Welcome to the Dominican Republic
“Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders”
Photo Credit: Tanja Schoedler
My month in the Dominican Republic was very challenging for me. I knew it was not going to be easy, because everything leading up to the beginning of the race had been quite challenging. However not for one second did I think it would have been so difficult. The Lord has a funny sense of humor. He taught me quite a few lessons in my first month through the oddest things. He got my attention through tires, Manuel who we call “Viejo”, and women’s curriculum.
First things first. Meet my host family: Ruben & Vicki Dominguez. They are probably one of the most amazing couples I have ever met in my life. They extended so much love and grace to us. They have 7 children, 3 of which I was blessed with the opportunity of getting to know.
Photo Credit: Tanja Schoedler
The first week, my team had the pleasure of doing construction. I know some of you are reading this thinking, “Brittine!? Doing construction!?!?” I actually find joy in doing things with my hands, especially if it involves dirt. Our project was to build a retaining wall and leveling out dirt in order to make a place where people could commune and have worship services. In the Dominican Republic you build the wall out of tires, rocks, and dirt. One of the first things we had to do was level out the ground and move soil to different spots in the yard. It took quite sometime before we saw the results behind our work. However, I challenged myself not to complain or be frustrated in not seeing the end result. I spent time constantly thanking Jesus for the things I had and declaring that I could finish 5.5 hours of construction with His help. My most important lesson learned this week was a lesson I learned through tires. When we started our project the tires were just rubber without a center. However, when we placed them on the ground in the correct spot, we began to fill them up with dirt. It was a long process! We had to get a shovel and fill the tire with dirt and then make a dirt stuffer out of a stick and pack the dirt in and repeat until it was full. Sometimes, we had to start over on tires that were not placed properly and needed to be moved a little. It definitely reminds me of how the Lord fills us. God wants to spend time filling each and everyone of us. There are times when He fills us so much and we find ourselves working through the Holy Spirit within us. There are times where we fill ourselves with things of the Lord, and God has to empty out the bad so that we can replace it with the good. We might ask the Lord to fill us sometimes, but He is still filling us anyway. I am so excited to see the end of this awesome project we started. I know that the Lord will continue to bless the Dominguez family.
While building the retaining wall, I met one of the most amazing beings I will probably ever meet in my life. Meet Manuel a.k.a Viejo. He definitely is one of the hardest-working people I have ever met. We would always fight about him drinking water while we were working. He always said that he didn’t need water, but he would rather drink a soda called “Red Rock.” He was so nice and welcomed me so well. I would ask him questions about himself and was intentional about getting to know him. He really just intrigued me. I remember one day when I went to get my food in the kitchen, He told his wife that I needed extra food because I worked so hard. That’s when his wife and I began to connect. I was so blessed by all the conversations that I got to have with them and everyone else who worked with the Dominguez family. I spent a lot of time intentionally getting to know people in the Dominican in general. I found out the Viejo made pizza. I told him “maybe you should make me some pizza.” I was only joking with him, but he said that he would one day. The night he made it, he called me into the house and gave me a plate with the biggest pieces of pizzas that I have ever seen! I wanted to cry, but did not want to be baby. Everyone else got slices smaller than mine. One thing that broke my heart this month was that the Dominican people were just so kind to me. They did not have to talk to me or ever answer my millions of questions, but they did. They treated me so special, not because I deserved it, but because I wanted to know more about them. The showed me the same “Jesus love” that I was trying to show them.
Photo Credit: Tanja Schoedler
The most challenging thing that I experienced last month was writing women’s curriculum. You would think that because I am a woman and I have a heck of life story that I would be able to do something as simple as that. It completely sucked for me. It felt like one of the million mosquito bites on my body: IRRITATING! I could not get myself to focus, and it took me and my teammate, Nick, two days to get 1 weeks worth of study done. At least when we were doing the construction we could actually see the immediate results of our work, however, for the curriculum we could not see that. I felt very useless and honestly did not want to write it. I spent a lot of time praying later that week in my tent, asking the Lord to give me His strength and guide us into how He wanted to be presented in this curriculum. Within the curriculum we had to find Dominican female heroines in order to highlight them. Ultimately, we needed to use Latin Americans and others to be heros because there were not enough. That definitely was a game changer. I noticed that I was being selfish and unwilling to do the Lord’s will that week. I jumped off my high horse and started to put all I had into writing the curriculum. We finished strong and finished way more than we had planned to at the beginning of the week. I felt very accomplished by the end and realized that sometimes the journey the Lord sends us on is very similar. We have to go through hoops and hurdles sometimes in order to get to the Lord’s will.
I had the pleasure of meeting a lot of people in the Dominican Republic. Honestly, I don’t remember all of their names and I sure don’t remember all of their stories, but they are people who I will constantly keep in my prayers. I know that you may not have been there with me, but I know the Lord has placed them on my heart for a specific reason. Sometimes you go into a country expecting to help others, to be a light in the darkness, and to share the love of God. However, the Lord has His own agenda. Sometimes He desires others to change our hearts and our thoughts. Sometimes He desires us to take the time to look within ourselves and change ourselves in order to be on one accord with others. If you have any questions on anything else I did during this month, please feel free to email me and I will definitely message you as soon as possible. I can’t wait to tell you guys about Haiti and introduce you to some of the awesome people I have met. I made it a point this month to take pictures of people and write down prayer requests and their stories to share with you. I’m definitely excited. Love you all. Thank you for all the love and support.
“Each new day is a blank page in the diary of your life. The secret of success is in turning that diary into the best story you possibly can.”
–Douglas Pagels
