Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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 When we first arrived to the DR, we had a week long training session to get us prepared to be open to what God had for each and everyone of us for this upcoming year. During this week, each team also learned what ministry opportunity they would be doing in the DR. This month, my team and I are doing Vacation Bible School for the children in our neighborhood as well as visiting a nursing home. Its crazy to think we have a little less than 2 weeks left in the DR, and were just getting started!

 

Out of all the teams, it seems my team has gotten the most chill ministry this month. It took awhile for me to adjust to our ministry…..which is simply to show God´s love, and that is exactly what we are doing. We are loving on the children in our neighborhood by playing games with them and sharing bible stories with them, like David and Goliath (I was David :), as well as loving on the elderly in the local nursing home. The local nursing home is filled with people who don’t have anyone to take care of them and are basically left in the nursing home to die. Even though only a few of us are able to speak Spanish, (and may I say, Dominican Spanish is crazy!)  We still are able to show Gods love without using words.

If I were to be honest, I came here to shake things up for the Kingdom of God. I always knew I would be changed from this experience, but Im learning its not how I expected. I am learning that even though God will use me for His Glory, this trip is also about the change within myself. The funny thing is I thought I had it figured out how I would change, here I am ready to cast out some demons, and God gently lets me know I still I have so much more to learn. In a way this year isnt about the countries we go to, but the change that will happen in me.  I am glad God has provided this opportunity for me, but God is making me face everything that is not of Him that is in me…and it is not easy!  

On another note…a funny fact is that here….I am a Dominican, not an American, but a Dominican. Not one day has passed that I havent been asked, “Why are you hanging out with the White people´´, “You are American?, you don´t look like it!´´ One of the kids we do Vacation Bible School with stated,  “Well if you´re not Dominican, then you´re Haitian´´.  Yet, once people are able to wrap their minds around the fact that maybe I am an American, the response is, ´´Well ok you´re American, but still, a black American´´.
 
It almost seems fitting that today in the United States, we will hold an inauguration for our first Black President. Hmmm, I wonder if their responses will change a few years from now…..but alas for now, I, Ashley Danielle Harris, although a proud American, am just another Dominican girl walking down the street.

 
PS….I will put up more pics later…I can´t upload them at the moment. Love yall!