At 7 o’clock on Wednesday night, the sky turned burnt orange… and then purple… and then black. The wind started to pick up and it began to pour, meaning, Hurricane Maria was officially hit the Dominican Republic.
I usually share a twin bed with Kaylee, a girl from another team. But this night, the wind and rain were so strong (and a little terrifying), three of us squeezed into it. We would get woken up every so often with water coming in our dorm from the crazy rain, an earthquake, winds that sounded like they were going to rip the tin roof right off, and pvc pipes slamming into our window.
The whole day consisted of running to the pavilion for meals, running to the house to watch movies, journaling, and trying to stop water from coming in our dorm- we failed at this last one. Our dorm ended up flooding… SO WE GOT TO SLEEP IN THE HOUSE!!!! Elva, our host’s aunt and probably one of my favorite people on earth, made amazing tea for us with these fantastic Dominican crackers! Kaylee and I played card games with our host’s kids, went to sleep in a real bed, with a comforter, and a fan! It was just a really good night to say the least!!!
Everything died down this morning and we went back to our regular ministry routines. At breakfast, our host reminded us of how scared we were the first night. She informed us that the people in the community have to fear about their houses flooding, their roofs getting ripped off, loosing everything they have, the safety of their children, the safety of family members in other parts of the DR or even on other islands in the Caribbean, to name just a few things. All hurricanes, including this one, leave their community extremely shaken.
My team, and one or two others, baked three large pans of a traditional bread- almost a mix between corn bread and pound cake. We decorated lots of note cards and wrote verses on them. Each team walked around the community in different directions, handing out pieces of bread and a note card. We talked to and offered to pray for every person that received one. Some people turned us down for the prayer, others hesitantly said yes, and one sweet lady invited us into her home (first house visit !!). We ended the day playing with the neighborhood kids at the basketball courts and eating street hamburgers.
The hurricane made way for us to pray for, enter in, and be a part of the community that we wouldn’t have had the chance to do before. To say the least, the day was pretty dang good- praise Jesus!
