I’m honestly not even sure where to begin. I’m writing today to give an update to my family and friends and those of you who are following my race. So much has happened in the last two weeks or so that I know I won’t be able to even start to tell y’all everything in this post.
Let start with launch. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t excited. Leaving home was so hard. Saying goodbyes to my friends, to my kids, and to my family was rough. I cried the majority of the bus trip to Atlanta for launch. I feel bad for the poor kid who was sitting beside me on the bus. He kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye, very unsure of what to do with me. I got to launch a day early and stayed the night with some friends who also came in early. Once I was with people I knew, I wasn’t as anxious anymore, but I still wasn’t excited. The reality of how long I’m going to be gone kept hitting me like a brick wall. Launch was a short whirlwind of final training and worship and team time, then we were sent out to our various countries.
Our squad got split into two groups of flights to the Dominican Republic. I was with the group that had a layover in New York (confusing to fly farther north before heading really far south right?) before flying out of the country. I was a mess on that flight. It was my first time flying for a longer period of time and it wasn’t the smoothest of flights either. I sat in my seat, panicking and pleading with Jesus to give me peace. After a while I was able to fall asleep and nap for the majority of the first flight. We landed in New York and I gathered my things and we headed inside to wait a few hours until our next flight. While we were waiting some of us went exploring at watched tiny robots break-dancing. It was fantastic. 🙂 Once we we boarded our next flight I wasn’t as anxious. I settled in and watched Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, Really Bad Day on the airplane tv, and then finished processing photos I took at launch.
When we landed in the DR and got all our bags we went to go through immigration and customs with our paperwork and passports and such. Person after person went through, then it was my turn. I was the first person from our group to go through this particular lane of processing. The agent sitting there looks through my papers and asks me where Lajas de Yaroa was located. Obviously I had no idea, all I had been given was the name of the town where we were going to put in that blank on the form. The agent looks at me and shakes his head and says, “No, no enter.”
Wait, what? Ummm excuse me sir, try again, wrong answer. I mentally freak out a bit. I’m not even in my first country on the race yet, and I’m questioning if they’re going to send me home!
So I ask him for my papers and passport back, which he was extremely grudging about, and go find my squad leader Abby who was traveling with my group. She says we just have to wait for him to leave and then go through another lane. Thankfully he took a break not too long after that and the lady I got the second time was very kind and just stamped all my papers and sent me happily on my way. I head outside where everyone else is and make my way to the busses taking us to our contact. We proceed to get 50something people and all our luggage on two tiny busses and then embark on a 5ish hour bus ride.
I was SO not prepared for the way people drive outside of America. After my wreck I get fidgety riding with people and even more so when a horn honks. Well, here they honk at everything all the time. Horns going off right and left one after the other. They also don’t believe in lanes of traffic or any sort of road rules whatsoever. I fully believe making it alive in one piece was a miracle. Also, I’m not one to get carsick, but that last hour and a half was the most miserable ride of my life. Tiny twisting back roads going up a mountain on a hot bus squished full of people made life not so comfy for a while.
We made it in once piece to our contact and after a warm greeting they sent us all off to sleep. Since there are 6 teams here at one location this month, our contacts decided to have us rotate ministry jobs, so we’ll each end up working in 3 different areas this month. My first week was spent planning English curriculum for one of the teachers here, and then planning and hosting an English camp on Friday. I really enjoyed it, and then getting to be with the kids on Friday was really great, just getting to love on them despite the language barriers. Last week we loved on the missionaries kids. I’ve loved it! Just playing with them and watching their imaginations running wild, listening to laughter, and getting and giving hugs made my heart so happy. Then Friday we got to help with the second week of English camp as well, so that was great to see kids from the week before and new kids as well and to get to love on them. This week my team is doing prayer walking ministry around the town of Lajas. I’m discovering that I’m really sensitive to spiritually light and dark areas. As we’ve been walking through the town its like I can physically feel a shift in certain areas.
We’ve had two days off from ministry since we’ve been here. The first one all the teams working here at Hope4DR went to Sasoa beach. It was beautiful and I went snorkeling for the first time. One of the girls who went snorkeling too hit her foot on a sea urchin and got over 40 spines in her foot. Praise Jesus she’s doing much better now. The second off day we had the majority of the group went to another beach. I stayed behind with 8 other people to try and get some photo/video work done. I’m so glad I stayed, it was my favorite day so far. The girls and I went wandering through town that morning and then I came back and worked until lunch time. We all had lunch together and then I was able to have a one on one with one of my squad leaders, Ryan, which was great to be able to get to know him better. After that I was able to FaceTime with some family and friends and continue working. Sometime in the afternoon, Caroline, daughter of Carmen who sometimes helps prepare meals for us here, came and found me. She was so happy to see me and I stopped what I was doing and she and I spent the rest of the afternoon together. We drew pictures, played tic tac toe, ate doritos, jumped on the trampoline, and laughed to the point of tears. I’m so thankful for the opportunity Jesus gave me to love on and pour into that sweet girl despite the language barriers. It was my favorite day so far.
This post hasn’t been a whole lot except an update and information for those of you who have been asking. I promise to post more stories of what Jesus is doing here soon. Thanks for the continued prayers and support!
I’m still not fully funded so if you would be willing to donate to help fund me for the rest of the race, you can easily do so under “support me!”
