Here I am, safe and sound. Boca Chica, Dominican Republic. It’s October, and month one is almost over; that doesn’t even feel real enough to type. Yesterday my squad of 42 and I left a piece of home we’ve found here in the Dominican Republic. Down the windy dirt roads, lined with pastel blue, pink and yellow homes, nestled in the mountains of the Dominican Republic lies; Hope Mountain. Like the name, Hope; tangible hope, is busily working through the hands of Vicki, Ruben, Selena, Starr, and Solimar Dominguez. I wish I could perfectly depict how evidently the Lord is working in and through the lives of the Dominguez family. Lives are being touched, and hearts changed, chains broken because of that family, and I was able to be apart of their family for my very first month abroad. My praise is a whirlwind of gratitude and reverence for the work the Lord did this month in and through the people all around me. Month one, a whirlwind.
I could go on forever of all that came with month one. I could talk about womens ministry throughout our community, the crystal clear beaches that made heaven feel so close I could reach out and touch it, I could talk about Moca, Dominican Republic where we went and provided warm sheets and blankets as well as food water and clothes for the people affected by hurricane maria, I could talk about the people I’ve been given the opportunity to pray for, like Lizberry and Martina, or Aldo and his basketball skills, I could talk about Elva and the incredible woman she is, but out of all that I have to tell you; I choose laundry.
Laundry, ahhh. Sweet sweet laundry. Something I’ve come to learn to love. When I say love, I mean; skip out on lunch and do five hours worth of laundry type of love. The thing is, here we do our laundry by hand, in a waterfall. I guess the waterfall aspect did make it 20 times more magical than you’d imagined, which also plays a part in why I enjoyed it so much. You see, the Lord speaks to me through nature, the most. In the leaves of trees that need absolutely no tending to by man, but by the grace of our God. In the sound of water that falls off of a rock into a pool of more water, in the way the sunshine hits the trees allowing beams of light to shine through. I see the Lord in the beauty all around me, which makes connecting with Him that much more sweet, especially when I’m at a waterfall doing laundry by hand, in the middle of hanging vines, rushing water, saturated green trees, and the bright blue skies lined with puffy white clouds above. It’s easy to sit at the feet of the Lord and just talk. Simple conversation. Spoken sweetly and softly in ways that feel significantly directed towards me and me only.
Our ministry is different each day and can be anything from working around the property, keeping up with the cleanliness of our dorms as they easily dirty, walking the streets of lajas de yaroa and praying for the people of our community, or simply playing rounds and rounds of basketball with the neighborhood kids. One day, I was assigned hospitality, which doesn’t take too long; as we sweep and mop our dorms and bathrooms. Easy stuff. When we finished cleaning everything up we had a good 3 hours before lunch when we’d have to help serve and wash the dishes. I’d been in the same outfit for days because of the clothes that never seemed to stop piling up after they’d been smelly and gross sitting in the laundry hamper we had in the corner of our room. I called out to everyone around me asking for all the dirty clothes they had so I had an excuse to sit with poppa at the waterfall for hours. Five bags of clothes and two plastic baggies full of laundry detergent later, my barefoot feet walked through the muddy steps, past the horses and ducks, past the mango trees, and tires that lined the path; that lead me down to my sanctuary. There I stood in the water with the finest of sand beneath my feet, scrubbing the dirt stains out of clothes that weren’t even my own. Smelly, sweaty, some stained with mud, I scrubbed until my hands were prune-like and raw, til my feet ached from standing in the same spot for three hours but I didn’t even think once to complain; because over and over I felt these words on my heart, “this is what I’ve done for you, taken your dirty, smelly, stained clothes, and washed you clean again, because I love you.” Those words, they sat with me, they wouldn’t stop replaying over and over in my mind. “Because I love you.”
We people, we are dirty. We are sweaty white t-shirts smothered in dirt and wrecked with grass stains, yet the very same God that tends to the leaves on the trees washes us by hand, scrubs is off, and makes us new again. The best part of this is that this isn’t a one and done deal, but an everyday commitment. The Lord wakes up every morning, and chooses us. He chooses to wash us clean every morning. Something I’ve been learning here. I’m made new every day. Mistakes of the past, are of the past. Uncontrollably, unchangeable but I get to live in the freedom that the Lord has given ME, everyday. I wake up in freedom. It’s a choice I’m given, to live new and clean and free everyday, or to wake up and let the past have control of who I am today. I don’t know about you, but I strive to wake up every morning and choose freedom. You have that same choice to make, everyday.
Month one, you’ve been a whirlwind of growth, reverence, gratitude, the utmost joy, you’ve taught me what life is supposed to look like, I’ve gotten a taste of what dependency on the Lord looks like and it’s changed my perspective of the Lord. Questioning deeper, being challenged, and the breaking down of boxes I’d unintentionally put on the Lord have all been apart of this first month. Month two, i welcome you- arms wide open.
