When we went on our adventure day a couple of days ago some people had to stay back because of sickness, and on the bus I heard a couple people asking “Who stayed at Home?” That statement really hit me because I realized that I also had started to call Hope Mountain “Home.” I think it is crazy how we all call this place home after only staying here for a month, I think that is awesome!
Now Im going to tell you a story! Two days ago we drove about two hours to visit one of Hope Mountains churches called Moca! We went there because a lot of the surrounding community had been affected by the hurricane that hit a couple of weeks ago. Once we got to the church we had to prepare because we were hosting a food bank kind of thing, so we went walking through the community praying for people, and giving them a ticket for the food bank. Some of the houses we went to we had to walk through rivers to get to them, and thats how they were affected by the hurricane because the river which was about 3-4 foot deep normally rose up to about 25 feet and most of their homes got flooded and they couldn’t cross the river to get to safety so some of them had to get on their roofs.
All of that being said the community was badly affected by the hurricane so we wanted to spend time giving them joy through prayer and they also got some food and clothes through the food bank, it was really cool to meet and hear the stories of the people! We also got to visit a baseball field that a lot of Dominican MLB prospects come from and that was awesome!!
Now let me tell you about one of the locals that me and a couple of friends have became good friends with! His Name is Jualme (Im not sure if thats how its spelled, just guessing) we met him because he has a hotdog and hamburger stand on the weekends, and we have been there every day of the weekend since we got here, and he is super nice to us and makes an amazing burger. Im definitely going to miss the locals we have made friends with here. Im for sure going to miss the basketball courts down the road where we hangout a lot, today will probably be my last time I will get to go there.
The Dominican Republic now holds a piece of me, and it is only my first month and I know that other countries are going to be just as amazing or better but this month really changed me and humbled me for sure! We leave Hope Mountain tomorrow to go to our Debrief for 6 days, and then we are off to Haiti!!
Once again thanks for all the amazing support, but I do still have to raise about $4,800 more dollars to be fully funded! Any amount helps, no donation is too small or too little!!!!
