After just a short trip away, I have been reminded of my true desire for doing the World Race! I am just returning from a week long mission trip to the Dominican Republic with a group from the Plymouth Congregational (PCUCC) group. I can’t express enough how much this experience has impacted me. With all the stress of fundraising and getting everything together, I was beginning to lose sight of why I was actually participating in such a journey. There was a part of me that began to feel bad because I wasn’t going to college after graduation but with much thought over the course of a week in the DR I remembered that what I am going to be doing is so cool! It is so unique and my hope is that more people would want to do something as interesting!
While in the Dominican Republic, I worked with the organization ‘Camenante’ which helps kids/teenagers who are homeless and must work on the streets to get them out of their situations so that they may be able to get an education and better their lives. Through this organization, we were able to meet a lot of the kids and do activities with them. We visited schools and painted, we played baseball on the seacoast, we played games at a community basketball court and we flew kites in a community park. I cannot express enough how amazing it was to be able to see the true world of these Dominicans. Their resources seemed to be so low and yet I always saw smiles on these kids faces when we were together.
Each day we ate lunch at the Camenante office/ building and here is where we met some of our closest friends. Kids would come in off the streets and eat with us and despite the language barrier, we were able to make it work. They ranged in age from 15-18 and I think they took a liking to us as much as we did to them. We saw each other as different people from different worlds but it wasn’t long until we were friends in the same world.
What I have experienced is something that is so hard to explain in words but must be felt with the heart. Over the course of just one week, I was able to see, hear, and most importantly feel things that I will be expecting in the 9 months that I am away. I would consider myself a very deep person in the sense that I take in emotions and think about them, feeling each one with passion. When given time to reflect on this journey in the Dominican, I have come to the conclusion that I have been rejuvenated and my soul is on fire to complete God’s mission for me. I’m beginning to understand the importance of this adventure I’m about to embark on and the work I will be doing. Being able to live each day working with people to try to improve their lives is a type of teaching and learning that couldn’t be done in the classroom.
As I continue to prepare for such a journey, my prayer is that I will trust that fundraising will take care of itself and that God will provide in His timing. I pray that I will have guidance and direction as I look to learn from this experience and I pray for all the people who I will be living with as well and working with that they may be relieved of the same stresses and worries. I also pray that I will have continued prayer and support so that I may do God’s work in these other countries.
Paz Amour!
