I have been silent for quite some time. For this I am slightly ashamed, but also not too much because I have also been slightly busy. I want to tell you about ministry in the DR so that soon I can tell you about Haiti!
The Dominican Republic was an amazing place that taught me a lot. Ministry looked a lot different from day to day.
– we made the path to the cows easier to navigate by cutting steps into the steep hillsides
– we picked up trash and rotten mangoes on the compound there at Hope Mountain (they have about 10 acres to care for there)
– we dug dirt out of the waterfall so the water would flow better
– we painted the outside walls of the girls dorm (it was a challenge in places too since it was built into a hillside – and we didn’t have a ladder)
– we cleaned out a storage area so they could put a little store into it
– we helped dig the foundation of a house for Nani, a man in the community
– we scrubbed the pool of its fishy smell
– we helped plan and host Ruben’s birthday party (Ruben and Vicki live at Hope Mountain some of the year and run the ministry there)
– we got to go to a community school and help teach English for a day
– we picked up brush and big sticks in the cow pasture
– two of the girls on my squad worked with the horse
– some of the group worked on website things for Hope Mountain
– we made a few videos for their website as well
We also got to choose from a few adventure days:
– the one I went on was a day at the beach with some snorkeling involved
– there was another I didn’t go on that involved a lot of climbing up and then jumping off waterfalls
– a day in Santiago was also an option a few times (I got to eat pizza that day!)
Our group was invited to visit another missionary and his family at his house where they’ve lived for 23 years. La Casa Grande treated us well with a variety of good food, basketball for some, reading for others, napping in the big church, visiting the son’s chocolate factory, and in general learning about how it is to be a missionary in the DR long term.
A few things I learned in that country:
– working to move dirt in an assembly line style is lots of fun and you can get a lot done in a short time
– sleeping in the same room with 15 other girls takes patience and no small amount of accepting the fact that all these girls make a lot of dirt and have a lot of stuff
– God uses your teammates to get you to see things from a different perspective
– cold showers are awesome
– you can only love others with God’s love – on your own, you can’t make it
– having cold Coke at the top of the long hill is rather tempting and oh so refreshing!
– you can wear the same clothes for multiple days in a row even if you sweat a lot (especially if others do the same – then we all smell alike)
– you can sleep very well with no pillow because the board you sleep on is very bendable and puts your head higher than the rest of you automatically
– to take a deep breath before entering the one bathroom because it leaked a bit, letting the smell leak out as well
– you can never thank God enough for His amazing creation (especially when the reminder is right in front of you with the beautiful mountains all around)
– food is a blessing that we too often take for granted – and you can learn to eat the foods that you thought you couldn’t enjoy
– you don’t have to know what’s happening for the day’s ministry until you join the group ready to get to work
– intercessory prayer is exhausting but so very rewarding
– WiFi is a gift, and you can really live without it for longer than you think
– God has a reason for everything, and sending us to DR first instead of Haiti was definitely where He wanted us
