Before I talk about our first week of ministry in the Dominican, I just wanted to show y’all a heart-warming picture of something I saw when I first entered the country:
Ain’t that just dandy?
Don’t know what else to say about that other than “Welcome to the DR!” Haha!
Just to give y’all the basics about our first week of ministry, our team traveled to two communities in the mountains – Guayabal and Los Naranjos. In Guayabal we did some door to door evangelism, but the bulk of our time was spent hanging out with some young college-aged fellas. On one of the two days these guys led us on a five hour hike through the mountains. The challenging yet very fun part of the hike was having to cross a river…34 times (17 each way), and although the river was only up to my thigh, the current was still very strong. Bless those Dominican guys, though! They carried food and cooked lunch for all of us when we got to our destination, which was a hot spring, and they always made sure that all of us made it across without falling. When we returned to Guayabal our guys talked to the young men about characteristics of a Godly man. The guys were very receptive and took to heart all that was being said. It was so encouraging and such a blessing!
I was blessed to hike through this. God created that, ya know.
Ministry in Los Naranjos consisted of going to people’s homes, sitting in one of their never-ending supply of chairs (by the way, rule #1 in the DR: you WILL NOT sit on the floor – they have stacks of chairs that are just waiting to be sat in), drinking lots of good coffee, and simply striking up a conversation with them.
I will be honest – this type of ministry was and is challenging for me. Given that door-to-door evangelism was pretty new to all of us, we didn’t really know what to say or what to ask. After a couple of slightly awkward first visits, though, we started to get the feel for it. And since a majority of the people claimed to have some sort of religious notion, we weren’t starting at ground zero entirely. The language barrier was also another issue. Our translator (bless his heart!), did his best to translate for us, but it seemed like a lot was lost in translation. After hearing what sounded like a monologue from some people, our translator would only say a few words or sentences. It was funny and frustrating at the same time. I find it ironic that whenever I feel like I’m becoming a patient person, the Lord likes to remind me how impatient I am by putting me in situations that require much patience.
Despite all the confusion and miscommunication, though, it was soevident that good things were still happening. Our translator spoke a lot of truth to the people, and I know that our visits for many of them was a huge blessing. We always prayed for the people before we left, but it bothered me to leave when I knew that it would probably be a while until they’d be ministered to again. There was one visit in particular that was especially difficult to leave – a sweet little old widow who lived alone. I could tell that the Bible verses we read to her were very comforting, and she even teared up and sang songs of praise after we prayed for her. While saying goodbye to each other, she hugged me so tight and kept calling me her “little sister” in Spanish. I didn’t like leaving her, but I had our translator tell her that if I wasn’t able to see her again, I would see her in Heaven one day. She smiled and responded with “claro que si,” which meant “of course.” 🙂
Although this week was filled with all sorts of confusion and emotions, I’d say it was a great week.
To close, I thought I’d include some random tidbits of information that didn’t really fit in any of the paragraphs above, lol:
- I washed my clothes by hand in a sink for the first time
- I didn’t shower for four days. My hair was nasty; it looked like I put Crisco all up in there.
- To one my teammate’s chagrin, I’ve started to perfect the art of not matching my very limited wardrobe.
- I already lost my mini video camera – pray that it miraculously shows up.
- My digestive system has been regular thus far – and that’s saying a lot for a world racer!
- I’ve ridden in the back of a truck more times than I ever had before the world race.
- I’m getting accustomed to the four major food groups: carbs, carbs, some more carbs, and carbs. (Lot’s of rice, bread, and noodles).
- And I made an eternal friend and sister in Christ with someone who doesn’t speak my language.
Thanks for praying, reading, commenting, and following my journey! Be on the lookout for my next blog – it’ll be about my teammates! Ohhhhhh yeah!
