Do you want to be my girlfriend? No, thank you.

All 75 of us were in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic for a week for Launch training.  Basically it was a week for us to get acclimated in a new culture (we bought groceries, found an internet cafe, walked around, stood out big time as Americans, etc.).  We stayed at this Catholic retreat center in the middle of the city.  The good news is that we got to sleep inside on real beds, and we had running water, real toilets, and electricity.  The bad news is that the electricity didn’t include air conditioning, and the water and electricity would randomly shut off at different times throughout the week.  But hey, it’s the World Race.  That’s how things work.  So yeah, we had different times for team bonding, heard different sermons by World Race staff, and just hung out in the city of Santo Domingo.  One day, we had to make a video as a team with the theme, “The Kingdom of God is like . . . ”  The videos are going to be judged by World Race alumni, and the winning team will receive 50 bucks!  It was a lot of fun making the video with my teammates, and the video may or may not include yours truly reenacting a Miley Cyrus music video.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to upload it soon so y’all can watch it.  On Thursday, we got a day of rest as a team and got to go to the beach!  It was amazing.  I’ve never seen such clear beautiful water.  It was definitely a great day of refreshing and relaxing before leaving for our ministry sites the next day.  

So on Friday, we left for Haiti.  We all crowded on a bus after waiting for it to show up 2 hours late and took off for the border.  We were going along when suddenly the bus stops at this random side of the road mechanic.  Apparently the bus was having brake problems.  So we all had to get off the bus in a random Dominican Republican neighborhood.  Yeah, we didn’t draw a crowd at all.  Not.  But it was a cool experience because this lady who speaks English came up and started talking to us.  As we were talking, a couple of us had to go to the bathroom so the lady invites us to her house to use her bathroom.  What an incredibly nice lady!  So about an hour after stopping, the brakes get fixed, and we take off again.  But now, we’re way behind schedule, and the border closes at 5 PM.  So we get there at about 5:15 PM.  Luckily, the border officials take bribes and so we were able to get through the border.  God’s hand was definitely all over that.  So cool to see God’s sovereignty.  So during the border crossing, we have to exchange our pesos to gourdes.  So we go into this building and tell a guy we need to exchange money.  And out of nowhere these 4 guys on mopeds come flying up to the building, get off wearing huge satchels, and pull out huge wads of cash to exchange money with us.  Yeah.  Extremely sketch.  But anyways, we finally made it safely across the border into Haiti.  Praise God for his protection!

So just to end, a couple funny stories from the week in the DR.  So one night, we’re washing dishes after dinner, and we don’t know where the silverware goes.  So of course, I took several years of Spanish in school so I figured I’d try to ask about it.  But I didn’t know the word for silverware.  So I take a knife (it was a butter knife, but still) and bring it to two of the ladies working in the kitchen and say “Donde” (“Where”).  They just kinda look at each other so I figured I would try to expand on that thought.  So I figured I would say “Where does it go after washing?”  So I say “Donde esta despues de llevarse?”  The two ladies start talking to each other but still don’t inform me about the silverware.  So I go find one of our squadmates who is fluent in Spanish and ask her to translate.  So I tell her what I said to the ladies, and she goes “um, you basically just said to them, “Where are you after I take you?”  And of course, i was holding a knife while saying this.  Awesome.  So another day, I was walking to the store with my teammate, Stacey.  And so in Santo Domingo, these buses drive by and there’s an employee who hangs out the door trying to get you to ride it (especially if you’re American so they can rip you off) to which we just reply “no gracias” (No, thank you) and move on our way.  So I’m walking with Stacey, and this bus goes by and the guy shouts something and I say “no gracias.”  After the bus goes by, Stacey goes, “I think he just said will you be my girlfriend?” and after thinking about what he said, I realized she was right.  So basically the conversation went like this, Man on bus:  Will you be my girlfriend?  Me:  No, thank you.  

Sounds like I need to brush up on my Spanish.