LAUNCH!
The day that has been fixed in all our minds since we left training camp. At training camp we were instructed to “stay present”. I think most of us did a pretty good job at that, but still in the back of our minds everything that we did was ultimately leading to January 7th. Launch was that wasp that you just cant stop thinking about while you are eating your food, and you know it is just waiting to strike! That was launch.
I am writing this from my bed in the Dominican Republic (we will get back to that), and tomorrow marks the one week day from that start of launch. That is a crazy thought already. I was originally planning on this blog being a video. However, that video is currently on my desktop with no known way to make it to the internet. I will link it here once its up but until then text simply must do.
The most notable part of the three days of launch was the worship with the parents then the parent lunch on Saturday. My parents were unable to make it to launch, but that is partly what made is significant. On our team 4 of our 7 racers had family there and it felt like they were my family also. They we are extremely nice and made sure that we all were able to come to the parent lunch by buying all our ways in.
When someone talks about loving someone like they were your own kids, they don’t need to look much past here for examples of how its done! Awesome! After a full day of trainings came the first day of the race. We woke up at 3:15am, and made our way to the airport to wait for 9:50 when our plane was leaving. The hours were long, but soon passed us unscathed. Before we knew it we were in the DR and meeting Junior.
Junior is our ministry contact and a true servant, and man of peace in this community. He runs an organization whose english translated name is “Fraternity of my First Love”. Our first months role is serving with Junior under his leadership, and working with his organization to serve the people of La Vega.
We are doing a variety of different things to serve lots of different people. We have worked a lot so far at a christian school for Haitian Refugees. We have gone to a hospital and prayed with the people who are in desperate need of a physical heeling. Today we went to a prison and attempted to get in to minister to the people who might have made a few bad choices. Unfortunately we were unable to get in due to some technicalities.
In everything we have done I have seen God working there. Even when the plans change that is still God directing us.
I know there are a lot of questions still to be answered, and a lot of detail be shared. I could write a whole blog on any of the things I just mentioned and I will be going into further details in future blogs as the month progresses. For now this is just an overview of what we are doing. I cant wait to share what God is doing in these things in future posts.
