i’ve made it to the dominican and it’s nothing but beautiful in all kinds of ways. mornings and evenings are chilly, afternoons look like laying by the pool under the beaming sun, there are mountains in every direction, the nearest city is 45 minutes away, i have 19 roommates and share two bathrooms with all of them, our living room is a balcony with no walls, there’s a river to wash laundry or bathe if you so desire, and every now and then we see cows break through the gate and walk casually on the base.
ministry looks like the squad being split up into our teams (fervent, mesa, zao, & quovadis) and doing Outreach, Admin, Property, or Creativity for a week at a time, two times each. outreach focuses on going out into the community and helping with the women who are victims of sex trafficking. admin helps with the administration of HopeDR (the ministry we’re partnering with here on Hope Mountain). this could be writing blogs, creating a website or even tiktoks to advertise, and making devotionals for a publishing book. property is a lot of – well, property. whatever needs to be done around the base the team will get it done. and lastly, creativity is a week of being creative. choreographing dances, skits and making videos to teach these skits and dances to future missionaries who come on this base.
this week my team worked with outreach. we started the week with a prayer walk through the town then spent a lot of time making notes with an encouraging word for sex trafficked women. these notes will soon go into a bag filled with necessities for the women and they receive them when they are met with Hope ministries on the beach. we also spent a day walking through town and handing bags of imperishable food for families and prayed with them. sometimes ministry looks like loving our host well by cleaning their home and making a very fun charcuterie board dinner for our squad leaders.
my heart has settled so easily here and it’s filled with so much hope for what the Lord is going to do. time flew by already with just one week and my prayer for the next two months here is that the Lord would give me a new capacity to love. to love the people right in front of me, to love the ministry opportunities, and to love myself just as the Lord does
hope. hope for the DR, hope for all that is happening right in front of me and through me.
thanks, God. you keep on getting better.
