I have a confession to make…I was kissed by a Dominican…granted he was 8 years old and kissed me on the cheek…but it still happened.
My first week of ministry in the DR seemed like it took two months. Honestly, I thought I wasn’t going to make it through this month. Then I realized we have the nicest housing I’ll probably ever have and I thought I wasn’t going to make it through this year. Our housing and ministry can and will get a lot harder and more uncomfortable than this.
But on my day off last Saturday, some of us went to the beach. A beautiful, hidden, locals only beach. It reminded me of how great and wonderful God is and the least I can do is surrender everything to Him for one year.
The beautiful beach we went to (I don't remember the name…)
So I went back to ministry on Sunday, with a prayer and an attitude that I will survive this month and year and I had a wonderful day in Cativo.
But then Monday came along…Mojatos time. This is where we do VBS in the afternoons with crazy little Dominican kids. This is the reason I didn’t think I would survive this month. Most of these kids have had no discipline in their lives and very very little love. But thanks to prayer and a realization of how much these kids need our love, we made it through those two days without much stress or trouble. Trust me, this was a miracle. This is also where an eight year old boy kissed me on the cheek.
Me, Molly, and some of the kids in Mojatos
Then it was Wednesday, farming day. This week, we watered plants, helped plant something (not sure what it was), helped build a soon to be shelter type thing (apparently I’m not big on details), roasted coffee beans, shoveled mulch and cow poo, and best of all, I got to drive a truck! Strangely enough, this is tied for my favorite day thus far. It reminded me of my past two summers working at bible camp and I always feel so fulfilled doing hard work like that.
Needless to say, this week is going so much smoother than last week and it went a lot faster as well. Thanks to a little bit of prayer and a great week, I now know, I’m not only going to survive this year, but I’m going to see some pretty amazing things!
Me and my squad leader Greg after we shoveled all that mulch
Oh, and I now have a new World Race goal: to drive some sort of vehicle in every country (not sure how likely this is to happen, but I’m going to give it a shot).
