Dominican Republic Top 11

 

These are my top eleven memories of this month in the Dominican Republic

11: El Prado Congregation

Pastor Raul our contact here in the province of Azua, is the pastor of a church in a community in El Prado. In the congregation is a group of about 7 or 8 strong men of God between the ages of 18-22. Many of the guys are in positions of leadership, either as co-pastors (at the church in El Prado or the church in Buenos Aries) or as teachers as the school associated with the church. Kelvin, our translator, is awesome, but I’ll be talking more about him later. Hansel and Arodi have both been teaching at the school but are taking a year off to go for further education in welding and electronics. Once they are finished with this year of school, they will be returning to the local school to teach these new technical skills. They are among the first from this community to EVER go to college! These three guys, along with Archimedes, Josevan, Endri, Leo and a couple of others, have made us all feel so welcome and have made our time here so much fun.

10: Millipede Attack

Late one night, I was heading towards the girls bedroom and I heard screaming. I ran down the hall to see what was wrong and immediately wished I hadn’t. There was a humungous millipede just chillin’ in the hallway outside our bedroom. Now, a lot of people at home probably remember that I am terrified of centipedes, let alone poisonous millipedes. Needless to say, I also screamed, and ran away. After a little while I conquered my fears and returned to the excitement. After a lot of laughter and squealing, we eventually captured it with a Tupperware over it, pushed it outside, and hit it with a piece of wood until it was dead. 

9: Food (Sweet Nectar, Frozen Yogurt and Sweet Beans)

The food in the Dominican Republic has definitely been memorable, some for being delicious, some for being…not quite as good. While we were staying with our first contact, Pastor Luis and his wife, Rebecca, we fell in love with the most delicious juice, which Jeremiah aptly named nectar. This juice was as fresh as it could possibly be, literally squeezed about 10 minutes before the meal. Later on in the month we tried other juice, hoping for nectar and instead finding…something else. One turned out to be pineapple and RICE in juice form, and the other was sweet beans, which is a mix of coconut milk, yams and beans mixed up into a chunky juice.

Actual meals have been wonderful, a lot of chicken and rice, which happen to be 2 of my favourite foods. We have also had eggs or pancakes for breakfasts many mornings, and soup or sandwiches for

8: Meeting Kelvin, Sansa and Raul

One of my favourite things about travelling is always the people I meet, and this trip is no exception. We have met some wonderful people here in the Dominican Republic.

Kelvin started the month as our translator, is now an honorary member of Team Deliverance, and we are trying to figure out how to bring him with us to Ecuador. He is 21 years old, has finished high school (a big deal here), and has even attended a YWAM school for a while, which is where he learned English. He is such a testament to the success of the church here, because less than 10 years ago he was one of the rough kids in the neighbourhood who only came to church for the candy, and is now one of the co-pastors of the Buenos Aries church, has gone to school and is one of the first musicians of the church.

Pastor Raul and his wife Sansa are amazing people. Hilarious, down-to-Earth, happy, and strong in their faith. The amount of work they put into their church, their dedication to the people there, and the joy they have in doing it all is so inspiring. I want to be able to just do so much more for them here because they deserve to be so richly blessed. I love them both!

 

7: The kids at Buenos Aries

One of the churches we’re helping with is in a community called Buenos Aries, and is a congregation of almost all children. We would go up there almost every day and hang out with them, play games, teach guitar, teach basketball or lead Bible studies. Those kids have captured my heart completely. In particular I’m going to remember 2 little girls forever – Ara and Dakiri. These girls are about 4 years old, are complete opposites, and I love them both. Ara is always smiling, laughing and dancing. When we arrive she runs down the road and throws herself into our arms. Dakiri is probably the most serious child I’ve ever met – it took 2 days for me to coax a smile out of her. But once she started smiling, it was so worth the effort. And after she smiled once, she started smiling more and more often. By the last day we were there, she was asking to be held, was smiling for me, and was giggling on my lap. I’m going to miss my girls!

6: Bonding with Team Deliverance

Living for a month in extremely close quarters with 6 other people creates a bond unlike any other, and I fully expect this bond to deepen as the year goes on. Already we have learned so much about each other, such as how much Jeremiah likes animals (and has made it his goal to touch as many different animals as possible on this trip – so far he has pet a goat, donkey, stray dog, chicken…), or Lamar’s views on showering (you only shower if you start to itch). We have learned which Disney princess each of us wants to be and who wins at Bible trivia (Erin). In our daily team feedback we have also discussed spiritual gifts, talked about our testimonies and have prayed over and encouraged each other. Already this team is like my family.

5: Private Beach

On our day of rest we asked Pastor Raul if we could find a beach. He drove us to the public beach, but didn’t stop like we expected. He continued to drive up over the mountain and stopped on the side of the road. We got out and hiked down to this little secluded beach. White sand, no other people, beautiful palm trees. Our team, Kelvin, Pastor Raul and Sansa all hung out for an afternoon there, climbing the rocks, swimming in the ocean, and worshipping on the beach.

4. Giving testimonies

Before this trip, I would speak in church and do presentations in school on a fairly regular basis, but I never really enjoyed speaking in front of a group of people. This month, though, that has started to change. Several times now I have been called to give my testimony in a church or give the message in a children’s service. And even though I usually only have about 5-10 minutes to prepare, I am loving being able to share what God is doing in my life, or share the Bible stories with the children.

3. Hike to the waterfall and saving the forest

On our other day of rest, the local guys took our team on a hike through a forest of mango and palm trees to a waterfall. We hung out by the waterfall, cooked rice for lunch, and watched Denise climb the rocks. During the 2 hour hike home, we had some extra excitement. One of the locals walking up ahead had dropped a match into a brush pile and kept walking without realizing that a fire had started. By the time our group came up, there was quite a large fire burning at the boundary between the forest and a farmer’s field. So Team Deliverance, Kelvin and Endri put out the fire! We poured out our water bottles, some were running to a nearby stream to fill our cooking pot to dump it, and the rest of us were throwing handfuls of dirt on the flames. Pretty quickly, we had extinguished the flames, but I`m pretty sure Jesus helped out a whole lot. We probably shouldn`t have been able to put out a fire that size that quickly without His help!

While in the DR, my team has spent a lot of time in prayer. In particular, we prayed over a girl named Stephanie and a girl named Esperanza. In each instance, these girls were in serious need of healing. Our team prayed for each girl for a long time. While neither girl was completely healed right away, there were definite signs of improvement, and we definitely felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. It got me excited about prayer again.

Our team also took turns praying over a member of our team every night. In each case, these prayers turned into times of encouragement. God gave us words to give to each other to build us up and get us excited for the rest of the year. Through this time as a team, praying for the communities, and praying for Stephanie and Esperanza, my excitement in prayer has just ignited.

1: Blessing the New Church

After our team helped finish the floors of the new church in Buenos Aries, a group from our team had the chance to pray for the new building. We spent a long time just walking around praying that God would be the foundation, that it would be a light to the community, a safe place for the children, and that it would be covered in God’s protection. During the prayer, Jeremiah grabbed his guitar, and through the worship music and the prayers, God was definitely in the house! I’ve never felt the presence of God that thick. It literally brought me to tears, brought me to laughter, and made me want to dance around.

This blog was harder to write than I thought. There are so many memories I made this month. So I think I’ll just summarize the month by saying it was awesome, a month I’ll never forget, and a piece of my heart will always stay in the DR.