Hello friends, family, supporters, and anyone else who has stumbled upon my blog. I made it to the DR!! Welcome to the journey: ) I’m excited you have joined me.
In our huge hiking packs, we all waddled into the Atlanta airport at about six o’clock Monday morning. Thankfully, we made it to our gate without any trouble, and with the remaining last few minutes I made a quick phone call to my family.
Even then, as I was boarding the plane that would take me out of the United States for nine months, it didn’t feel real. Now, five days in, after a seven-hour bus ride to our host home, 24/7 dirty feet, daily ministry, nightly team time, waking up to the most amazing view, living with forty other young adults… now it’s starting to feel real.
I get to start each morning looking out over the mountains, watching the sun inch upward, while reading the book of Luke. And every afternoon it rains and I get to see the rainclouds float over the mountain tops and watch the rain slowly approach. I feel very blessed to live in such a beautiful place for this month.
Ministry looks a little different each day. The first day we walked fifteen minutes down the road on either side of our host home, praying for the community and people. That was a morning of friendly faces and trying to greet the Dominicans with my very few words of Spanish (hola, buenos dias, como stas). I’m confident my vocabulary will grow by the end of these two months in Latin America, but as of now I rely heavily on my team mates who paod attention in high school Spanish. The next day, we worked around the property, simply serving Mrs. Vicki and Mr. Ruben, our hosts, however we could. Another day we helped research and create a presentation for our hosts that will invite support and funding for two new facilities they would like to build on their land for rescued sex trafficked women. Its satisfying waking up and serving the Lord in a new way daily.
Something our host Mr. Ruben said prompted me to look at the Race as a whole, beyond the day to day, week to week ministry we do. He said “We don’t save the world in one day” Jesus already did that for us. But as Christians, we offer ourselves to the Lord and say, “use me”. He uses us to help “save the world” overtime with our lives. Sometimes that means, saving the world looks like prayer walking all morning and not having a real conversation with a single Dominican, sometimes saving the world looks like cleaning for and serving my own squad members, sometimes saving the world looks like simply entertaining little Dominican children for hours and hours, and sometimes saving the world looks like carrying cinderblocks from the top of a hill to the bottom. Its the things I do throughout my day in the name of the Lord. This week I have embraced the lesson that no service, no matter how simple, is insignificant. The Lord certainly has orchestrated how each act of service contributes to His perfect will.
That’s the mindset of the race, and preferably the rest of my life. I want to have open hands, fully trusting that He is at work, and fully content to not know His plan. It is less about the specific ministry we are assigned, and more about the way the time between “ministry” is spent. I am not sprinting toward a finish line or trying to “save the world”. I am walking, slow and steady, in step with my father, and that is how I want to finish my race.
