in the DR so far. I can’t wait to tell you all about the multitude of other ministries I will participate in for the next ten months!! Thank you to everyone for reading and supporting.
Prayer requests:
- Continued healing for the host family
- Growth toward Jesus for everyone (myself included)
- The sex trafficking issue in the DR
- My squad mates who have already experienced loss since being on the race
Photos on Instagram or Facebook for what this looks like 🙂
