This has been a month full of adventurous experiences and more ‘primitive’ living, which has been so cool! The reality of living life this simply and in this type of community has been absolutely beautiful. My whole squad of 47 people is living in the mountains of the Dominican Republic,
and I’m sharing an 8 man tent with 5 other women (which has been so fun!).
Our shower is a waterfall,
we do our laundry in a bucket, and we’ve come to have no shame in hanging our underwear out to dry in the common area. It’s also easy to take inventory of all clothing items and make sure you’re not missing anything because, well, in reality you only have ~5 outfits anyway.
Our ‘house’ consists of the downstairs field past the chicken coop where our tent city has been established,
and the upstairs which is up 30 stone steps where our hosts home is and where we hang out, eat meals, share a toilet, and enjoy a trampoline and swimming pool.
We’re doing a wide variety of ministries this month including teaching English at a children’s center in a town in the dump area, teaching English to children in the small town at our hosts home,
doing prayer walks in 2 different towns where we do ministry, leading church services at 2 churches, and
doing work at our hosts home (manual labor and laundry/cooking duty). In this picture we were shoveling gravel from the bottom of the waterhole to construct a path…and here’s the path!
Teaching English has been the hardest for me because of the language barrier, but they say immersion is the best teacher and I think that’s been the best for me and the students!
It’s also been a refining experience living with 47 people again as there have been a few times people have challenged me with with things I need to work on in my life, but that’s how we grow as people and in relationships, so it’s been so good and thought provoking.
As always, thank you for the prayers and support!
Live well,
Crystal
